Colorado's 'Mal' Middlesworth, Pearl Harbor survivor, passes away

Malbert 'Mal' Middlesworth joined the U.S. Marine Corps a month before graduating high school. He was 17 years old at the time. He survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, fought during task force operations in the Coral Sea and at Guadalcanal Island, and served as president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. 

Middlesworth passed away March 20 in Fort Collins. He had turned 100 years old on Jan. 31.

He passed away peacefully, according to his granddaughter, Jaime Peterson. 

The family held a small service Thursday in Fort Collins. Peterson said a burial with military honors is being planned. The family hopes to transition Middlesworth's ashes to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii (informally known as the Punchbowl Cemetery). 

A Japanese naval fleet's surprise attack on U.S. forces began at 7:55 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, launching the U.S. into World War II. Middlesworth was scheduled to come on duty at 8 a.m. that day and raise the flag on the USS San Francisco (CA-38), a cruiser that was docked for extensive maintenance.  

Middlesworth assumed the initial moments of the attack, those first explosions on Ford Island, were part of a military exercise, as recounted in his profile on a Pearl Harbor tourism website. 

"It wasn't until a Japanese torpedo plane flew overhead, pelting San Francisco with bullets, that he realized it wasn't a drill," the article states.

Middlesworth served aboard the San Francisco until 1942 when 30 members of the crew were killed in a friendly fire incident - including the crewmember standing next to him. Middlesworth then became a gunnery instructor. 

He married his high school sweetheart, JoJean in 1944, toward the end of his service. The pair, originally from a small town in Illinois, eventually moved to Fort Collins.

Middlesworth became the national president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association in 2005. He served in that position for three years and remained a member of the organization until it disbanded in 2011. That year, he was the keynote speaker at the Pearl Harbor memorial marking the 70th year since the attack.

JoJean passed away in 2020.