Walter Giles Pitcher was born June 24, 1913 in Calvert County, Maryland. His mother, Mamie Mattingly Pitcher, was a homemaker and his father, Giles Pitcher, a laborer at a railroad terminal warehouse. Walter was the youngest of two children.

The father was crushed to death by an elevator four months before Walter was born.

The 1920 Census said the mother was  the keeper of a boarding house. She died on April 4, 1930.

When Walter applied to the Navy he said he’d completed two years of high school and worked as a helper for the Maryland Biscuit Co. in Baltimore. He enlisted on Aug. 12, 1930.

Mr. Pitcher married LaVon Marie Hulse in March 1934 in Los Angeles. 

He was a gunner’s mate and petty officer first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources: Maryland and California marriage records; The Los Angeles Times; The Evening Sun of Baltimore, Maryland; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; Census. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.