December 7, 1941 is a day that history will never forget. Neither will John Gideon: the 96-year-old North Fort Myers man was 21-year-old Navy Seaman piloting a boat launch in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when the most infamous surprise attack in history came from the sky.
"I couldn't conceive what was really happening," Gideon said Wednesday, the 75th anniversary of the attack. "I was dumbfounded, and everybody else was too that I talked to."
Gideon had only been in the U.S. Navy for a few months when Japanese planes began bombing the warships in Pearl Harbor. He said that after the initial shock wore off, the Americans started shooting back.
"All hell broke loose," he recalled. "That's when our planes came over and everybody shot, just like the Fourth of July. I mean everybody was going nuts."
While ferrying officers to their ships, an explosion near Gideon's motor launch threw him into the water, covered in burning oil. By the time he made it back onto the deck, his clothes were gone and he had minor burns.
"I was lucky, I got the clothes off in time before they really burned me," he said. "They (medics) fixed me up and got me (some) clothes, and I was right back out in the motor launch."
There aren't many other Pearl Harbor survivors left. At a special ceremony commemorating the attack's 75th anniversary at Villa at Terracina Senior Living Community in Naples on Wednesday, Gideon was the guest of honor - and the only survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Gideon was also at the Battle of Midway during World War II, where he was injured. He's believed to be the only survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack in Southwest Florida.
