Bleecker Lattin was a radioman 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.

Mr. Lattin was born Oct. 9, 1921 in Patchogue, New York, to Ruth C. Leggett Arrighi and George Arrighi, but the marriage did not last. By the time of the 1925 Census the boy and mother were living with her parents. She married Howard Lattin in 1932 and the son took his surname.

Young Mr. Lattin completed three years at Patchogue High School in 1939. In his application to the Navy he said he’d worked as a gas station attendant for two and a half years. He enlisted in February 1940.

In 1945 the new Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Patchogue was named in honor of Mr. Lattin and Kenneth Jayne, another local man killed at Pearl Harbor.

Sources: The Patchogue Advance, Census records, New York birth index, Florida marriage license, Navy enlistment records, Defense Department. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.