Willard Dale La Salle was born Oct. 27, 1918 at Weiser, Idaho. His mother, Blanche Rowe La Salle, was a homemaker, and his father, Emerson A. La Salle, a farmer.

By 1920 the family, which included an older daughter, had moved across the nearby Snake River to Malheur County in southeast Oregon where the father continued to farm. Eventually there were six children.

By April 1, 1935 the family was about 150 miles north in the small town of Dixie, Washington. The spring 1940 Census said Willard was a laborer on a wheat farm at Walla Walla. 

When he enlisted in the Navy on Aug. 7, 1940, he said his parents were separated and that he’d completed one semester at Washington State College, now Washington State University, as a forestry agriculture major. Amusingly, he also said on his application that he’d been in police custody, once, for disturbing the peace on Halloween.

Mr. La Salle was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources; Idaho birth certificate; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; Washington State University; the New Braunfels (a) Herald-Zeitung. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.