rogdeb
Scouser
Sorry for your loss John. Our thoughts are with you and your family.
Rog n Deb
Rog n Deb
Joseph K. Langdell October 12, 1914 - February 4, 2015
- Thread starter bigjohnsd
- Start date
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My condolence's John. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
Your Father was a great man!
Your Father was a great man!
Niehart
Pie Smuggler
petey
Well-known member
My condolences John, you had a great dad, remember the good times.
Warpdrv
Well-known member
Our deepest sympathy's go out to you and your family John.... May he rest in peace !!
bigjohnsd
2021 BMW R1250GSA
Thank you all for your kind words, thoughts and prayers. All is good! He is in a better place today and from recent observation 100 is too damn long to live.
Given a choice, I choose to go at 90 in the throes of passion in the arms of a much younger woman!
Given a choice, I choose to go at 90 in the throes of passion in the arms of a much younger woman!
Surly
Well-known member
I visited the USS Arizona Memorial in 1974. I was only 18 at the time and did not fully comprehend the importance of the site. To understand now that those who survived the attack now choose to be reunited with there shipmates chokes me up. Hope I have the opportunity to visit the USS Arizona Memorial again some day. May your Father and his Shipmates rest in peace.
Highest regards
Steve
Highest regards
Steve
Uncle Hud
Just another blob of protoplasm using up your oxyg
bigjohnsd: My sub was stationed at Pearl from 1978 until I was discharged in 1982. I sailed my little dinghy in the same waters with the USS Arizona -- still proudly flying her ensign. She leaked oil then, as I am certain she does today, and she exuded the sober quiet of 1,177 souls still aboard, as I am certain she does today.
To your father: Godspeed, sir, and thanks for your service in a time when our nation -- and many others -- depended on it utterly. May you rest in peace with your shipmates.
To your father: Godspeed, sir, and thanks for your service in a time when our nation -- and many others -- depended on it utterly. May you rest in peace with your shipmates.
marcusorelius
Well-known member
My condolences & on our ex-Governor Jan Brewers's FB page with 315,000 likes
Yesterday, Retired Lt. Cmdr. Joe Langdell, the oldest living survivor from the USS Arizona, passed away at the age of 100.
Thank you Joe for your service to our country. Joe requested that his ashes be interred with his fellow shipmates inside the USS Arizona, which will take place on December 7th.
Please join me in offering a prayer for Retired Lt. Cmdr. Joe Langdell, for his loved ones, and for all the men and women who have risked and given their lives to preserve and protect freedom throughout the world. May God bless them all.
Yesterday, Retired Lt. Cmdr. Joe Langdell, the oldest living survivor from the USS Arizona, passed away at the age of 100.
Thank you Joe for your service to our country. Joe requested that his ashes be interred with his fellow shipmates inside the USS Arizona, which will take place on December 7th.
Please join me in offering a prayer for Retired Lt. Cmdr. Joe Langdell, for his loved ones, and for all the men and women who have risked and given their lives to preserve and protect freedom throughout the world. May God bless them all.
Jer
Well-known member
John sorry to hear of your loss. Your father was quite a man and I know you are very proud of him. I have lost both of my parents and there is a real emptiness when I think about them. My father was also a WWII vet and very proud of his service.
You must feel very proud to have known such a man, John - one who, like so many of his generation, returned from such horrific strife to live a full life and inspire a love for that life in others. Too many on all sides did not return from that ordeal, even if they did come home.
We each stand, as does every generation, in the shadows cast by those who stood here before us. And it is in that very shade they provided which today gives each of us the opportunity to shine.
Peace.
"Let us never forget that these men, when they were young, saved the world."
Last edited by a moderator:
vabrzn
Well-known member
Condolences to you and your family.
Bugnatr
Well-known member
I missed this thread John but it was good to speak on the phone yesterday. Thanks for posting the cool picture of your Dad, men like him were real men for sure. Hope to see you when you are out here next time. Doug
exskibum
~<>~<>~<>~<>~
Moments ago, he was featured in a news story here on KCRA (channel 3 from Sacramento). My condolences, John. He must have been a unique guy. May he rest in peace.
Redfish Hunter
Gone Fishing
I just read a brief but decent article about this on Yahoo. While I know Yahoo does not have the following of the fjrforum...
, it was still nice to see the man getting some recognition via the internet.
fastpappy
Well-known member
Condolences. A sad thing for sure but be glad about the time that you had with him. Lost my father when I was 23 much too soon. Also most people talk about the courage of these men but I'm not sure they can really appreciate what it took to fight with the equipment they had back then. Years ago when it first opened I took the kids to the Intrepid Air and Space Museum and was amazed to see the conditions and the equipment they had to deal with and under battle conditions to boot. They truley were the Greatest Generatioin.
beemerdons
Certifiable Old Fart
Dr. Rich
Arrested Development
Survivor of USS Arizona from Pearl Harbor attack dies at 100
By The Associated Press
From page B2 | February 10, 2015 |
YUBA CITY — The oldest living crew member of the battleship USS Arizona to have survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has died in Northern California at the age of 100.
