Thomas C. Talbott, a career Marine Corps noncommissioned officer who was an eyewitness to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died Sunday of cancer at his Lochearn home.

He was 96.

“Tom was a real gentleman and patriot and it is just so sad that he is no longer with us,” said Paul B. Cora, executive director and curator of Historic Ships in Baltimore. “We knew this day was coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

Born and raised in Nash County, N.C., Thomas Claude Talbott was the son of Joseph Talbott and Sue Talbott, who were farmers, and attended county public schools.

“He left high school in the 10th grade and joined the Marine Corps,” said his wife of 68 years, the former Catherine Nichols, a retired Martin-Marietta executive secretary.

Early on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Mr. Talbott,who was on guard duty at Pearl Harbor’s drydock, took a quick glance at the new Bulova wrist watch he had purchased two days earlier.

“Counting the minutes until his relief arrived, he watched in disbelief as torpedoes fell from the sky in the direction of Battleship Row before the harbor erupted into a fireball,” wrote Paul Joseph Travers in his 1991 book, “Eyewitness to Infamy: An Oral History of Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.”

It was 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian time when the attack commenced.

“Instead of spending the rest of the day at the beach swimming with his friends, he spent hours trying to rescue tarred and charred sailors who had jumped ship into the burning oil-soaked water,” Mr. Travers wrote.

“You could hardly breathe. That smell and stench stayed in my body and my mind,” Mr. Talbott told the Parkton author, whose father, Herman J. Travers, was a Pearl Harbor survivor. “I still smell it once in a while today. I still have dreams about that day.”

Mr. Talbott and his group of Marines had been scheduled to return to the states in January.

“Then the world came to an end, the way I felt. For the next 72 hours, chaos reigned,” he told The Baltimore Sun in a 2008 interview.

By the time the surprise Japanese attack ended, 2,403 Americans were dead, 1,178 were wounded, 19 ships were either sunk or badly damaged, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet was seriously battered.

Mr. Talbott, who later served in Korea and as a recruiter, remained in the Marine Corps for 20 years, until being discharged with the rank of master sergeant in 1959. He then was a member of the Marine Corps Reserve for another decade.

After leaving the Marine Corps, Mr. Talbott worked in the security department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Baltimore for 16 years until retiring in the 1970s.

“We met when he was on the Marine Corps recruiting staff at a recruiting stand on the boardwalk in Ocean City in July 1946. I was on vacation,” his wife recalled. “We married in 1949 and bought our home in Lochearn in 1951, where we’ve been ever since.”

Mr. Talbott never forgot what he saw and experienced at Pearl Harbor, but only occasionally talked about it, his wife said.

“He did talk to school kids about it a couple of times,” she said.

Florence C. Strawser is vice president of the Maryland Chapter of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors.

“Anyone who came back from the war, like my dad, it took them years to talk about it because of all the terrible things that are going around in your head,” Ms. Strawser said.

“Tom was a quiet but a very deep and caring man. He spoke several times ... and shared his experiences,” she said. “He always said that he was just glad to be alive.”

Mr. Talbott did become a regular participant in the wreath-laying ceremony held on the anniversary of the attack aboard the Coast Guard cutter Taney, the last vessel afloat that was present that day. The Taney is now moored at Pier 5 in the Inner Harbor.

“We are a dying breed,” Mr. Talbott told The Sun in the 2008 article.

“I was a friend for many years of Tom’s, and he goes back to the mid-1990s as a participant in the ceremony aboard the Taney,” Mr. Cora said.

“He had throat cancer and his voice had become a whisper, and he was less and less able to get in front of a microphone,” Mr. Cora said. “But when I called him about coming for the 75th, he said, ‘No matter what, I’ll be there.’?”

Mr. Talbott was aboard the Taney this past December as the memorial wreath was placed in the Inner Harbor.

“Tom was the last of the Pearl Harbor survivors who regularly attended the event,” Mr. Cora said.

The number of living Pearl Harbor survivors is not known, the Pentagon and Navy reported in 2016, but Lou Large, former president of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, told The Boston Globe in 2016, that she had learned only 400 were still alive.

“Stay alert and never take anything for granted,” Mr. Talbott told The Sun in 2012, as he prepared his remarks for the ceremony that year. “I’ve remembered that every day of my life since. You never know what the next step will bring.”

“Tom used to say, ‘Keep America Alert’ and ‘Lest we forget,’?” Mr. Travers said. “He was probably one of the most vocal of the Pearl Harbor survivors because he wanted to get that message out to young people.”

“We’re vulnerable at all times because there are people who don’t like us because they don’t have liberty like we do,” Mr. Talbott told The Sun in 2008. “We have freedom. Freedom is one of the most precious things.”

“He never said a word to me about Pearl Harbor,” said Tom James, a former Evening Sun financial reporter and a retired lawyer, who was a longtime friend.

“He was a tough old guy right up until the end. He was still cutting his grass well into his 90s and driving,” he said. “He was still sharp as a tack and he was a wonderful, giving and loving man.”

Mr. Talbott enjoyed gardening, feeding birds and reading.

Mr. Travers said that every morning when Mr. Talbott awakened, he looked heavenward and whispered a small prayer.

“He’d say, ‘Thank you God. I’m reporting for duty,’?” Mr. Travers said.

And at his death, he was wearing the Bulova watch he had worn Dec. 7, 1941.

Mr. Talbott donated his body to the Maryland Anatomy Board.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Valley Presbyterian Church, 2200 W. Joppa Road, Lutherville.

In adition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Diane Gladfelter Talbott of Baltimore; and many nieces and nephews.

frasmussen@baltsun.com