SM2c Harold Edgar Summers

Harold Edgar Summers and three other boys wore white shirts and bow ties for a 1931 photo in the Akron Beacon Journal, which described them as the nucleus of the orchestra at Spicer School.

He was just 12 then, but he must have left quite an impression at the school because 10 years later, after he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, five of his teachers participated in a service conducted in his memory. His old trombone was donated to the Boy Scouts.

Mr. Summers was born Feb. 18, 1919 to Orlie Edgar Summers, a railway clerk and later a railway ticket seller, and Nellie May Malin Summers, a homemaker. She died in November 1932 when Harold was 13. There were five other children.

He attended West High School for three years and enlisted in the Navy on Feb. 2, 1938.

Mr. Summers was a signalman and petty officer second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941.

A younger brother, Robert, served in the Marines during World War II. He was wounded in 1944 in the Battle of Saipan while still a sergeant. The next year as a second lieutenant, he earned the Bronze Star for his leadership of a rifle platoon at Iwo Jima.

Harold’s name is on his mother’s grave marker at Lindenwood Cemetery in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Sources: The Akron Beacon Journal; grave markers; Census; Navy muster roll; Marines. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.