John James Robinson was born Aug. 1, 1919 at Livingston, Montana. His mother, Ida Vaud Reid Robinson, was a homemaker and his father, Loy Halbert Robinson, a rancher. John was the only son of their seven children.

One daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was four when she was run over by a reaping machine in a grain field in August 1925.

Sometime between 1930 and April 1935 the family moved from Montana to Portland, Oregon. The parents divorced in the 1930s.

The son was living with his mother in Portland when he enlisted in the Navy on Valentine’s Day 1938. In his application he said he’d graduated in 1937 from Benson Polytechnic High School and also worked there as a janitor.

He was an electrician’s mate and petty officer first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

At least one of his sisters, Dorothy, also served in the military. She graduated in 1942 from the University of Oregon Medical School Department of Nursing Education and then served in the Army Nursing Corps.

Sources: The Missoulian of Missoula, Montana; The World of Coos Bays, Oregon; Montana birth and death records; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; military registration card; Washington marriage records. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.