Robert Lee Kelly had been in the Navy 22 years when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Mr. Kelly was an electrician’s mate and chief petty officer on the U.S.S. Arizona. He had been preparing to retire, but re-enlisted in October 1940.

He was survived by his widow, Dorothy Augusta Kelly, in Long Beach, California — the home of many sailors’ families because it was adjacent to the ship’s mainland port at San Pedro. 

Mr. Kelly followed the long Navy tradition of sailors with tattoos. He had one of a woman with wings, a kewpie, an anchor with USN, and the Statue of Liberty.

Mr. Kelly was born July 28, 1902 in Glascock County, Georgia. His father, William Jordan Kelley, worked at a cotton mill and died in 1918, age 47. His mother, Julia Etta Newsom Kelley, was a homemaker. 

Sources: the Long Beach (California) Telegram; the Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle; Census; enlistment records; grave markers; Veterans Administration. Note: Robert signed Navy records as Kelly, without an e. His father spelled his last name as Kelley.  This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.