- Rank:
- Branch:
- Home Town:
- Date Of Birth:
- Disposition:
- Family DNA on File:
FC3c Neil Stanley Lewison
Neil Stanley Lewison was born May 15, 1916 and grew up in the west-central Wisconsin town of Melrose.
He was the youngest of six children of Nels Lewison, a Norwegian immigrant, and Wilhelmina Affeldt Lewison, a Wisconsin native. The father, a painter, died of a heart attack when Neil Stanley was 11.
Young Mr. Lewison was a Boy Scout and graduated from Melrose High School in 1935.
He left Melrose — population 497 — that September and was a fire controlman and petty officer third class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.
A memorial service paid tribute to Mr. Lewison in February 1942 at the Methodist church in Melrose, and its American Legion Post was named in his honor.
Sources: the Winona (Minnesota) Republican-Herald; the Winona Daily News; The La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune; Census; Navy muster roll; cenotaph at Melrose Cemetery. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.