S2c Max Edward Flory

Seaman Max Edward Flory and his older brother Dale were both assigned to the U.S.S. Arizona. Max died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Dale barely escaped. He had been on furlough to the mainland United States but was back in Hawaii that fateful morning preparing to return to the ship when the attack on Pearl Harbor began.

In a letter to his family, Dale wrote: “It was the most unbelievable thing I ever saw, and now I have to keep going by the remains of the vessel, knowing it is my brother’s grave and that of a lot of my shipmates. But the flag is still flying on the remains of the ship. I did not expect to see the states again so soon, if ever, but by the time you get this I will be gone again.”

Dale did not see home again. He was killed in May 1942 aboard the U.S.S. Neosho, a fleet oiler that survived Pearl Harbor, but was sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Dale, a watertender and petty officer, was 23 when he died. Max was 19. Dale was survived by his widow, Lola, whom he had married during that furlough. The brothers were from Bloomfield, Indiana. Max was born Aug. 6, 1922, and Dale on Nov. 17, 1918. They were the sons of Elmer Flory, a truck driver, and Clara Killinger Flory, a homemaker. They had 10 children.

Mrs. Flory died on Aug. 1, 1927, and her mother, Emma Killinger, who lived with her daughter’s family, died on Aug. 4, leading to a double funeral.