Unknown Sailor

RM3c Frederick Robert Bircher

Frederick Robert Bircher graduated in 1936 from Olney High School in Philadelphia. He was a violinist in the orchestra and liked to play sandlot baseball.

While recovering in bed from rheumatic fever, he became interested in radios. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve on Oct. 3, 1940, and was enrolled in a radio school in Connecticut before being assigned to the U.S.S. Arizona. He was a radioman and petty officer third class when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Mr. Bircher, born Nov. 1, 1917 in Philadelphia, was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Olney. His father, George Bircher, was a manager at a brass foundry and his mother, Irene Mann Bircher, a homemaker.


 
Sources: Philadelphia Inquirer; Philadelphia Daily News; Census; Commonwealth of Pennsylvania World War II Veterans’ Compensation Bureau. Naval History and Heritage Command photo. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.
 
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