S2c Arthur John Madrid

Arthur John Madrid was born Oct. 28, 1921 in Prescott, Arizona. His father, Manuel Benitas  Madrid, was a printer and his mother, Mae Irene Dowdy Madrid, a homemaker.

By 1926 the family had moved to California. The 1930 Census said they lived in Los Angeles. By then the household included three daughters and four sons.

Arthur graduated in 1940 from Lincoln High School northeast of downtown. He was foreman of the machine shop. He enlisted in the Navy on Feb. 15, 1941.

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

By then his two older brothers were in the military. Manual V. Madrid served in the Army. Robert, an Army sergeant, was killed in the Philippines in March 1945. The youngest brother, Fred, served in the Navy and later became a sheriff’s deputy in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Sources: the Los Angeles Times; the (Phoenix) Arizona Republic; Census; Arizona birth records; Army enlistment record; application for military headstone or marker; military registration card; Navy muster roll; grave markers. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.