Pearl Harbor Navy salvage diver dies at 103 "David Ball of San Diego, an officer with the Navy Divers Association said he believes Hartle was the oldest surviving Navy salvage diver. More below. Japan's December 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor sank or beached 18 ships. Among them was the battleship Arizona, which went down with 1,177 crew members.
Hartle was working as a civilian ship-fitter at a Navy yard in the San Francisco Bay Area when the war broke out but he wasn't allowed to enlist until 1943 because his job was deemed too important to the war effort. The centenarian was proud of the work he performed over the next two years, his children said. He risked death by towing away unexploded torpedoes and salvaging ships and planes, first at Pearl Harbor and later from Maine to the Philippines. He suffered the bends — painful and dangerous bubbles in his bloodstream from improper decompression — and was nearly killed when an anchor chain cracked and spewed metal shards. But he avoided mentioning one task: recovering the long-submerged bodies of sailors who went to the bottom at Pearl Harbor. * * * His son said Hartle managed to cheat death several times, beginning at age three when a mule kicked him in the face and knocked him unconscious for 20 hours. At nine, he was stabbed in the neck during a schoolyard brawl. In college, he was flung hundreds of feet when his car was crushed by a truck. He was bitten by a rattlesnake and a scorpion while working alone at a mining camp. He had colon and prostate cancer, six heart bypass surgeries, and broke his shoulder falling from a ladder while trimming trees when he was 97." Well, I've never been bitten by a rattler, or a scorpion, or a jellyfish, but I was foolish enough to handle more than one of each, does that count? Because I've been kicked by a horse, stabbed, even shot (nothing serious, but twice with shotguns at distance, once in the back, once in the front lower legs and feet). I had a ladder break under me dropping me 10' or so onto my back on a deck, does that count? So, just maybe I too will live a long life? Naw, probably requires the combo of rattlesnake, and scorpion venom. Dude, 6 bypass surgeries?! Ken "Die Hard" Hartle, rest in peace, and thank you for your service, we love you squids too.
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