S1c Henry Clarence Echternkamp

Henry Clarence Echternkamp was born March 26, 1918 in Clallam County, Washington, near the coast north of Olympic National Park, a remote area where the economy depended on a saw mill and a shingle mill.

By the time he was a young man, times were still bad in the lumber business. The 1940 Census, conducted in the spring, said Henry and a brother were saw mill laborers who had been unemployed for 62 weeks. In 1939 their father, William, had worked 12 weeks for $150 as a laborer for the Works Progress Administration, a federal jobs program. He was the only employed member of the household of seven. The mother, Grace, was a homemaker.

Henry left the Olympic Peninsula on Oct. 11, 1940 to join the Navy. He was a seaman first  class on the U.S.S. Arizona when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. He died three days later and is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Mr. Echternkamp attended schools in the small nearby towns of Carlsborg and Sequim. VFW Post 4760 was formed in Sequim in 1945 and named in his memory.

Sources: Port Angeles Daily News of Port Angeles, Washington; Census; Navy muster rolls; Washington birth record; U.S. National Cemetery Interment Control Form. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.