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Oldest living MoH recipient celebrates 100th

ALBANY, N.Y. — A 100th birthday is a special enough occasion for a party, but a recent gathering in a fire house in an Albany suburb took on added poignancy because the honoree is the oldest surviving Medal of Honor recipient.

Retired Lt. John Finn of San Diego, who was visiting friends in the area, was honored both for his long life and his heroic acts on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands.

Finn wasn’t at the harbor when the attack began, but when he became aware of it, he drove into the thick of the action a firing a machine gun at the attacking planes, even after being wounded numerous times.

“We owe our freedom and security to heroes like John Finn. He served our community with great honor and distinction,” said Albany County Executive Michael Breslin, who attended the ceremony.

The ceremony “was a wonderful opportunity for the community, particularly the children, to see, meet and hear the stories of our most revered heroes,” Breslin said.

Cindy Pollard of Altamont, who organized the event at the fire house in her town, said she wanted to celebrate Finn’s birthday while he was visiting friends in New York. He turns 100 on July 24.

Finn was not at the scene of the Japanese attack initially, but when he heard it was happening he drove to help defend the base, said a friend, Rose Marie Kleinspehn of Fillmore.

“He was at home with his wife, Alice,” Kleinspehn said. “He jumped in his car and drove down there and he lay on the deck shooting up at the Japanese planes.”

Finn said he enlisted to the Navy five days after his 17th birthday in 1926, and was a chief petty officer at the time of the attack.

Finn sustained 21 injuries during the attack, including five to his torso, but continued firing at the Japanese attackers.

For the duration of World War II, Finn said he worked closely with the aviation department of the Navy and flew planes with his best war buddy, Tom Hennessy, now 82, of Latham.

“If it killed people ... it was all what my duty was about in the Navy,” Finn said.

When the war was over, they helped ferry 5,000 Marines home from the Pacific and another 5,000 from Australia because the military “wanted to get them home for Christmas of ’45,” Hennessy said.

Finn retired from the military in 1956.

View John William Finn’s page on our Hall of Valor