Walter R. Borneman - Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona

The Pacific, 1941, Including Japanese
Advances into Southeast Asia

Oahu Military Installations, December 1941,
Inset of Ford Island and Fleet Landings

Anderson twins John Delmar Andy and Delbert Jake from Minnesota
Andy survived and searched in vain for Jake

Ball brothers Masten and William Bill from Iowa
Masten survived; Bill died

Becker trio of brothers from Kansas
Harvey survived; Marvin and Wesley died;
younger brother Bob later enlisted in Navy and survived

Chandler brothers Edwin Ray, US Navy, and Donald, USMC, from Alabama
Ray survived; Donald died

Christiansen brothers Edward Sonny and Carl Buddy from Kansas
Sonny died; Buddy survived

Czarnecki brothers Anthony and Stanley from Michigan
Anthony survived; Stanley died;
younger brother Henry later enlisted in Army and died

Free father and son, Thomas Augusta Gussie and William Thomas from Texas
Both died

Giovenazzo brothers Joseph on Vestal and Mike on Arizona from Illinois
Joe survived; Mike died

Heidt brothers Edward Joseph Bud and Wesley John from California
Both died

Miller brothers George Stanley and Jesse Zimmer from Ohio
Both died

Morse brothers Francis Jerome and Norman Roi from Colorado
Both died

Murdock trio of brothers from Alabama
Thomas survived, Charles Luther and Melvin died;
younger brothers Verlon, then in Navy in Los Angeles, and Kenneth, who later enlisted, survived

Shive brothers Gordon, USMC, and Malcolm, US Navy, from California
Both died

Warriner brothers Kenneth Thomas and Russell Walter from Wisconsin
Both survived

Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd from Ohio
Died on the flag bridge
Commander, Battleship Division One; awarded Medal of Honor

Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh from Wisconsin
Died on the bridge
Captain of the ship; awarded Medal of Honor

Lieutenant Commander Samuel G. Fuqua from Missouri
Survived
Damage Control Officer; awarded Medal of Honor

Major Alan Shapley, USMC, from New York
Survived
Outgoing commander, ships Marine Detachment

Private, First Class, Russell Durio, USMC, from Louisiana
Died

Musicians of the ships band
All died at their battle stations as ammunition handlers

Officers and enlisted men of the Arizona

Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander in chief, US Pacific Fleet

Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, commander, US Army forces in Hawaii

Lieutenant Commander William W. Outerbridge, captain of destroyer Ward

Joseph C. Harsch, Christian Science Monitor foreign correspondent

Wives and sweethearts of men on the Arizona

Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States

Cordell Hull, Secretary of State

Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War

Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy

Harry Hopkins, presidential advisor

Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations

General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, US Army

Parents, wives, and sweethearts of men on the Arizona

M ANY OF MY books have focused on big-picture topics: major wars, an expansionist president, a controversial general, and the four men to hold the five-star rank of fleet admiral in the United States Navy. Behind those men and events, however, there were always the rank and file upon whose shoulders fell the implementation of broader strategies and goals. Frequently, their personal goals were to live to see another sunrise.

This was perhaps never truer than in the early months of World War II, when the horrors of war abruptly cascaded upon eighteen-, nineteen-, and twenty-something-year-old boys who had recently joined the United States Navy and Marines. Many suddenly found themselves on the front lines not out of any great surge of patriotic pridealthough there was some of thator out of a personal quest to see the worlda few were indeed roversbut rather out of economic necessity.

Most came from the poverty of the Great Depression. Many were rural farm boys from large families whose absence around the family table meant one less mouth to feed. The five or ten dollars that many sent home monthly out of their pay of thirty-six dollars helped to feed younger siblings. In short, they desperately needed the money and joined up for a steady income.

Standing on the memorial above the sunken battleship Arizona at Pearl Harbor while writing The Admirals, I had only a vague awareness that thirty-eight sets of brothers served aboard the ship on December 7, 1941. Whenever I mentioned that to others, I was met with almost universal disbelief but also a certain measure of fascination. Thirty-eight sets of brothers? Eighty or so men? How could that be?

The Pearl Harbor story has never been told through the eyes of the many brothers serving together aboard the Arizona that fateful day. The bigger story is inexorably wrapped around those of the individual men who fought there, but it is never more poignant than the family stories of these brothers. Among the 2,403 American servicemen who died on December 7, 1941, 1,177 were crew members of the Arizona. In an era when family members serving together was an accepted, even encouraged practice, sixty-three of the Arizonas dead were brothers, a staggering 80 percent casualty rate among those brothers assigned to the ship.

In gathering their stories, there were some surprises: I simply was not prepared for the outpouring of information and support that came from the families of those brothers who served together on the Arizona. As they shared with me treasured letters, faded photographs, and family reminiscences, two things struck me most deeply: their willingness to recount what in many instances were very private personal stories, and the continuing sorrow these family members feelat least a generation or sometimes two or three generations removed from that day.