--- title: Pearl Harbor at 75: Meet Veteran Survivor in Virtual Reality description: Lt. Jim Downing's recollections of Dec. 7, 1941, are brought to life in a new virtual-reality experience from LIFE VR canonical: https://time.com/4578865/meet-pearl-harbor-veteran-virtual-reality/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-01T14:00:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:59.086Z article:section: History og:title: Meet the 103-Year-Old Veteran Behind 'Remembering Pearl Harbor' og:description: Lt. Jim Downing's recollections of Dec. 7, 1941, are brought to life in a new virtual-reality experience og:url: https://time.com/4578865/meet-pearl-harbor-veteran-virtual-reality/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32e4bb076974feec/6988afee0a4a22bbaa9cc2fd/lt-jim-downing-pearl-harbor-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Lt. Jim Downing Pearl Harbor og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the 103-Year-Old Veteran Behind 'Remembering Pearl Harbor' twitter:description: Lt. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Dec 1, 2016 2:00 PM UTC  Lt. Jim Downing, one of the oldest known living American veterans to have witnessed Pearl Harbor. Lt. Jim Downing, one of the oldest known living American veterans to have witnessed Pearl Harbor. Liz Ronk by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Dec 1, 2016 2:00 PM UTC When Jim Downing was 28, he had already been in the Navy for nine years. He joked that the USS _West Virginia_ was his multi-million-dollar home, paid for by Uncle Sam, but he happened to be off the ship on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He raced to the water, but by the time he got there the _West Virginia_ had already taken multiple hits, and was in flames. He managed to get aboard via the neighboring USS _Tennessee_, so that he could try to keep the fire from reaching the lockers where live ammunition was kept. “When the Japanese bombing was over, I looked at the clock. It was about five minutes to 12:00\. I didn’t think that much time had passed,” Downing, who now lives in Colorado, told TIME in a recent interview. “If you had asked me how long it had been since the first attack came, I would have said 30 minutes. It was actually three hours. It was happening so fast.”  Lt. Jim Downing Courtesy Lt. Jim Downing It will be no surprise that those experiences stayed with Downing in the 75 years that followed. He is, at 103, the second-oldest known American veteran to have survived that day, and has spent much of his life reflecting on what he learned as a witness to one of history’s most infamous moments. Now, his perspective has been brought to life by [LIFE VR](http://time.com/lifevr) and [Deluxe VR](http://www.vrbydeluxe.com), in partnership with HTC and AMD, in [_Remembering Pearl Harbor_](http://ti.me/2fJbJSL)_._ This original virtual reality experience, available on Thursday on [Viveport](http://viveport.com) and via the [LIFE VR app](http://time.com/lifevrdownload/) for iOS and Android later this month, uses interviews with Downing to shed new light on the events of Dec. 7, 1941, by letting users see that time through his eyes. At an imagined American home, on the ground in Pearl Harbor and in the present day, Downing’s recollections tell a story of how a day that changed the world also changed the life of one man. _Remembering Pearl Harbor_ was created using [resources](http://ti.me/2f99lRQ) from the National WWII Museum and the Library of Congress, which provided expertise, artifacts and primary-source references; and with award-winning author and Pearl Harbor expert [Craig Nelson](http://time.com/4493090/craig-nelson-pearl-harbor/) as historical adviser. For Downing, who also recently worked on a [book](https://www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Infamy-Journey-through/dp/1631466275/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480370036&sr=8-1&keywords=james+downing) about his experiences, the events of Pearl Harbor were not just a matter of the attack and military response. He made it a personal mission to reach out to the families of many of the men who were killed or injured that day, either providing information about those who had died or passing along the sentiments of survivors who were not well enough to write their own letters. “I got many letters from parents being so grateful to me for making that link with their sons,” Downing told TIME. “Now at that point I wasn’t thinking about history. I didn’t keep the letters. I have maybe one of them that I kept. But I was just trying to do what I thought was the most useful thing I could do at that time.” **_Remembering Pearl Harbor_** **will be available exclusively on Viveport for the HTC Vive beginning Thursday, and a 360° trailer can be viewed in the** [**LIFE VR**](http://interactives.time.com/lifevr/) **app for iOS and Android. A full-length 360° edition of the experience will be released in the LIFE VR app later this month.** **Experience** **_Remembering Pearl Harbor_** **on an HTC Vive headset at the** [**Newseum**](http://www.newseum.org/) **in Washington, D.C., from Dec. 5-11, and at the** [**Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum**](https://www.intrepidmuseum.org/) **in New York City on Dec. 6 and 7.** ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4578865/meet-pearl-harbor-veteran-virtual-reality/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4578865/meet-pearl-harbor-veteran-virtual-reality/"},"headline":"Meet the 103-Year-Old Veteran Behind Remembering Pearl Harbor","datePublished":"2016-12-01T14:00:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:41:59.086Z","description":"Lt. 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