MATT1c James Anderson Fisher

James Anderson Fisher was born June 19, 1921 in Emporia, Virginia. His mother, Pearl Whitaker Fisher, was a homemaker and his father, Anderson Fisher, a fireman for a stationary factory engine.

The son had completed 9th grade at Greensville County Training School, a school for African-American children, by the time he applied to join the Navy in the fall of 1939. His father was alive, but his mother had died, the application said.

Young Mr. Fisher enlisted on Oct. 17, 1939, and was a mess attendant first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

As an African-American in the segregated Navy, the Messman Branch was the only job path open to him. Messmen cooked, cleaned, and performed other services. The Messman Branch accepted men who were black, Filipino, or Guamanian. They could become cooks or officer’s stewards up to petty officer first class, but could advance no further to other jobs with higher skill and pay.

Though Mr. Fisher’s body was never recovered from the sunken battleship, his father honored his memory nearly 20 years later when he had a cenotaph placed at Andrews-Brown Cemetery in Greensville County, Virginia.

Sources: application for military headstone or marker; Navy enlistment records; Census; North Carolina and Virginia marriage licenses. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.