Jessie Mahaffey, who was scrubbing the deck of the U.S.S. Oklahoma when it was hit by Japanese torpedoes at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and who was among the last living service members who survived the surprise attack, died on March 1 in Alexandria, La. He was 102.
His death, in a nursing center near his longtime home in Many, La., was confirmed by his grandson John Mahaffey.
Mr. Mahaffey later survived the sinking of another Navy ship that was torpedoed by the Japanese in the Pacific. In an interview on Sunday, John Mahaffey, his grandson, said that Mr. Mahaffey would talk about his time in the Navy only when his relatives would ask him about it, which they did often.
A month or less before one of the ships was attacked — John Mahaffey is fairly sure it was the Oklahoma — Mr. Mahaffey was given a new assignment and was moved from a room where powder was stored.
“He went from being in the hull to on the deck, and that saved his life,” his grandson said.
In December, Mr. Mahaffey told KTBS-TV of Shreveport, La., that Dec. 7, 1941, had started as a quiet Sunday.
He and five other soldiers were chatting as they scrubbed the deck of the Oklahoma when they “heard a siren, saw planes and smoke,” he said, adding, “It must have only gone on for 45 minutes, but it was crazy.”
The Oklahoma was struck by as many as nine torpedoes. Within minutes, the battleship capsized, trapping hundreds of men below deck. “It didn’t take that long to come back to the other side,” he said. “It turned upside down and we had to slide over the bottom of the ship into the water.”
He managed to swim to the U.S.S. Maryland, another battleship that was moored at Pearl Harbor.
In total, 429 crew members from the Oklahoma were killed in the attack, which left more than 2,400 U.S. military personnel and civilians dead and nearly 1,800 wounded.
Less than a year later, he was serving on the U.S.S. Northampton when it was struck by two Japanese torpedoes on Nov. 30, 1942, during a battle north of Guadalcanal in the Pacific Ocean.
“The ship was sunk at midnight, and we had to stay on rafts the whole night,” Mr. Mahaffey told KTBS.
He then moved to the U.S.S. Frederick Funston, where he ended his tour of duty. He was honorably discharged as a boatswain’s mate second class in October 1945, the month after the war ended.
Jessie Alton Mahaffey was born on Nov. 23, 1922, in Florien, La., to John and Mary Ethel Mahaffey. When he turned 100, in 2022, Mr. Mahaffey told KPLC-TV of Lake Charles, La., about the day he married Joyce Inez Mahaffey. “My best day would be marrying that little gal that just turned 18 years old,” he said. “Me, her and her brother went to that church.”
Ms. Mahaffey died in 2003. His survivors include his sons George and Clarence; several grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and a great-great-grandson.
After he was discharged from the Navy, Mr. Mahaffey returned to Louisiana, where he worked for Southwestern Bell, the regional phone company, for at least 30 years, his grandson said. Mr. Mahaffey, who was 5-foot-3, was a pole climber who refused to accept jobs that would require him to work indoors, John Mahaffey said.
“They kept trying to give him promotions, to come inside, to take a desk job or to run the crews or to be a supervisor, and he would never take it,” he said.
At 100, Mr. Mahaffey was still able to drive and look after his large garden, though his health started to decline in the past year or so, his grandson said. When he would visit his grandfather, he said, there would always be four or five plates of food in the refrigerator from neighbors who were helping to take care of him.
Mr. Mahaffey’s death leaves just 14 living Pearl Harbor survivors, according to a list maintained by Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. The oldest is 105, Ms. Farley said in an email. John Mahaffey said his family had been told that his grandfather was one of just two or three remaining survivors from the U.S.S. Oklahoma.
