BM2c Harold Baker Wood

Harold Baker Wood was born April 19, 1919 in Fargo, North Dakota. His mother, Grace Baker Wood, was a homemaker and his father, Herbert Wood, an instructor for a streetcar company.

The parents divorced in 1923. In 1930, Harold and his mother moved to Grand Junction, Colorado. Known to friends as Jack, he attended Grand Junction High School, though it isn’t clear whether he graduated. Mr. Wood worked at the Kuner-Empson Canning Co. before he enlisted in the Navy in the summer of 1938.

He was a boatswain’s mate second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

When the local newspaper published a story on Dec. 21 saying he was missing in action, it included a photograph Mr. Wood sent to his mother and stepfather, Harry Traynor, two days before he died.

His only sibling, Donald, was in the Army during the war and then served 10 years in the Army Reserve.

Sources: The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, Colorado; Social Security record; Census; North Dakota divorce index; Navy muster roll. Newspaper photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.