Retired Navy Lt. Commander Joseph Langdell died on Feb. 4 at a nursing home in Yuba City, California, according to his son, Ted Langdell. A tally maintained by the USS Arizona Reunion Association, for which Langdell had served as president, identified him as not only the oldest Arizona survivor, but the last surviving officer from the naval ship that lost 1,177 men — nearly four-fifths of its crew — when it was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941.
Langdell was an ensign on an assignment that had him sleeping on a military base adjacent to the ship in Honolulu on the morning Pearl Harbor was attacked. He spent the following hours and days trying to rescue shipmates from the burning water, preparing for another possible air assault and leading the survivors tasked with removing the remains of the dead from the partially sunken ship, his son said.
“I felt absolutely helpless as I watched the attack,” Langdell told The Associated Press on the 56th anniversary of the attack that drew the United States into World War II. “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 New Hampshire native spent another four years in the Navy before going to work as an auctioneer, a furniture manufacturer’s representative and eventually, the long-time owner of a Yuba City furniture store.
Ted Langdell said his father did not talk about Pearl Harbor during his childhood and returned there for the first time since the war in 1976, when his older son was in the Navy. After that, Langdell took comfort in meeting with fellow survivors and pride in always wearing a USS Arizona hat.
“It drew attention not just to him, but gave him the chance to tell stories,” the son said. “Anyone in the service has stories to tell if you make the effort to listen and to really hear and try to understand what they are saying.”
Per his wishes, Langdell’s ashes will be put aboard the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, mostly likely next Dec. 7.
The reunion association says there are now eight remaining survivors.
By The Associated Press
From page B2 | February 10, 2015 |
YUBA CITY — The oldest living crew member of the battleship USS Arizona to have survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has died in Northern California at the age of 100.
Retired Navy Lt. Commander Joseph Langdell died on Feb. 4 at a nursing home in Yuba City, California, according to his son, Ted Langdell. A tally maintained by the USS Arizona Reunion Association, for which Langdell had served as president, identified him as not only the oldest Arizona survivor, but the last surviving officer from the naval ship that lost 1,177 men — nearly four-fifths of its crew — when it was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941.
Langdell was an ensign on an assignment that had him sleeping on a military base adjacent to the ship in Honolulu on the morning Pearl Harbor was attacked. He spent the following hours and days trying to rescue shipmates from the burning water, preparing for another possible air assault and leading the survivors tasked with removing the remains of the dead from the partially sunken ship, his son said.
“I felt absolutely helpless as I watched the attack,” Langdell told The Associated Press on the 56th anniversary of the attack that drew the United States into World War II. “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 New Hampshire native spent another four years in the Navy before going to work as an auctioneer, a furniture manufacturer’s representative and eventually, the long-time owner of a Yuba City furniture store.
Ted Langdell said his father did not talk about Pearl Harbor during his childhood and returned there for the first time since the war in 1976, when his older son was in the Navy. After that, Langdell took comfort in meeting with fellow survivors and pride in always wearing a USS Arizona hat.
“It drew attention not just to him, but gave him the chance to tell stories,” the son said. “Anyone in the service has stories to tell if you make the effort to listen and to really hear and try to understand what they are saying.”
Per his wishes, Langdell’s ashes will be put aboard the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, mostly likely next Dec. 7.
The reunion association says there are now eight remaining survivors.
Redfish Hunter
Gone Fishing
Dr. Rich, that was indeed the same article I read. I would like to add that there were some outstanding photographs of the man taken at Pearl Harbor for an anniversary event.
Thanks for posting the text, I should have done that.
Thanks for posting the text, I should have done that.
bigjohnsd
2021 BMW R1250GSA
The publicity engendered by Dad's passing has been flabbergasting!
As my brother said yesterday "If Dad had known he was going to cause this much commotion he would have done it sooner!" And he was only speaking half in jest.
I'm not exactly sure what "trending" in Facebook means, but, on Sunday he was trending and was #3 on the list.
Today he was the VA's "Veteran of the Day".
Thanks again for all your thoughts, comments and prayers.
We will have a Memorial in Yuba City on Saturday March 21st and he will be interred on the USS Arizona Memorial on December 7th.
John
As my brother said yesterday "If Dad had known he was going to cause this much commotion he would have done it sooner!" And he was only speaking half in jest.
I'm not exactly sure what "trending" in Facebook means, but, on Sunday he was trending and was #3 on the list.
Today he was the VA's "Veteran of the Day".
Thanks again for all your thoughts, comments and prayers.
We will have a Memorial in Yuba City on Saturday March 21st and he will be interred on the USS Arizona Memorial on December 7th.
John
