- Rank: RM1c
- Branch:
- Home Town: Chicopee, Mass.
- Date Of Birth: July 7, 1914
- Disposition:
- Family DNA on File:
RM1c Joseph Adjutor Gosselin
Joseph Adjutor Alfred Gosselin was one of 11 children of French Canadian immigrants.
He was born July 7, 1914, at Chicopee, Massachusetts. His father, Adolphe, was a millwright, and his mother, Herminie Plourde Gosselin, a homemaker.
Alfred or Fred, as he was known, graduated from the local high school in 1934. He worked as a laborer at P.O. Thibert Lumber Co. in Springfield before he joined the Navy on March 24, 1936.
He was a radioman 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.
His father, 65, died at work three weeks later.
The Navy did not confirm Alfred’s death until early February 1942. A Mass in his memory was held that month at St. George’s Catholic Church in Chicopee.
A square in Chicopee at Memorial Drive and Montgomery Street is named in his honor.
At least one of his brothers, Joseph Leon, served in the Army Air Corps in WWII.
Sources: Navy enlistment records and muster rolls; Massachusetts birth record; the Union-News of Springfield, Mass; February 1942 obituary from an unidentified newspaper. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.