SF3c Robert Coffin

Robert Coffin was born March 20, 1917 at Wenatchee, Washington, where his mother, Lillian Peters Coffin, was a homemaker and his father, Daniel Collins, a farmer.  Robert was the 10th of their 13 children.

By the time of the 1930 Census the family had moved to Yakima, where the father and an older brother were laborers on a fruit farm.

Robert completed one year at Yakima High in 1933. He also served in the Civilian Conservations Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program. The CCC, as it was known, employed single men 18 to 25 to plant trees, build roads and trails and make other improvements to public land, forests and parks. The men lived at camps across the country and were provided a bed and three meals a day. Of their $30 monthly pay, $25 was sent to their families. He served in Co. 2941 at Sunshine Point and Co. 947 at Olga.

Robert enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 10, 1939, and went aboard the U.S.S. Arizona in December. His mother died the next month.

He was a shipfitter and petty officer third class when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

His brother Russell, older by two years, enlisted in the Navy eight days after his death. Russell served throughout World War II and became a yeoman and petty officer first class.