S1c John Quitman Davis

In a January 1941 letter to his family, U.S.S. Arizona sailor John Quitman Davis wrote that he would soon try to send home at least $10 of his $30 monthly pay.

“I had planned to leave it on the books until I got out of the Navy but you need it and I will help as much as I can,” he told his parents and brothers in Tangipahoa Parish, population 45,500, in east Louisiana.

His parents, Perry Davis and Velma Varnadore Davis, were farmers, and like many of their neighbors, they reported no income from farming in 1939. 

Their son — one of about 11 children — had completed 9th grade by the time he enlisted in the Navy at the end of  July 1940. His starting pay as an apprentice seaman was $21 a month.

Near the end of his letter he asked, “How do you like the way the war is going. I don’t think we will be in it soon do you. Do Don’t worry about anything and we will make it” – optimism either way.

Mr. Davis, born Sept. 15, 1921 in Magnolia, Mississippi. By 1925 the family had moved to Tangipahoa Parish. They attended the Church of God.

He was a seaman first class on the Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

At least one of his brothers, Arthur, also served in the Navy during World War II.

Sources: The News-Star of Monroe, Louisiana; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; grave markers. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.