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CYA Frank Bernard Head
Frank Bernard Head was a yeoman and chief petty officer on the U.S.S. Arizona when he wrote his last letter to his older sister, Louise.
He told her that he expected that Japan would soon attack and “God willing, I hope to have a part in making the United States a safer place in which to live.”
Mr. Head, the father of two, was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.
He was born Dec. 21, 1909 in Paonia in west-central Colorado to Paul Head, a farm laborer, and Grace Carter Head, a homemaker.
He attended local schools and enlisted in November 1928. He married Adella Carlson in January 1932 in Seattle and they had a daughter and son, who were nine and six when their father was killed.
Adella Head went to work in a Lockheed aircraft factory after her husband died, and she also volunteered at a Navy canteen near their Long Beach, California, home. An October 1943 article in the Long Beach Independent identified Mrs. Head and two other Pearl Harbor widows this way: “These gallants return week after week to the canteen and work smilingly among the many constant reminders of their own lost happiness.”
At least four of Mr. Head’s brothers served in World War I or World War II. John was in the Army in World War I. Fred, Ivan, and Lawrence served in World War II.