Born in East St. Louis in 1922, Chester Jankowski was a Navy fireman third class on the battleship Oklahoma when Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. Jankowski, then 19, was one of the last ones off his ship before it capsized. He was below deck when the torpedoes hit, and he managed to climb up a ladder tilting at a 45-degree angle, slide down the side of the vessel, and swim to safety. Later in the war, Jankowski served on the battleship USS Massachusetts and the landing ship USS Epping Forest, which supported the invasions of North Africa, Guam, and Okinawa.

After World War II, he returned to the St. Louis area. A foreman at Monsanto, he worked at the biotech seed giant for more than 30 years before retiring from the company. He and his wife, Clara, had three children together: Vicky; Chet Jr.; and Theodore, who died in infancy.

Jankowski was a founder of the Illinois Pearl Harbor Survivors Association and devoted his life to ensuring that his 429 shipmates who perished on the Oklahoma were not forgotten. He regularly attended veterans’ events and spoke to school groups in an effort to remind people of the price paid for freedom.

Jankowski died on October 22, 2015.