Masamitsu Yoshioka

"Masamitsu Yoshioka, who has died aged 106, was a navigator and bombardier in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and was thought to be the last survivor of those who attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941.
He flew in a Nakajima B5N2, nicknamed “Kate” by the Americans, carrying a single 800kg torpedo modified for shallow water. By the time he arrived at Pearl Harbor just before 08:00, having flown nearly two hours across the Pacific, the surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet was well underway, and all was “wrapped in black smoke”, Yoshioka told Jason Morgan of Japan Forward. “There were only two ships that I could clearly see.”
His pilot flew “dead on” at one of the ships, and Yoshioka, who was then 23, deployed his torpedo: “I spotted, out of the corner of my eye, two narrow, white columns of seawater, about two meters in diameter and 30 meters high, exploding up right beside the vessel. Direct hit!” He watched the mast tilt as the ship filled with water.
But it turned out to be the battleship USS Utah, which sank at a cost of 58 lives – needlessly, because the Japanese aircrew had been under strict instructions not to waste time on the Utah, which was only used as a training vessel. Yoshioka only realised his mistake when he noticed that the Utah’s gun turrets did not have barrels.
Masamitsu Yoshioka was born in Ishikawa Prefecture on January 5 1918 and joined the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1936. He started as ground crew, maintaining biplanes, but was accepted for navigator training in 1938, and in 1939 was posted to the aircraft carrier Soryu."
Masamitsu Yoshioka, airman thought to be the last survivor of the Japanese attackers at Pearl Harbor (msn.com)

 

The north side of Ford Island was where aircraft carriers usually berthed - and where Enterprise had been scheduled to be on Dec 7. Torpedo planes from Hiryu and Soryu, two four-plane sections each, were tasked to attack there while three sections each from Kaga and Akagi struck Battleship Row. Of course Utah looked even less like an aircraft carrier than an operational battleship.