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S1c Gerald Ernest Gartin
Gerald Ernest Gartin was born in Nevada on Sept. 14, 1921. His mother, Virginia Dittes Gartin, was a homemaker and his father, Vic Gartin, a mechanic.
By 1930 the family had moved to Vallejo, California. The parents divorced and by 1940 Gerald was living with his father and step-mother in San Anselmo in Marin County north-northwest of San Francisco. The Census said he’d completed two years of high school but was no longer enrolled. He earned $350 in 1939 for 39 weeks of work as a dishwasher.
Young Mr. Gartin enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 27, 1940. He 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 father had been an Army corporal in World War I.
Sources: Census; Navy muster roll; military record of interment; Department of Defense. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.