Robert Tanner, who was among the last Pearl Harbor survivors in North Texas, dies at 99

Robert William Tanner Sr., a decorated veteran of three wars who was among the last North Texas survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor, died of cancer Dec. 23 in Cedar Hill. He was 99.

Tanner was born Dec. 5, 1921, in Fairfield, N.Y., into a family of 11 children. His father died when he was young, and his mother, who was unable to provide for all her children during the Great Depression, placed Tanner and his siblings into an orphanage in Utica, N.Y.

At age 12, Tanner took an interest in airplanes and started working at the airport in Utica, where he learned to clean plane parts and eventually to fly. After leaving the orphanage, he was placed at a boys ranch, where he learned his “toughness,” said his son Robert Tanner Jr.

“He had to learn how to fight and fend for himself on the boys ranch, especially with all the other teenage boys,” he said.

When he was 17, he enlisted in the Army. Because of his flying experience in Utica, Tanner was able to join the Army Air Corps after receiving flight status, his son said. He went to Hickam Field in Hawaii and flew B-18 Bolo bombers.

Two days after his 20th birthday, Tanner survived a close call in the attack on Pearl Harbor. He told The Dallas Morning News in 2016 that the blast from one of the Japanese bombs threw him 35 feet into the air, leaving him with a concussion and a cut on his head.

He went on to serve another 27 years in the Air Force and was involved in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, he was one of the last people to leave the American Embassy in Saigon during the withdrawal of American forces.

Tanner then worked for the Defense Department for 21 years before he retired in 1987.

Tanner and his wife of 68 years, Ephthalia, met while he was on assignment at the air attaché’s office in Ankara, Turkey. Their daughter, Dorothy Hulsey, said her father had spotted Ephthalia, also known as Gigi, as she walked by the office and told a co-worker: “I’m going to marry that girl.”

After she graduated from high school, she became a translator at the office, and Tanner began to court her, Hulsey said. The couple married in 1952 and had three children: Hulsey in 1953, Christy Craig, who was born in 1954 and died in 2009, and Robert Jr. in 1960.

His wife, who is 13 years younger than her husband, called her marriage “the best.”

“Everyone’s husband is good, but this man of mine, no words can describe him,” she said.

Family members said Tanner was a loving and patient man with a dry sense of humor. He never complained, his wife said, even when life got tough.

Shortly after his daughter Christy was born, she was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a cancer that took her eyesight at a young age. His wife recalled Tanner driving home from the hospital with their newly blind child, determined to raise her in the best way possible.

“I can’t explain how good he was,” she said. “When he came home, he was a husband and a daddy. He did everything to give us a good and comfortable life.”

Hulsey described her father as strict, but she said she and her siblings had full lives growing up.

He was especially proud all three of his children had graduated with master’s degrees — something he wasn’t able to do after he enlisted in the Army.

He enjoyed talking about flying but he never boasted, Robert Jr. said, and for most of his life, he was tight-lipped about his war service. It wasn’t until 50 years after the Pearl Harbor attack that his family learned how much Tanner had endured.

“Nobody knew that he was a Pearl Harbor survivor until the general at the Army Air Force Exchange service was tasked to hand out the congressional medal to all the Pearl Harbor survivors in the North Texas area, and dad was one of the recipients,” Robert Jr. said. “Mom didn’t even know he was a Pearl Harbor survivor.”

Tanner’s other honors included a War Service Medal from the Dallas chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution and a Great Generation Award from the Commemorative Air Force.

“He was part of the greatest generation,” Hulsey said. “I just appreciate all the people of his generation. They’ve worked so hard and overcome so much and without complaint or without a feeling of entitlement, and I really appreciate and admire that so much now.”

In addition to his wife, daughter and son, Tanner is survived by six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

A private funeral will be at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the DFW Veterans Memorial Cemetery. The family has asked that memorial donations be made to the Disabled American Veterans and the Paralyzed Veterans of America.