PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — He survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and two tours in Vietnam, but not the coronavirus. Former Norfolk resident Thomas Davis died early Wednesday morning at a veterans nursing home in Alabama — two days short of his 100th birthday.
His only son, Thomas Gray, was 7 years old when he met his father. At times, the relationship was strained, but he says the last 25 years were their best time together. Gray grew up in Norfolk where the Huntersville community embraced Davis as their hero.
Davis, a Montgomery, Alabama, native, was proud to serve his country — first as a sailor then as a Marine — even at a time when one of the only jobs he was allowed to hold was in the kitchen as a cook. Davis was on duty aboard a U.S. Navy warship in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, as the world changed in an instant. In an interview from Atlanta, Gray shared how his father remembered the attack.
“He said to me, ‘Tommy, I thought the world was coming to an end.’ He said ‘I just knew I was going to die.’ He said he saw waves of planes coming in,” his son said.
Davis shared his story with the world a few years ago in a documentary that can be found on YouTube.
The former sailor and Marine spent his last days at a veterans nursing home in Alexander City, Alabama. Diagnosed with COVID-19 in mid-April, Davis called the virus “The ‘Rona.” At one point, Davis was hospitalized and placed on a ventilator. His condition improved and he was returned to the nursing home. Later, the COVID-19 disease took a toll on the warrior from the greatest generation but in his last days, he refused to claim defeat.
“The last time I talked to him he said, ‘I’m not sick I just don’t feel good,'” Gray said.
While Gray is preparing to bid farewell to his father, he is calling attention to what he considers a logic-defying position from the president.
“This thing has run rampant and the numbers are still climbing here in the United States and you are going to open up the country like this?” he asked.
He’s also critical of how President Donald Trump scrapped the Obama Pandemic Preparedness plan.
His advice for the Oval Office: “I would say to him the plan that Obama put in place put it back, it don’t make no sense to sit back and try to talk your way out of this, because it’s not working.”
Davis also leaves behind a wife, Lula Davis who lives in Montgomery, Alabama, and two grandchildren who live in Chesapeake.