The Washington Post reports that Warren Eric Upton died in Los Gatos, California on Dec. 25. At 105, he was the oldest survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the last remaining crew member of the USS Utah, according to Kathleen Farley, the California state chairwoman of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. 

After Mr. Upton’s death, approximately 15 Pearl Harbor survivors are believed to be alive, the youngest of whom is 100, according to Farley.

As a survivor of the USS Utah, Mr. Upton had the option of being interred with the remains of the ship, which along with the USS Arizona serves as a memorial. He declined.

“I got off there once,” Mr. Upton told an interviewer in 2021. “I’m not going back.”

Warren Upton was a 22-year-old Navy radioman assigned to the USS Utah, a demilitarized battleship moored at Pearl Harbor, when the first of two torpedoes struck the vessel the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

He was married for 60 years to Valeria Gene Parker, a former Navy nurse whom he met through a shipmate. She died in 2018.  Survivors include five children, Dennis Upton, Chuck Upton, Mary Upton, Jill Parsons, and Barbara Upton; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.