F2c John Collier

John Collier was born Oct. 2, 1919, in Portland, Oregon. His father, John J. Collier, was a horse doctor, and his mother, Mabel Luman Collier, a homemaker. She died in Twin Falls, Idaho, of a ruptured appendix in October 1927 when her son was eight.

By at least the late 1930s the son lived on a farm between Hebo and Cloverdale in northwest Oregon. He attended Nestucca High School in Cloverdale from 1936 to 1939. His father had died in January of that year.

Young Mr. Collier signed a military registration card, probably in 1940, that said he worked for a dairy farmer in Hebo, a tiny unincorporated community in Tillamook County. He enlisted in the Navy in November 1940 as an apprentice seaman earning $21 a month.

Mr. Collier was a fireman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources: American Falls (Idaho) Press; Pacific City (Oregon) Sun; Idaho death certificate; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; Census; military registration card; family and military history of Eugene D. Hayden; Oregon death index. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.