Joseph Langdell
| Died : 4 / 2 / 2015 |
| Lieutenant Commander Joseph Langdell USN (deceased)
Joseph Kopcho Langdell was born October 12th 1914 in Wilton, New Hampshire. He graduated from Boston University in 1938 with a degree in business administration and worked as an accountant until he decided to enlist in the Navy. He attended an officers' training program in Chicago where Langdell's math skills landed him an assignment working with Navy photographers on a way to better measure the accuracy of a ship's guns. He trained for the job on Ford Island, a small patch of land in Pearl Harbor. Langdell was not aboard the ship the morning of the attack. Because of a temporary assignment, he was sleeping in a barracks about 100 yards from the ship in Honolulu. He was awakened by the Japanese attack and from his bed he heard the sound of the Japanese dive bombers as they approached and strafed the battleships lined up in the harbor. 'If I had been aboard, I would have been killed in that No. 2 turret. That was the one that blew up.'. Langdell helped injured sailors and Marines find medical care in a hospital on the island. In the days that followed, he helped recover the bodies of some of his fallen shipmates. Langdell continued to serve in the Navy through World War II. He died on 4th February 2015 and at the age of 100, the oldest living survivor of the Arizona. |