Service honors Nevada’s last-known Pearl Harbor survivor

Lorraine Mannarino broke into tears as she was given an American flag during a memorial service Friday for World War II veteran Ed Hall.

Veterans Day seemed fitting for dozens to gather in the Masonic Memorial Temple of Las Vegas to pay tribute to Hall, an Army veteran who was Nevada’s last-known living survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He died Nov. 2 at age 99.

“He was the greatest man I’ve ever known,” said Hall’s longtime friend and Lorraine Mannarino’s husband, Gregory Mannarino, 57.

Hall lived with Gregory and Lorraine Mannarino before he died in early November. Gregory Mannarino, who had known Hall since 2017, said Hall had become like a second father to him and his wife.

“A lot of people know Ed for the big things, like his role in Pearl Harbor and all the heroic acts that he did,” Lorraine Mannarino, 37, said through tears. “But for me, I just knew him as an old friend who wanted nothing more than to tell jokes and make people smile.”

Gregory Mannarino said Hall was smiling and joking up to the last time that he saw him, the day before Hall died.

D’nese Davis, 60, said she had known Hall for the last 10 to 12 years, ever since they crossed paths through her work as a veterans’ advocate. Davis recalled that Hall loved to tell stories, particularly to young people.

Davis said that Hall often attended veterans’ barbecues that she hosted, and that she helped get him to speak at multiple events.

“He tried to lift up the other veterans, and say that he admired them for doing what they do,” Davis said.

German Tirado, 37, remembered Hall as a kind, caring and energetic person who was always telling stories to fellow members of the Daylite Masonic Lodge No. 44. He knew Hall through the masonic lodge, where both were members.

“He was always the sharpest-dressed man in the lodge,” said Tirado.

He recalled being present when members of the lodge gave Hall his high school diploma in 2017. Tirado remembered Hall telling the Review-Journal that the last thing on his bucket list was to live to 100 years old, a goal he missed by one year.

Hall didn’t have a diploma until 2017 because he left high school to enlist in the Army at age 16. He was 18 when he survived the Pearl Harbor attacks.

Hall was cleaning a frying pan in a mess hall in Hickam Field (now Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam) when Pearl Harbor was attacked. After he was pulled into cover and regained his wits, Hall commandeered a pickup truck and drove around the base for hours with a medic to rescue as many wounded as he could find. At one point, multiple bullets were shot through the cab of the truck, missing the two inside but shattering the windshield.

Hall lost friends that day, something Gregory Mannarino said that Hall never forgot.

“One thing Ed carried around with him for his whole life was why he lived and so many other people didn’t make it,” Gregory Mannarino said. “And I think that was something he had a hard time coming to terms with.”

Hall’s ashes will be interred in the Punchbowl Memorial Cemetery in Hawaii, according to Gregory Mannarino.

“All he wanted was to be back near the people that he lost 81 years ago,” Gregory Mannarino said.

Contact Mark Credico at mcredico@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkCredicoII.