He earned a Purple Heart on Dec. 7, 1941. It wouldn’t be his only one.

John E. Lowe Jr. was topside aboard the USS Neosho and tossing orange peels into Pearl Harbor.

When a wall of Japanese warplanes appeared from above, Lowe did not have time to scurry for cover.

“They were coming in 10 feet off the water,” said Lowe, 96. “I felt something hit my chest. I went to alert the others and saw blood on someone. Then I realized I was looking in a mirror. I said, ‘That’s my blood.’ ”

For the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor — the sneak attack that brought the war brewing overseas to American soil — Lowe recently recalled that fateful day and his part throughout the war, which ended in August 1945 when Japanese officials signed the surrender document on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor.

“I was in the Navy when it started and I was there when it wound up,” said Lowe, who would conclude his service as a chief petty officer in November 1945. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

His military career left him with some good memories and some bad, and two Purple Hearts.

Gordon Sparks of South Carolina keeps a national database on Pearl Harbor survivors as a personal project. He said Lowe is one of a handful of survivors in Dallas-Fort Worth.

He estimates that 10 to 15 survivors a month die and says the rate could increase as time passes: Most survivors are in their 90s and some are centenarians.

“The numbers continue to dwindle faster and faster,” said Sparks, 73, a Vietnam veteran who spent 30 years in the Air Force.

Lowe, a widower, splits his time living with son John A. Lowe, 68, in Arlington and son Dwight Lowe, 63, in Waxahachie.

Interviewed recently at his Arlington residence, the Dallas native spoke of a life of service that began when he joined the Navy in the summer of 1941.

“I checked the newspaper and it looked as though my draft number was pretty near up,” Lowe said. “Having plenty of ROTC training, I realized I didn’t want to be a foot soldier.”

He enlisted in the Navy and received train and meal tickets. Having never been out of Texas, he said goodbye to his family and headed to San Diego for training.

Lowe soon learned that he was going to Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. There he was assigned to the Neosho, a fleet tanker.

He and friends had a great time playing cards, checking out the local scene and trying to surf, but soon found out that “$15 a week was not getting us nearly as far as we had imagined.”

On Dec. 7, 1941, Lowe’s ship was tied up on Battleship Row, close to the USS California. He went to sleep planning what to do while on liberty the next afternoon.

The day was drastically different than what he imagined. He ate chow early because he had gangway watch at 8 a.m.

“I was standing on the deck, enjoying the air and sights while eating an orange,” Lowe said. He tossed the peel overboard and watched as it floated away in “the gentle blue-green water.”

He saw planes approaching and thought they were American aircraft conducting maneuvers.

“None of us realized they were Japanese planes until they turned their wings to begin a dive and we saw the bright red meatball painted on the wing,” Lowe said. “Torpedoes began falling from the sky. Bullets hailed down on the ships as dive bombers began to pass, one after another.”

As ships sounded their alarms, calling all hands to their battle stations, Lowe ran from the quarterdeck up a ladder to get to the upper deck where the bridge was located.

“I was about halfway up the ladder when I felt the sting,” Lowe said. “It didn’t hurt. It just sort of stung. I laid there for about 15 minutes, with bullets hitting all around.”

He got up and made his way to an open doorway, not realizing he had been hit, and looked into a mirror.

“I saw a reflection of a sailor dressed in white, his chest and hands covered with blood,” Lowe said. “I realized that I was looking at myself in the mirror and that all that blood was mine.’

The slug hit him in the chest, went through his right lung and exited between his shoulder blades.

At that moment, Lowe would become a part of American history — he was one of the first Americans to shed blood at Pearl Harbor. It would earn him his first Purple Heart.

He remembers that day like it was yesterday.

“It was bedlam,” Lowe said. “There were torpedoes literally skipping across the once peaceful waters and making impact with steel. There were flames everywhere. It looked as though the whole harbor was on fire.”

Lowe was taken to the Fleet Air Base Dispensary on Ford Island. A bomb dropped in the courtyard and doctors were heard shouting as everyone was screaming “to stay down.”

“I knew the world must be coming to an end,” Lowe said.

Lowe was taken to the main hospital in Pearl Harbor, remembering he was “one of the lucky ones.” While there, they received word that America had declared war.

Lowe began learning the fate of others, including some who died.

“There are so many who were burned,” Lowe said. “I shut my eyes, but I will always remember the burns. When the torpedoes hit, the blast ignited the fuel and ammunition on the ships. The decks and the surrounding water were literal infernos. The men who jumped overboard to escape the flames and cool their wounds were seared by the fuel burning on top of the water.”

Following his four-month hospitalization in San Francisco, Lowe was back in action.

In 1944, Lowe was serving in the Marshall Islands campaign in the western Pacific Ocean when there was an attack on Roi-Namur.

“Bullets were flying everywhere,” Lowe said. “I didn’t have time to dig me a foxhole so I jumped in a runway drain. That’s what saved me.”

His injuries, including shrapnel in his legs and loss of hearing, earned him a second Purple Heart.

Lowe was released from the Navy on Nov. 24, 1945. Two years later, he joined the Texas Department of Public Safety as a member of the state highway patrol.

He was in the Navy Reserve and was recalled to active duty during the Korean War and served as chief investigator for the naval depot on Guam from May 1951 to October 1952.

After returning, he joined the U.S. Marshals Service. He retired in 1978 as the supervising deputy for the Dallas office in the Northern District of Texas. He was at his office in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Lowe’s adult life began with his graduation in 1938 from Sunset High School in Dallas. A highlight was his romance and marriage.

He was working as a large parcel packer for Sears, Roebuck & Co. in Dallas for 3  1/2 cents an hour and attending what is now known as the University of Texas at Arlington when a friend said, “I know of just the little woman for you.”

The friend introduced him to Geneva, Lowe said, and “sure enough, he hit the nail on the head. She was my life partner and mother of my two sons.”

They were married on March 28, 1946. Geneva, also the grandmother of three — Brad, Morgan and Katie — died June 11, 2014.

Katie Lowe, 25, honored her grandfather when she was a fifth-grader at Ditto Elementary School by writing a book filled with photos for a class project called “Pearl Harbor Remembered.”

“This book is lovingly dedicated to my granddad, John E. Lowe,” the introduction reads.

Lowe’s efforts to educate the public about his role in WWII include appearing at veterans events, schools and anywhere else he’s asked, including Ditto Elementary, where daughter-in-law Kristen teaches.

“This is what this country needs today,” Lowe said. “People realize this.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2016 at 5:02 AM with the headline "He earned a Purple Heart on Dec. 7, 1941. It wouldn’t be his only one.."