David Alonzo Leedy enlisted in the Navy on Aug. 10, 1937 and was a fire controlman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7,  1941.

He was born Oct. 30, 1919 in Rapid City, South Dakota to Harry Leedy and Mabel Wood Leedy. His father was a machinist at a sawmill and later at a railroad. In the 1930 Census his mother was a clerk at a dry goods store.

The family moved to Muscatine, Iowa, in the 1930s. David graduated in 1937 from Muscatine High School, where he played football, basketball, and track. He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program. The CCC, as it was known, employed single men 18 to 25 to plant trees, build roads and trails and make other improvements to public land, forests and parks. The men lived at camps across the country and were provided a bed and three meals a day. Of their $30 monthly pay, $25 was sent to their families.

A memorial service honored David Leedy in February 1942 at Grace Lutheran Church in Muscatine.

A second man from Muscatine, whose 1940 population was about 18,000, also died on the Arizona. Arthur Anthony Bersch was about a year younger and graduated from St. Mathias Catholic High School.

Sources: The Muscatine (Iowa) Journal; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; Defense Department. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Muscatine High School yearbook. Navy photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.