Masamitsu Yoshioka, last of Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack force, dies at 106

As a bombardier, he launched a torpedo that hit the battleship Utah where 58 men lost their lives. “I think of the people who died because of me,” he said.


Japanese pilot Masamitsu Yoshioka, who participated in the Pearl Harbor attacks during World War II, poses in front of a military plane. (Family photo/Tokyo Shimbun)

By Brian Murphy
September 27, 2024 at 6:26 p.m. EDT

When Pearl Harbor came into view, black smoke was already rising from the U.S. ships hit by the first wave of Japan’s surprise attack. The crew of a Nakajima B5N2 torpedo bomber readied for its run.

The 23-year-old navigator and bombardier on board, Masamitsu Yoshioka, had practiced his part of the maneuver for months without knowing the mission. He was stunned when he was told his carrier group would be part of a massive strike on American territory that included more than 300 Japanese warplanes. “The blood rushed out of my head,” Mr. Yoshioka recalled. “I knew that this meant a gigantic war.”

The Nakajima’s pilot steadied the wings at about 35 feet above the water. Mr. Yoshioka released the nearly 1,800-pound torpedo on a path toward the battleship USS Utah, which was being used as a training vessel. … By the time Mr. Yoshioka and the Nakajima crew were back on the aircraft carrier Soryu, a total of 58 men aboard the Utah had died — among the more than 2,400 U.S. military personnel and civilians killed and nearly 1,800 wounded in the Dec. 7, 1941, blitz on Hawaii that plunged the United States into World War II.

“Now I think of the men who were on board those ships we torpedoed. I think of the people who died because of me. They were young men, just like we were,” said Mr. Yoshioka in a 2023 interview in the Japan Forward, which described him as the last known surviving Japanese veteran of the Pearl Harbor attack.

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By Brian Murphy
Brian Murphy joined The Washington Post after more than 20 years as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief for the Associated Press in Europe and the Middle East. Murphy has reported from more than 50 countries and has written four books.follow on X @BrianFMurphy