Pearl Harbor vet Herb Weatherwax celebrated his blessings

“Uncle Herb” Weatherwax, a Pearl Harbor survivor and an always-smiling, much-loved volunteer at the USS Arizona Memorial visitor center, died Monday, the Navy said.

The Honolulu native was 99.

“Papa was ready and it was a strong yet peaceful death. As with this ‘Greatest Generation,’ Papa left this Earth with dignity and grace,” his daughter, Carrie Weatherwax, said in a Navy release.

Until recently the soft-spoken Weatherwax volunteered several days a week at the visitor center, gladly chatting with hundreds of tourists a day while getting around in an electric scooter. He attended the National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Commemoration Ceremony on Dec. 7 marking the 75th anniversary of the surprise Japanese attack, the Navy said.

His family said it was his final wish.

The World War II veteran was in declining health after recently suffering a heart attack. Since 1996 Weatherwax had been an unforgettable presence at the visitor center.

“He wasn’t just signing autographs; he was meeting people, posing for photos and blessing people with his own sparkle in his eye, and that’s what I’ll miss the most,” said Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, which includes the Arizona Memorial.

“He really and truly enjoyed all these visitors that came here … and he treated everybody with the idea that they were as important as the next person that came up to him,” Martinez said.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Weatherwax was an Army draftee with the 298th Infantry Regiment on a weekend pass when he heard explosions and a radio call for all military personnel to report to their stations.

He was on his way to Schofield Barracks when he saw the Arizona engulfed in flames and an overturned USS Oklahoma.

“I was shocked. And, of course, we were confused,” Weatherwax said in an interview in August.

He later endured freezing temperatures in the Battle of the Bulge in the Eifel forest area in France between the artillery bombardments that rained overhead from the American and German sides in February 1945.

“For extra protection from shelling, we dug a hole in the muddy ground to put our tent into,” he said in his book, “Counting My Blessings.” “Despite the cold, we couldn’t have a fire because the smoke would give away our position.”

After that his unit moved into Germany to clear roads of mines, and he met up with Russian troops on the Elbe River in April of that year.

Weatherwax was born in 1917 in Honolulu, but after his father died the family moved to Hawaii island, where Hawaiian was the main language “because my mother, my adult relatives and my mother’s common-law husband were all pure Hawaiian,” Weatherwax said in his book.

The first steady job he had was after President Franklin D. Roosevelt started the Civilian Conservation Corps, and Weatherwax helped build a road on Mauna Kea. He returned to Honolulu in 1937 and had problems with alcohol, becoming a homeless panhandler on Hotel Street. He eventually turned his life around, got a job with Hawaiian Electric that paid 30 cents an hour, married his wife Lehua and later started his own business, Weatherwax Electric.

Weatherwax had Japanese friends growing up, and he never blamed most of the Japanese for the Pearl Harbor attack.

“I never did think bad about the Japanese people,” he said in August. “It was the leader of the Japanese people that I didn’t think much about.” The goodwill ambassador at the Arizona Memorial added, “I’m the type of person, I don’t have enmity at any other people at all. I don’t hate people. I love people.”

At the time, Weatherwax had recently met Akie Abe, wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, when she made a first-of-its-kind visit to the USS Arizona Memorial.

Weatherwax said the two had to communicate through an interpreter, but “it was a wonderful thing to get together.”

“She’s the prime minister’s wife, and I think that’s an honor (to meet her),” he said.

In October Weatherwax and fellow local Pearl Harbor survivor Al Rodrigues were featured in the filming at Joint Base Pearl Harbor- Hickam of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s “Rock the Troops,” which aired Tuesday night on Spike TV, the Navy said.

Martinez said the title of Weatherwax’s book is appropriate to his life.

“He loved his family, and he saw that as a blessing,” Martinez said. “He got through Pearl Harbor and World War II, and he saw that as a blessing. He saved himself from personal wreckage, like a lot of young people do, and resurrected his life, met the woman of his dreams, married her and had a wonderful family. … He just celebrated every day.”