S2c Louis Alton Stockton

Louis Alton Stockton was born Oct. 2, 1923 in Los Angeles County, California. His mother, Violet Amerman Stockton, was a homemaker and his father, Floyd Stockton, kept a music store and later sold sporting goods.

By 1930 the family lived in Riverside. Louis was 12 when his father died in a 1936 car accident that left his mother with several broken ribs.

She married William Henn the next year. The spring 1940 Census said Louis lived with them about 170 miles east in Palo Verde, California and had completed two years at Palo Verde Union High in nearby Blythe.

Mr. Stockton enlisted in the Navy on June 23, 1941. He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

His father was a private in an Army aero squadron from December 1917 through February 1919. At least one of Louis’ half-brothers, Perry Rodenbaugh, served in the Army from November 1936 through April 1938.

Sources: The San Bernardino County Sun of California; Census; Navy muster roll; Palo Verde Union High School yearbook; California birth index; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; application for military headstone. Yearbook photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.