William Ruggerio was a fire controlman and petty officer 3rd class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Habor, Dec. 7, 1941.

He was born July 24, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, Frances Gambardella Ruggerio, was a homemaker and telephone operator, and his father, Alfonso Ruggerio, was a longshoreman. The parents were Italian immigrants. William was the youngest of their four children.

When he applied to the Navy, William said he’d completed six months at Brooklyn Boys Vocational High School in 1935 and worked as a “floor boy” at Decorating Metal Manufacturing Co.

He also served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program. The CCC, as it was known, 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. He was in Co. 3276 in Worley, Idaho.

The mother died in March 1939 in Brooklyn. He reported that his father was also dead, but it appears that he was living in Chicago. William enlisted in the Navy in October 1940.

A man matching his father’s birth date, wife’s name and names of his children petitioned four months after William’s death to become a U.S. citizen.

Sources: Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; petitions for U.S. naturalization. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.