Dexter Wilson Fincher had been a Marine field cook (equivalent to a corporal) for nearly a year when he chose to start over as a private to learn gunnery. That was in May 1940.

He had made sergeant by the time he was killed on the U.S.S. Arizona in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Mr. Fincher was born Feb. 23, 1917 at Prineville, Oregon, to John W. Fincher, a building painter, and Grace Barney Fincher, a homemaker.

The names of Dexter and his brother, Donald, appeared twice in the 1930 Census, once with their mother in Prineville and a second time at the Turner Home for Boys about 100 miles away in Turner, Oregon.

Dexter graduated from high school and also served two years 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.

He was a driver in the motor pool at the CCC’s district office at Vancouver Barrack, Washington. The chief clerk wrote a letter of recommendation for him in July 1939 that said Dexter drove trucks and cars about 150,000 miles without an accident and was conscientious and diligent.

Dexter also worked at a Montgomery Wards store in Portland, where the assistant manager also wrote a letter of recommendation in July 1939.

He enlisted in the Marines on July 10, 1939.

Dexter Fincher Post 1412 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Prineville, Oregon, was mustered in the summer of 1942 in his honor. There is a cenotaph in his memory at Juniper Haven Cemetery in Prineville. His parents are buried there.

Sources: The Bend (Oregon) Bulletin; the Central Oregonian; marker at Juniper Haven Cemetery in Prineville, Oregon; Census; Marine enlistment records and muster roll. Marine photo. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.