Bartley Talor Hill was born Oct. 29, 1915 in New Bern in southeastern North Carolina. His father was Orin Hill and his mother Catherine Talor Hill.

Bartley was 21 months old when his mother died. Her death certificate said she had three tumors removed and was pregnant.

By 1930, Orin Hill had remarried and lived with his son and an older daughter at Portsmouth, Virginia, where he worked as a boilermaker at the Navy shipyard. He was still working there when he died of cancer in 1944.

Bartley completed 7th grade at Thomas Jefferson grade school before he applied to the Navy in December 1935. His principal, R.O. Edgerton, wrote that Bartley “is thoroughly reliable and honest. He is a steady well balanced young man.”

Bartley enlisted in the Navy on Valentine’s Day 1936. He worked in aviation ordnance and was a petty officer third class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

He was survived by his widow, Nonie Willoughby Hill, and their son. They married in Virginia in 1939 and she lived at Long Beach, California — a popular place for wives of Arizona men because it was adjacent to the ship’s home port at San Pedro. The son, Bartley Thomas, was three when he died in 1943.

Sources: The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C.; The Virginian Pilot; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roller; Virginia marriage license; North Carolina death certificate; grave marker; U.S. Veterans Administration death file. Catherine Talor Hill’s name is also spelled as Katherine and as Taylor in public records. His Navy record consistently listed his middle name as Talor, and he signed his name Talor. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.