As officer of the guard on Dec. 6, 1941, it was Bill Cope's duty to line up all the B-17 bombers at Hickam Field wingtip to wingtip close to the hangars to avoid sabotage.

The clustering made for easy targets when the Japanese attacked the next morning, and Cope never got over that fact.

The Air Force bomber pilot was there at the start of the war, participated in the Battle of Midway, and was credited with sinking a Japanese heavy cruiser at Guadalcanal.

But Cope's wasn't a solo military career; he and his wife, Ruth, were newlyweds when the bombs fell on Dec. 7, 1941. She joined the Women's Air Raid Defense. Later, they volunteered at the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center, telling the story of a Pearl Harbor-surviving couple.

On Sunday, the 94-year-old Cope rejoined his wife, who died in 2005.

The Air Force veteran had celebrated Thanksgiving with friends from the Arizona Memorial and suffered a stroke later that day.

"He had a drink, a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, was flirting with the girls, and had a massive stroke and died a few days later without ever coming out of that stroke," said his daughter, Lindy Cope Rojas.

Bill and Ruth Cope started volunteering at the visitor center in 2000. After Ruth's death, Bill moved to Fresno, Calif., but he would come back periodically and talk to visitors.

Cope, who was born in Ohio in 1913, moved back to Hawai'i about six months ago to resume his second love — volunteering at the Arizona Memorial.

"The thing about Bill was he never got used to flying solo after Ruth passed away," said Arizona Memorial historian Daniel Martinez.

He volunteered almost every day, signing models of a B-17 sold there that were modeled after one of his airplanes and included his biography.

"But he always said, 'I'm just hanging out here, 'cause one of these days I'm going to join Ruthie,' " Martinez said.

Cope always considered his service an adventure and privilege, "but how he escaped being killed in World War II, I have no idea," Martinez said.

Among those adventures was crash-landing a bomber off Bellows Field. He later received the Distinguished Flying Cross for 45 combat missions.

"He led a wonderful life, and they had a wonderful marriage," Lindy Cope Rojas said of her parents.

Bill Cope is survived by his two daughters, Lindy and Candy Cope-Klingenberg, four brothers and sisters, seven grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.

He will be inurned in January at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific alongside Ruth.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.