S1/c (SEAMAN FIRST CLASS) ALONZO PEARCE, JR – SERVICE NUMBER 3601962
US NAVY – USS ARIZONA (BB-39)

PERSONAL
Alonzo Pearce Jr was born 5 November 1920 in Cushing, Payne County, Oklahoma. He was the son of Alonzo Pearce Sr (1899 – 1953) and Gertrude Maxine Allen Pearce (1902 – 1973).

His father was a chemist in the oil business and his mother, Gertrude, was a homemaker.

The family moved to Muskogee, OK before 1927, and young Alonzo graduated from Central High School there in 1937. He attended Oklahoma A&M University in 1938 and 1939, and played brass instruments in the band in both high school and college.

The 1940 US Census showed Alonzo as a resident of Kingsville, Kleberg County, Texas, and a welder’s helper in the oil industry. His father also worked in the oil industry.

Alonzo had 3 siblings:
Vera John Pearce Maret (3 March 1922 – 27 June 2000)
Bonnie Jean (12 March 1925 – 12 January 2007)
Robert Edward (1940 - ?)

MILITARY
Alonzo enlisted in the US Navy on 2 August 1940 at Houston, TX to earn enough to support his mother and two younger siblings. His father had an alcohol problem and Junior wanted to get the family away from him.

He trained in San Diego and could have remained there to teach welding, but he wanted to see the world.

He joined the crew of the USS Arizona on 8 October 1940.

At the onset of the December 7, 1941 attack, the battleship USS Arizona (BB-39) was moored at berth Fox 7 on “Battleship Row.” The repair ship Vestal (AR-4) was on the port side; and the starboard side faced the northeastern shore of Ford Island. Just before 8 am, the ship’s air raid alarm sounded and the crew was ordered to general quarters. During the attack the battleship was struck by as many as eight aerial bombs, including one 1,700 lb. armor-piercing shell which penetrated the deck near the Number 2 turret and detonated in the smokeless powder magazine, causing a “cataclysmic” explosion “which destroyed the ship forward” and ignited a fire which burned for two days. Most of the Arizona crewmen who perished in the attack died instantly during the explosion. The ship quickly sank to the bottom of the harbor along with 1,177 of the 1,512 personnel on board, representing about half the total number of Americans killed that day.

BURIAL
Disposition: Unrecoverable – Among the 900+ souls still onboard the USS Arizona.
The remains of S1c Alonzo Pearce, Jr are interred in the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii. He is also memorialized in the Courts of the Missing in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific also located in Honolulu.

SOURCES
Joe Pearce
Findagrave
Ancestry
http://www.ussarizona.org
Corpus Christi Times – 1 January 1942
Muskogee Daily Phoenix and Times – 6 February 1942
Corpus Christi Caller – 7 February 1942
https://pearlharbor.org/facts-uss-arizona-bb-39/
http://www.ibiblio.org/phha/arizona/history.html#pearlharbor

Pearce, Alonzo, Jr., S1c