Neil Mataweny Wilson was born Dec. 30, 1904 in Salem, Ohio, to Edna Sloan Wilson, a homemaker, and Ned D. Wilson, a blacksmith at a foundry and later at a truck factory.

She died of heart and lung conditions in January 1917, leaving her widower with six sons and a daughter still just one.

By January 1920 the family was living in Summerhill, Pennsylvania.

In July 1922 Neil and a cousin enlisted in the Navy. In the mid-1920s he married Daisy W. Lawrence in Brooklyn, New York. A son, James, was born in 1927, a daughter, Yvonne, in 1928, and another daughter, Myrna, in 1930 who died within three months.

By April 1935 the family was living in San Diego, and by April 1940 at the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey. 

Neil was a chief machinist, warrant officer, and assistant to the engineering officer on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. His battle station was in the starboard engine room.

Over his long Navy career he also served on the Wyoming, Whitney and Bridge.

At least two of his brothers also served during World War II — Arthur as a chief warrant officer in the Army and James in the Navy as a chief pharmacist’s mate. James survived the sinking of the U.S.S. Yorktown in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway.

Sources: The Conneautville (Pennsylvania) Courier; The Washington Post; The Record-Argus of Greenville, Pennsylvania; Commonwealth of Pennsylvania World War II Veterans’ Compensation Bureau; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls; grave markers at Dicksonburg Cemetery in Crawford County, Pennsylvania; the Navy Report of Action of Yorktown and Yorktown Air Group, May 8, 1942. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.