Ken Hartle | Pearl Harbor diver, 103

Ken Hartle, 103, who as a Navy diver during World War II had the grim task of retrieving bodies from ships sunk at Pearl Harbor, died Tuesday at an Escondido, Calif., center for people with dementia, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Friday.

Mr. Hartle may have been the oldest surviving Pearl Harbor salvage diver, said David Ball of San Diego, an officer with the Navy Divers Association.

Mr. Hartle and his fellow Seabees worked in the days before scuba diving equipment was commonplace. His heavy canvas diving suit and brass helmet weighed more than 200 pounds.

Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor sank or beached 18 ships. Among them was the battleship Arizona, which went down with 1,177 crew members.

He was working as a civilian ship-fitter at a Navy yard in the San Francisco Bay Area when the war broke out but he wasn't allowed to enlist until 1943 because his job was deemed too important to the war effort.

He was proud of the work he performed over the next two years, his children said. He risked death by towing away unexploded torpedoes and salvaging ships and planes, first at Pearl Harbor and later from Maine to the Philippines.

He avoided mentioning one task: recovering the long-submerged bodies of sailors at the bottom at Pearl Harbor.

"He just didn't like talking about it," said son Ken. "He would only say that the hardest part of the job was 'bringing up our boys.' " - AP