Paul Elston Holley was born on June 1, 1918 in Missouri. His parents John and Everine were born in Missouri and Kansas, respectively. His father worked as a Union Pacific railroad fireman and later as a railroad engineer. Paul had one younger brother.

Paul joined the Navy on June 15, 1938. He became a seaman 1st class. His brother Errette joined at the same time and they were both assigned to serve on the battleship USS California.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, Paul was at his station as a gunner when California came under attack. He was assigned to pass ammunition after Japanese torpedoes knocked out the mechanical hoist. He was killed when a bomb hit the ship.

Errettee, an electrician, made it off of the ship by jumping into the oily water. He returned to help fight the fires and to find his brother, only to find out he was dead. The battleship lost 99 other seamen that day. Paul's body could not be identified and it would be decades until modern DNA testing was able to confirm his remains, but the family so far is satisfied with his remains staying in Hawaii.

His cenotaph grave is at Ft. McPherson National Cemetery in Maxwell, Nebraska. Errette died in 2001.

Thank you Paul for your sacrifice.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.