Joseph K Langdell WW2 USS Arizona Survivor signed photo

He became an ensign, assigned to the USS Arizona stationed at Pearl Harbor. As luck would have it, Langdell was ashore the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked.

Langdell watched from nearby Ford Island as 1,177 of his crew members were killed. An estimated 950 of them were entombed in the sunken ship.I felt absolutely helpless as I watched the attack, said Langdell, an 83-year-old retired lieutenant commander from Yuba City, Calif. "If I had been aboard, I would have been killed in that No. 2 (gun) turret. That was the one that blew up. It was my luck to be assigned off the ship that day.The attack killed 2,403 men, women and children. The greatest loss of life in a single place was aboard the Arizona. The Japanese sank 21 Navy ships and destroyed 185 military planes. Japan lost 29 planes and five midget submarines.