S1c Earl Leroy Morrison

Earl Leroy Morrison was born June 5, 1921 in Sidney, Montana, His mother, Anna Jorgensen Morrison, was a homemaker and Danish immigrant while his father, Hugh Morrison, was a steam engineer.

The family had already experienced loss by the time Earl was born. The oldest child, a sister, was just one when she died of tuberculosis in 1917.

By 1925 the Morrisons had five living children — three sons and twin daughters. Tragedy struck hard in April 1927 when the father died, also of tuberculosis. Earl was still five.

At the time of the 1930 Census he lived with a maternal uncle, Oscar Jorgensen, and his family. Earl’s mother, who was working as a dental assistant, had at least three of the other children, ages 5 to 11, with her. Both households were in Richland County, Montana.

Earl’s uncle died of stomach cancer in January 1932. His mother remarried in the early 1930s to a dentist, Ivan Peterson. By the time of the spring 1940 Census, Earl was living in the Peterson household, which included six children.

He attended Sidney High School into 1939, completing 10th grade.

Earl followed his oldest brother, Leon, by enlisting in the Navy on April 26, 1940 in Salt Lake City, UT. His application said his goal was to learn a trade.

Earl went through basic training at the San Diego Naval Training Station. In a letter home dated June 21, 1940, Earl said he would start four months of training the next day to become a bugler. After two years at sea, he wrote, he’d be sent to the Navy music school in Washington, D.C. and would have the chance to join a Navy band. “Boy that’s the height of my ambition,” he wrote. Navy bands were popular and their musicians highly skilled. 

When he completed training in November 1940 he was named “honor man” of his class — an award for achievement and leadership.

Mr. Morrision boarded the U.S.S. Arizona on January 4, 1941. 

Earl 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. 

His body was recovered from the bombed battleship — identified by his initials, E.L.M. on a cigarette case. He is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, commonly known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. It isn’t clear why, but he was buried as an unknown.

A memorial service was held at the Congregational Church in Sidney in 1942. His mother donated an illuminated cross in his memory.

Brother Leon enlisted in April 1935.  He was on a destroyer, the U.S.S. Gwin, which was based in Iceland, on Dec. 7, 1941. He had a long Navy career, serving until 1951.

The second oldest Morrison brother, Gordon, joined the Army Air Corps in 1940. He was in Africa during the war, serving until 1945.

Sources: The Billings (Montana) Gazette; The Sidney (Montana) Herald; Montana marriage, birth and death records; Census; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls. Ancestry.com photo posted by Nan Briggs. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona and Operation 85. Note: Some public records spell the mother’s family name as Jorgenson, but grave markers for several relatives are consistent in spelling it as Jorgensen. Some also capitalize his name as LeRoy. He clearly signed his enlistment paper as Leroy. The 1930 Census showed brother Leon in two households — his mother’s and his uncle’s.