BY CHRIS SMITH
Larry Petretti was an avid outdoorsman, a sharpshooter with a bow or rifle, and not too long ago was said to be the oldest still-operating real estate broker in California.
The Tamalpais High School graduate who grew up in Marin County and was a longtime Santa Rosa resident was also part of the corps of local World War II veterans who witnessed and responded to and kept a lifetime of memories of the horror unleashed on Pearl Harbor nearly 80 years ago, the last man standing.
Petretti, for the past seven years president and sole combat vet of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Fraternal Organization in North Bay, died Nov. 13 after a brief deterioration in his health. He was 98 years old.
With his passing, there are no Pearl Harbor vets known to live in Sonoma, Lake, or Mendocino counties. No one knows for sure how many Pearl Harbor survivors remain in the country; estimates range from a few dozen to possibly 100. A small contingent of centenarians is expected to be on Oahu Dec. 7 for the 80th anniversary celebrations of the Imperial Japan surprise attack that killed more than 2,400 Americans, inflicted severe damage to the Pacific Fleet and abruptly dragged the United States into World War II.
Petretti, a native of San Francisco, was still 17 when he enlisted in the Navy in early 1941. He was a sailor aboard the docked destroyer USS Whitney, and his country was not at war when the first of the 353 Japanese ships launched by an aircraft carrier, bombers and fighter planes appeared over Pearl Harbor on the Sunday morning of December 7, 1941.
Like so many American sailors, soldiers and Marines there, Petretti was a teenager who had enlisted in the late 30s or early 40s to see the world and earn a living while serving his country.
“We didn’t have the first idea what war was,” Petretti said shortly before the Pearl Harbor celebration in Santa Rosa in 2012. In an instant, that changed. Soon, Petretti was helping to pull the bodies of his fellow sailors from the oily waters of the harbor.
He said in a pre-dec. 7 interview nine years ago that Americans shouldn’t let time erode their gratitude to “young guys who gave their lives, burned to death.”
“I hope they will never be forgotten,” he said, “even when the last of the Pearl Harbor survivors are dead, which won’t be long.”
The 55-year-old veteran’s wife, Kathlene Petretti, said he was remarkably active and vigorous throughout his long life, but appeared to be aging markedly in just the last few months. Just a few weeks ago, he hoped to participate, as he had done for several years, in the Veterans Day Parade in Petaluma.
Petretti’s parade driver, auto enthusiast Jim Sennes of Sevastopol, planned to drive him on Nov. 11 in a particularly appropriate car: the collectible 1941 Lincoln Zephyr. Sennes worked on the dazzling 80-year-old for making sure it was in working order on Veterans Day.
“I was determined to get that car in the parade with him,” Sennes said. “It would have just been spectacular.”
But it was not to be. On Veterans Day, Petretti was completely unprepared for the rigors of a parade.
“He wanted to be there so badly,” said Kathie Morgan of Windsor, an honorary member for decades of the now-defunct chapter of the Santa Rosa-based Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. “He was just too sick at the time.”
Just two days after Veterans Day, Lorenzo Amato Petretti died at home.
He was born to Italian immigrants in San Francisco on August 23, 1923. His wife said he spoke only Italian in his youth and, after his first day of public school, told parents Giuseppi and Maria Petretti that he would not go back to teachers and classmates “because they talk funny”.
The Petretti family moved in time to Marin, where Larry graduated from Tam High in 1940. He soon enlisted in the Navy. “He joined in,” said one of his three children, Shawn Petretti of Santa Rosa.
Before and after the world-changing attack on Oahu, Larry Petretti served on a variety of ships. He became a sniper and received special forces training in a program that preceded the creation of the elite Navy SEALS.
When the war ended, he returned to the Bay Area and held several jobs, including bartending and becoming a staff member of the Marin Municipal Water District. Over time, he embarked on a long career as a real estate agent and then as a broker.
He and Kathlene were married in Reno in 1966. They moved a bit before settling in Santa Rosa 40 years ago.
In his spare time, Larry Petretti relished hunting and fishing, archery and shooting. His son Shawn said he was at one time the state archery champion.
Even at age 90, Petretti continued to work as a real estate broker.
At one point, he joined Luther Burbank Chapter #23 of the National Association of Pearl Harbor Survivors. It was a social and service organization for veterans who were on hand during one of the most shocking and transformative days in American history.
On December 6, 1941, the country was deeply divided over the war, despite the massive subjugation and atrocities committed by Nazi Germany in Europe and by the Empire of Japan throughout East Asia. On December 8, the United States was at war and on its way to becoming a global superpower.
The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association was founded in 1958. Members wore white pants, Hawaiian shirts, and blue and white cloth caps. Locally, they held an annual celebration on December 7 and visited schools to explain why the 1941 attack happened and why it was important, as their group’s slogan proclaimed, to “Remember Pearl Harbor – Keep America on alert.”
Although he joined and generally attended the Pearl Harbor Day ceremony, Petretti was not active for a number of years in the Santa Rosa-based chapter and did not attend monthly meetings. “For some reason he wasn’t interested,” Kathlene Petretti said.
The chapter was in danger of closing in 2014, following the death on Veterans Day of the president and only remaining active veteran, Herb Louden. The Petaluman had served as local, state and national chaplain to the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association and, at 97, was the revered dean of veterans in the area.
To fill the void left by Louden’s passing, Petretti began attending the survivor group’s monthly luncheon meetings and agreed to serve as its president. Others present were a few widows of Pearl veterans and a few well-wishers.
The Sonoma County group dissipated just before the local onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Attendees at a small Dec. 7 celebration at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building in 2019 warmly applauded Petretti as the last known survivor of Pearl Harbor in the county.
In addition to his wife and son in Santa Rosa, he is survived by his daughter Dawn Petretti of Santa Rosa, his son Larry Petretti Jr. of Diamond Springs in El Dorado County, five grandchildren and four great – grandchildren.
At his request, there will be no services.
Distributed by Tribune News Service