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S1c Jessie Huell Murphy
Jessie Huell Murphy was born Nov. 29, 1918 in Pearl River County, Mississippi about 50 miles northeast of New Orleans. His father, James, was a sawmill worker and his mother, Irene Stevenson Murphy, a homemaker.
The family lived in New Orleans by early 1930, and thelson enlisted in the Navy there on Nov. 13, 1939. He was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.
A brief mention of his death in the New Orleans newspaper, the Times-Picayune, said he was survived by his mother. Though his father lived until 1956, he was not living with the family at the time of the 1940 Census.
Mr. Murphy’s body was recovered from the Arizona and is buried at Thigpen Cemetery at Picayune in Pearl River County.
Sources: the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana; Census; Navy muster roll; application for military headstone. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.