Jack Holder, one of Arizona's last remaining survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor, has died.

On Sunday, the Pearl Harbor National Memorial announced the Chandler resident's death last week, thanking him for his service and saying “you will be forever missed.”

At 19, Holder was a U.S. Navy pilot stationed at Pearl Harbor and a member of the PBY Squadron VP-23 on Ford Island, the Memorial officials said.

“The first bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor was about 100 yards from me,” the organization quoted Holder as saying.

After surviving the attack, Holder flew more than 100 missions, “many of which turned the tide of war in favor of the United States in the Pacific Theater including several battles at Midway, Guadalcanal the Solomon Islands and the English Channel,” Memorial officials said.

Holder earned titles and distinctions, including two Distinguished Flying Cross medals and one Presidential Citation. He was honorably discharged in 1948.

Born in Texas to a family of farmers, he grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression. He developed an interest in flight and joined the Navy in 1940, according to the organization.

Almost a year to the day before the attack at Pearl Harbor, Holder arrived as a member of the PBY Squadron VP-26, a patrol and reconnaissance group that surveyed an area ahead of a fleet’s arrival. He admired the beauty of the naval base.

On that day of infamy, Holder was on duty at Ford Island, where the attack was concentrated. He said he can still clearly see the face of the Japanese pilot who shot at him and his fellow shipmates as they hid in a sewer ditch.

“When the first bomb fell at Pearl Harbor, it fell about 100 yards from me,” Holder said.

“My section was in the hangar. The section leader had just started roll call when the first bomb dropped. And we all run outside to see what had happened in the explosion.

"We seen all the aircraft and this guy with a rising sun insignia. We knew exactly what had happened.”

Cronkite News contributed to this story.