S1c Lloyd Delroy Steinhoff

Lloyd Delroy Steinhoff was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but it was as a musician that he was remembered years later.

The Steinhoff Band, sponsored by the American Legion, formed in San Diego after the war. Its 50-some musicians performed in concerts and competitions all over California.

Mr. Steinhoff, a trumpeter, had been a member of the Bonham Brothers Boys Band of San Diego for several years. In 1935, the year before he graduated from the band, it performed for President Franklin Roosevelt when he visited the California Pacific International Exposition. The band also marched in the Rose Parade in Pasadena.

Mr. Steinhoff was born May 1, 1921, probably in Greeley, Colorado 50 miles north or Denver,
to Linden Arthur Steinhoff, a plasterer, and Lillian Anderson Steinhoff, a homemaker. The parents had married in Greeley in 1918, and sons born in 1920 and 1922 before and after Lloyd were born in Greeley.

The family moved to San Diego sometime before 1930. Lloyd graduated from Grossmont High School in El Cajon, population about 1,200, on the northeast metro periphery.

He and his older brother, Linden, enlisted in the Navy on April 5, 1940, and both were assigned to ships at Pearl Harbor. Linden, serving on a destroyer, the U.S.S. Case, survived the attack and the war.

A third brother, Maynard, also served in the Navy during World War II.

An uncle, Ralph Steinhoff, tried to join the Marines the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, but was rejected because he was 39 and had a family. Then, in March 1942, the Marines put out a call for rifle instructors. And that’s how Ralph, a longtime shooting champion, became a Marine with keen memories about his lost nephew.

Sources: the San Diego Union; Katherine Hon of the North Park Historical Society in San Diego; Census; Navy muster roll; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego. Photo courtesy of relatives Judith Reeve and Tim Wright. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.