Pearl Harbor survivor honored Friday in Colorado Springs
A Colorado Springs Navy veteran is one of only five servicemen still living after the Japanese destruction of the battleship USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941.
Don Stratton, 96, was honored on the 77th anniversary of the attack by a standing room-only audience during a ceremony at the Pioneers Museum.
Stratton is a California native, but he and his wife have lived in Colorado Springs for the past 12 years.
Stratton was 19 and a gunner’s mate when an enemy bomb broke through the Arizona’s deck, ignited the main ammunition magazine and produced an extremely powerful explosion.
Nearly 1,200 sailors and Marines aboard The Arizona were killed, but Stratton was among 300 who survived. Most of the fallen remain buried in the wreckage, which is now the site of a memorial.
“It was so devastating that I think about it all the time, but I don’t like to talk about it,” he said. “It brings up too many (painful) memories.”
Despite burns to 65 percent of his body, Stratton survived by climbing across a mooring line to a neighboring ship. The Navy discharged him but allowed him to return to duty after he successfully repeated basic training to prove his ability to serve.
Nowadays, Stratton sits in a wheelchair pushed by his son, Randy Stratton.
“They don’t make men like him anymore,” Randy Stratton said of his father.
This is the first year that no living survivors traveled to Pearl Harbor for the anniversary. Nikki Stratton, Don Stratton’s granddaughter, said this is the first time in many years he hasn’t been there.
“The survivors are rock stars wherever they go, and they get a lot of attention,” she said. “My grandma and grandpa are getting up there, and traveling is hard on them. But I’m glad people are seeing how men like my grandpa sacrificed and why they sacrificed.”
Stratton has written his autobiography, “All the Gallant Men,” which he hopes will become a movie.
“I hope it happens because I’d like people to see it,” he said. “They need to see it so that they know what happened and can keep it from happening again.”
The Pikes Peak Heroes Legacy Committee is currently creating a permanent exhibit about Stratton, which is expected to open next spring at the Colorado Springs Airport. A piece of wreckage from The Arizona will be part of the exhibit.
Earlier this year, the bridge at Interstate 25 and Fillmore Street was named after Stratton.
The only other living Pearl Harbor survivor known to be in Colorado is Army veteran George Blake, of Salida.
