F1c Purdy Renaker Bedford

Purdy Renaker Bedford was born Oct. 23, 1919, in Harrison County, Kentucky northeast of Frankfort and Lexington. His mother, Naomi Juett Bedford, was a homemaker and his father, Henry Bedford, a farmer.

Purdy, the youngest of three children, enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 1, 1937. He was a fireman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

There is a cenotaph in his memory at Pythian Grove Cemetery in Berry, Kentucky, which is where his parents are buried.


 

This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.

 
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