Humble to the end, oldest Pearl Harbor survivor certainly made name for himself
He was the youngest of 11 children, and his parents either procrastinated or ran out of names because they didn’t give him one until he was 3 years old.
There was no birth certificate, only nameless lines in the family Bible, which later burned in a fire. He was the baby, so they conveniently called him “Babe.’’
One day, his father sat the toddler down. “Babe, it’s about time to give you a name,’’ he said. The boy had red hair, like a Viking, and they settled on Frederick, shortened to “Fred.’’
No middle name was given. The Johnson family didn’t believe in them.
Fred Johnson spent the next 101 years making a name for himself.
When he died on Jan. 31, two months shy of his 105th birthday, Macon lost two of its greatest centenarians on the same weekend.
Grover Sassaman, who was 100, was a World War II veteran and the oldest Harley-Davidson dealer in the country.
Johnson, a longtime Bibb County educator and a veteran of both World War II and Korea, was believed to be the country’s oldest Pearl Harbor survivor.
His friends and family all called him Mr. Fred. He was a humble man who never thought he did anything remarkable. But anyone who knew him would push back on that modesty.
He taught at Lanier Junior High and later served as principal at Alexander IV, Union Elementary and Willingham High.
Not only did he live to a ripe old age, he grew some of the finest tomatoes in all of River North, high on the banks above the Ocmulgee River.
And he may have been the oldest Toyota Prius owner in the country. He bought his first hybrid car in 2008. When you’re 93 years old, that’s optimism. He traded it for another at age 100. No doubt, he got the senior citizen discount … and then some.
The irony never was lost on his family that a man who was nearly blown out of the water by Japanese planes in the attack on Pearl Harbor was driving a car from a Japanese automaker six decades later.
He grew up in Blue Ridge, where his father was a farmer and later served as county clerk of Fannin County. In the middle of the Great Depression, there were few jobs when he graduated from high school. He enrolled at Berry College, where he majored in English. He had wanted to work for a newspaper after college but that dream never panned out.
He enlisted in the Navy, went to officer’s candidate school and volunteered for duty in paradise as a communications watch officer at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He had seen the ocean only one other time in his life.
Had fate not stepped in, this 26-year-old country boy never would have made it home to build a life and raise a family. He had been assigned to the USS West Virginia. A week before the attack, he was transferred to the USS Maryland.
During the attack, the West Virginia was sunk by two bombs and seven torpedoes, killing 106 men. A bomb hit the battle station where he would have been that Sunday morning.
Because of overcrowded conditions on the Maryland, he had to spend his nights in a munitions room. It was like sleeping on top of a powder keg. His life flashed before his eyes as he raced across the deck during the attack. A Japanese fighter pilot swooped so low he could see his eyeballs.
The USS Oklahoma, which was docked next to the Maryland, took the brunt of the attack with 429 casualties. Four Navy battleships were sunk in the attack. A dozen other ships were damaged, and 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed. A total of 2,403 military personnel were killed and 1,178 wounded.
Mr. Fred went back to Hawaii only once after the war, and that was as a communications officer on an aircraft carrier during the Korean War. He didn’t even get off the boat.
He never had a strong desire to return to the island where that “day of infamy” triggered America’s entry into World War II. He never asked his family to take him to visit the Pearl Harbor Memorial or attend the 75th anniversary three years ago.
But it always was part of him. He would get requests to speak to schools and other groups in the community. He never left home without his glasses and his navy, blue cap, with “PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR” across the top in bold, gold letters.
People would approach his table in restaurants and ask for his autograph. They would have their photographs taken with him or offer to buy his lunch.
“Why would they want to speak to me?’’ he would ask his sons, Harold and Joe, and Joe’s wife, Mary Jane.
“Well, Dad,’’ Joe would tell him, “there aren’t many of you left.’’
Last fall, the Johnson family received a copy of a letter last from the director of the Naval History and Heritage Command.
“Given that Ray Chavez, previously considered the oldest survivor, passed away in November 2018 at the age of 106, it seems highly likely that Mr. Johnson, at age 104 is now the oldest. …’’ it read.
It was confirmation of what his family already believed to be true.
Said Joe: “I just decided at some point to declare him the oldest and, if anyone wanted to refute it, they could.’’
Doris, his wife of 60 years, died in 2007. Mr. Fred spent his final years living with his family, tending to his vegetable garden, driving his Prius and going to the Macon Mall for his daily walks. He loved eating at Cracker Barrel.
He still kept up with current events and voted in every election. He wrote his memoirs and called it “From the Observation Deck.’’
“He was well-read,’’ Joe said. “He read history to see if they got it right, because he was there for a lot of it.’’
Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears Sundays in The Telegraph. Contact him at edgrisamore@gmail.com