One of the last survivors of USS Arizona dies

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/military/clarendon-hetrick-dies-1-last-7-uss-arizona-survivors-attack-pearl-harbor



By KEITH ROGERS
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Clarendon “Clare” Hetrick, one of the last seven USS Arizona survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack that launched the United States into World War II, died in a Las Vegas hospital Monday, his family said. He was 92.

“It’s a great loss to us,” his granddaughter, Stephanie Hetrick, of Las Vegas, said Thursday.

Clare Hetrick had planned to attend ceremonies for the upcoming 75th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack at the sunken USS Arizona Memorial at Oahu, Hawaii.

“Come hell or high water, he was going to go,” Stephanie Hetrick said. “Every year he was ready to go to the Arizona in Hawaii to honor his brothers who were lost.”

She said his ashes will be interred Dec. 7 in the USS Arizona along with those of his wife, Jeannie Hetrick, who died in 2014, and a shipmate, John Anderson. She said he died Monday night at University Medical Center where he was recovering from lip cancer surgery.

Of the 2,403 men and women who died in the attack by Japanese warplanes, almost half — 1,177 — were on the Arizona. About 335 of those aboard the Arizona survived that day.

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