from Merrit Kennedy of NPR,

When the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, sailor Lauren Bruner was the second-to-last person to get off the USS Arizona alive.

Bruner and five others were stranded on the doomed ship when a sailor on a repair ship spotted them and threw them a line. Even though Bruner was badly burned and had been shot twice, the 21-year-old managed to climb to safety.

He died in September at the age of 98, and on Saturday, his remains will return to the USS Arizona. He is expected to be the final USS Arizona survivor to be interred on the sunken warship, Pearl Harbor National Memorial spokesperson Jay Blount tells NPR.

There are three remaining survivors and they have expressed other wishes for their remains. According to the USS Arizona Memorial, Don Stratton, Lou Conter, and Ken Potts "are the only former crewmen remaining from the 337 men who survived the attack on the battleship."

Bruner's family will hold a funeral at the USS Arizona Memorial on Saturday evening. A team of National Park Service and military divers will then receive the urn of his ashes and place it in the hull of the USS Arizona wreckage. Blount says that 43 other survivors of the attack have been interred on the ship in the same location since the Navy started the practice in 1982.

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