SM3c Loy Raymond Broome

Loy Raymond Broome, who died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, served in both the Army and the Navy.

Mr. Broome was born July 4, 1916 in Cedar, Colorado to Lula Henry Broome, a homemaker, and Clarence Broome, a farmer.

By 1920 the family, which then included four children in the household, lived in Oklahoma. By 1930 Mrs. Broome had moved to Texas, where she ran a home laundry and her two oldest sons, 17 and 16, worked at a bakery and as a farm laborer. Loy was a student and eventually completed schooling after 9th grade. It appears that the parents were divorced before 1930.

Loy was 18 when he enlisted in the Army, serving three years at Fort Ringgold at Rio Grande City, Texas, on the Mexican border. He was discharged on Nov. 29, 1937 and within days applied to the Navy. He was declared ineligible because at 5-foot-8 and 133 pounds he was deemed to be 15 pounds underweight. He obtained a waiver and enlisted in the Navy on Jan. 7, 1938, in Dallas.

He went aboard the U.S.S. Arizona on April 28, 1938 at San Pedro, California, the battleship’s home port. Mr. Broome was a signalman and petty officer third class when he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941.

At the time of his death, his mother lived in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, though it isn’t clear that Mr. Broome ever lived there.

At least one of his brothers, Elgin, served in the Army during World War II.

Sources: U.S. Veterans Administration; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls; Chronicles of Oklahoma; Sapulpa (Oklahoma) Daily Herald; Madison County (Arkansas) Record; Census; family grave markers. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.