Pearl Harbor survivor and Pensacola Civic Band conductor dies at 104 years old
After years of serving his country and years of volunteering in the Pensacola community, 104-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor Chief Warrant Officer Frank Emond has died.
Pensacola Civic Band Director Don Snowden announced Emond's death on his Facebook page Tuesday, saying the "quiet and humble" Emond "was a tremendously strong man who loved music."
"What a great guy," Snowden told the News Journal. "I mean he would always come up to me after he conducted and would say, 'Man, when's my next gig.'"
Emond, enlisted in the Navy in 1938 after learning that the Navy was looking for musicians. He played the French horn in a Navy band stationed on board the U.S.S. Pennsylvania, toured South America with the Navy, and played at the 1939 World's Fair in New York before being sent to Hawaii.
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Emond and his band mates played the big band swing music that was popular during that time. He recalled joining bands from other ships stationed at Pearl Harbor for a big concert and dance the night before the Japanese attack on Dec. 6, 1941.
Emond's World War II service later took him to San Francisco where the Pennsylvania was repaired and then to the Mediterranean where he played for civilians and troops throughout Italy.
After the war, he continued his Navy career and went on to be a band conductor. He retired from the Navy in 1968 and decided to make a home at his last duty station, Pensacola. He spent a decade working as a civilian employee at Pensacola Naval Air Station.
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Then one day in 2011, after Snowden discovered Emond was a Navy horn player and conductor, Snowden asked Emond if he would conduct the Pensacola Civic Band.
"When I found out he was a conductor, I said, 'Why don't you come conduct the band?'" Snowden said. "He said, 'Yes.'"
After his first rehearsal with the civic band, Snowden said he asked Emond when the last time he conducted a band — to which Emond replied, "43 years ago."
Emond holds the Guinness World Record for oldest conductor at 104 years and 168 days old, according to the Guinness World Records website, after he conducted the U.S. Air Force Band's Airmen of Note in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 5, 2022.
When Emond wasn't conducting the civic band, he spent time volunteering with the Red Cross at the Pensacola Naval Hospital, often pushing patients in wheelchairs decades younger than he through the hospital's corridors, according to News Journal archives. He was the senior man among a group of regular volunteers who answered the phones, wheeled patients around the hospital and lent a hand with other tasks when needed.
He has two sons, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He and his first wife were married 50 years before her death. He outlived a second wife and married for a third time.
When he wasn't volunteering, Emond was active in his church, working in his yard or spending time with his family.
"Frank, we will miss you but never forget you," Snowden wrote on his Facebook page. "Rest in Peace, sir."
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pear Harbor survivor Frank Emond dies in Pensacola at 104-years-old
