PHM3c Robert Warren Robinson

Robert Warren Robinson was born April 23, 1922 in minuscule Robey, West Virginia about 25 miles south of Pennsylvania. He was the oldest of two sons of Willis Otho Robinson, a general store clerk, and Grace Virginia Robinson Robinson, a homemaker.

By 1930 the family lived about 20 miles northwest in Pine Grove, population 820, and by April 1935 had moved roughly 18 miles west to Sistersville along the Ohio River across from Ohio. The town’s population was in decline, but likely still more than 2,800 residents. Five years later Robert was in his final year of high school and his father worked as a construction carpenter.

Robert enlisted in the Navy on June 12, 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland. After boot camp in San Diego he was assigned to the U.S.S. Wharton, a troop transport ship, but transferred to the U.S.S. Arizona on June 7, 1941. Six months later he was a pharmacist’s mate and petty officer third class on the Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Mr. Robinson’s body was recovered and he is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at the Punchbowl in Honolului.

His brother, Willis Jr., was an Army Air Corps captain in World War II.

Sources: West Virginia birth index; Census; Navy muster roll; brother’s obituary; West Virginia Veterans Memorial. Navy photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.