FC3c Jack C. Buckley

Jack C. Buckley was born Aug. 25, 1922, in Pike County in far eastern Kentucky on the border with West Virginia and Virginia. His father, John Kenner Buckley, ran a general store and his mother, Lydia Adkins Buckley, was a homemaker.

The extended family was large because both parents had been married before they were widowed and had children from those unions. Jack was the youngest of the three sons they had together.

A half brother, Hobart Buckley, died at age 17 in 1925 after his appendix ruptured.

Then, in September 1927, Jack’s father died of a hemorrhage. Another half-brother, Grundy Buckley, 31, died the next month after a brief illness.

The next year brought yet more death. Another half-brother, Luther Hunt, 22, died of gunshot wounds.

The 1930 Census showed Lydia Buckley operating the family store.

Yet another half-brother, Thomas, 48, fractured his skull in a road accident and died in 1936.

The spring 1940 Census said Jack had completed high school, but was not working. He was living with his mother — still operating the store — and with a half-sister and a niece. He enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 15, 1940.

Mr. Buckley was a fire controlman and petty officer third class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

His brother James Ray served in the Army during World War II.