S1c Richard Charles Lange

Richard Charles Lange was born Sept. 14, 1919, at San Francisco, California to Charles Lange, a boilermaker at a coaling station, and Edith Joslin Lange, a homemaker.

The 1940 Census showed the family living at Vallejo in the Bay area. Richard graduated from the local high school, then attended the University of California Berkeley for two years through 1940. A family photo shows him wearing a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps hat. He enlisted in the Navy on Aug. 6, 1940.

Mr. Lange was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources: Defense Department; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; the Mill Valley (California) Record. Photograph courtesy of relative Sharon Murray. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.