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OS2c Hilery Paulmand
Hilery Paulmand was an officer’s steward and petty officer second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.
He was survived by his mother, Rufina Eladio, in Baguio, Philippine Islands about 170 miles north of Manila.
Mr. Paulmand, born Oct. 6, 1911. Some of the battleship’s muster rolls say he enlisted in February 1936, but that might have been a re-enlistment date.
Japan attacked the Philippines within hours of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Baguio was not liberated until April 1945. It’s possible that his family didn’t learn of his death until after the end of World War II.
As a Filipino or Filipino-American, Mr. Paulmand was a Messman like Guamanians and blacks in the Navy segregated since the Wilson Administration. He had worked his way up five pay levels, but one more promotion to petty officer first class would have been his limit. He would not have been able to qualify for other higher-paid ratings.
Sources: Navy muster rolls; Arizona next-of-kin list; Veterans Administration. Navy photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.