S1c Edwin Charles Jastrzemski

Seaman Edwin Jastrzemski, the youngest of seven children, wrote letters home in Polish to his parents in Michigan, according to research by his great nephew Cole Waterman and published in The Saginaw News.

His parents, Stephen and Bernice, were Polish immigrants, as were his two oldest siblings.

He was a seaman first class who had volunteered as an altar boy when he was killed on the U.S.S. Arizona in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

He was born Jan. 16, 1919 and graduated from Saginaw High School in 1937. Mr. Jastrzemski enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 11, 1939 because he couldn’t find any other job. 

Mr. Jastrzemski’s father, Stephen, was an iron pourer at the Chevrolet Grey Iron Foundry and his mother, Bernice, was a homemaker.

American Legion Post 439 in Saginaw is named in his memory.

Sources: Cole Waterman, The Saginaw News; Navy muster rolls; Navy death record; Census; Saginaw city directories. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.