A local Pearl Harbor survivor has passed away at the age of 94. Mike Sotak had been to hell and back. The Happy Valley man was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7th of 1941, launching America into World War Two. The odds were not with Sotak to make it out of the war alive. He was stationed on the U.S.S. Maryland, which made it through the attack because the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized right next to it on battleship row and shielded it from the onslaught. Sotak has been haunted ever since by the sounds of the men in the upside-down Oklahoma banging on the hull for a rescue that never came. The only way to cut through would have been with blowtorches and that would have ignited the fumes. There were 400 men killed in the Oklahoma, among the Pearl Harbor total of 2400 fatalities. Sotak and the U.S.S. Maryland went on to participate in 7 of the 8 major sea battles in the war. The ship was damaged multiple times by torpedoes and kamikaze pilots but 74 years later Sotak was still telling the story as if it were last week. Sotak died Tuesday at his home. That leaves only two living Shasta County residents, Mel Fisher and Art Wynant, who were in uniform at Pearl Harbor.