Michael Zwarun Jr. was born Oct. 10, 1919 in Linden, New Jersey. His father was a dye-maker and later a handyman while his mother, Josephine Vedra, was a homemaker. The parents were Ukranian-speaking immigrants from Austrian Galicia in what is now southeastern Poland and western Ukraine.

In 1930 the family lived in Linden, New Jersey west of Staten Island, New York. Michael Jr. attended Linden High School through 9th grade. He 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. 3320 at Georgetown, Delaware.

In 1939 he worked 34 weeks as a painter for a contractor, earning $850.  Mr. Zwarun joined the Navy on Aug. 8, 1940.

He was assigned to a destroyer, the U.S.S. Ellet, but was ordered in late November 1941 to stand trial at a court-martial. His alleged crimes were drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and swearing at the shore patrol. He was to be confined in the brig until trial, but the Ellet was too small to have one, so he was transferred on Nov. 27 to the much bigger Arizona. He was injured there in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941 and died on Dec. 11. The brig was three decks below the upper deck to the left of the No. 1 turret – the forward quarters, powder rooms, and fuel lockers that were blown up above Pearl Harbor before crashing below sea level. Mr. Zwarun was a seaman first class.

Sources: The Courier-News of Bridgewater, New Jersey; Newark News; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls; “Battleship Arizona, An Illustrated History,” by Paul Stillwell. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.