William Joseph Lynch Jr. was born Aug. 26, 1921 in Abner, Texas. His mother, Mary Wyatt Lynch, was a homemaker and his father a farmer.

The boy was two when his mother died of arsenic poisoning. Her death certificate said it was a suicide, but her obituary said she had been sick and took the wrong medication. Her life had been difficult. A four-year-old daughter died of malarial congestion in 1914 and her husband a year or so later. She married William Lynch in 1918.

By the time of the 1930 Census, young William and two siblings lived with a half sister, Margie Scantling, and her husband, Robert, at Terrell, Texas. The boy completed 9th grade at Terrell High School. He also served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, Co. 869 at Kaufman, Texas. The CCC was a Depression-era federal jobs program.  It 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.

Mr. Lynch enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 7, 1940. He 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: Terrell (Texas) Tribune; Texas birth and death certificates; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.