Gordon Eddy Moulton was born Aug. 13, 1921 in California. His birth name was Gerald Theodore Tollefson. The names of his parents are not in publicly available records.

He was adopted on June 30, 1922 by Alice Luvisa Moulton and Eddy Stillman Moulton, residents of San Jose, California.  The father was a fruit dealer and the mother a homemaker.

The father died when Gordon was 12 and the mother when he was 16. Gordon applied to the Navy three months later and enlisted on Nov. 9, 1938. He’d completed his schooling in 1937, after 9th grade at Theodore Roosevelt Junior High in San Jose.

He was a fireman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

His only surviving relative, Harold Aubrey Moulton, served from February 1942 until November 1945. The branch of his service isn’t identified in his Veterans Administration death file. The 1930 Census said the Moultons were brothers, though the Navy next-of-kin list for Gordon said Harold was his foster brother.

Sources: U.S. Veterans Administration; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; parents grave marker. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.