S2c Joseph Henry Marling

Joseph Henry Marling liked to fish by himself near his home in western Montana.

That’s one of the few memories his sister, Hazel, had of her older brother, who in February 1941 left Philipsburg, the seat of Granite County with a population 1,300, to join the Navy.

He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed nine months later in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Mr. Marling was born July 26, 1923 to Henry Marling, an Army veteran of World War I, and Hazel Foureman. The parents divorced and the son grew up in the household of his mother and step-father, Burley Flansburg, a logger. His birth father died when Joseph was 16.

He attended Granite County High School before he enlisted.

Sources: The Montana Standard of Butte, Montana; The Missoulian of Missoula, Montana; The Dillon (Montana) Examiner; Montana birth and marriage records; Census; Navy muster roll. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.