Oakland Raiders Honor 98-Year-Old Pearl Harbor Survivor In Pregame Ceremony

Raiders fans were thrilled Sunday by the 98-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor, who entertained the crowd before the Broncos game. Ganitch, a well-known local figure and die-hard Raiders fan, was honored in the pregame during the Raiders’ “salute to service.” After his obligatory polite salute to the crowd, he got into his best three-point stance:

Ganitch was just 22 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. That day, he and his friends on the battleship Pennsylvania were set to play the football team from the battleship Arizona. Ganitch survived the attack in the crow’s nest of the Pennsylvania, still dressed in his football uniform.

Ganitch spent the remainder of the war in the Pacific and stayed in the Navy until the 1960s. After he completed his military service, he moved back to California and worked for a fishing net manufacturer in Oakland.