Y1c Laun Lee Storm

Laun Lee Storm was born Nov. 6, 1913 in King County, Washington. His mother, Elva Middlebusher Storm, was a homemaker and his father, Cleveland Long Storm, from 1920 farmed near Wallace Precinct near Stevens Pass in the Cascades in Snohomish County.

By April 1935 the family was living nearby to the west in Sultan,a town of about 900. One of the couple’s six children, a son, was about 18 when he died in August 1937. Laun enlisted in the Navy the next month in Seattle.

He married Jane Gillis in late 1939, and the spring 1940 Census said the couple lived with her parents in Long Beach. Mr. Storm, who had completed high school, earned $550 in 1939 for 48 weeks of work as a sailor – the equivalent of nearly $11,000 in 2022 dollars. How he arranged four weeks off is unknown.

He was a yeoman 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. Mr. Storm was survived by his widow and their young son.

At least one of his brothers, Newton, also served in World War II. He was an infantry private.

Sources: the Long Beach Press-Telegram; the Los Angeles Times; Census; grave markers; Washington birth record; Navy muster rolls. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.