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S1c Homer David Hopkins
Homer David Hopkins played baseball at Muskegon High School in Michigan. The 1940 yearbook described him as “always good natured.”
He graduated that spring and enlisted in the Navy on Sept. 9. He was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.
Mr. Hopkins was born Feb. 25, 1921 at Fremont, Michigan, to David Hopkins, a farmer, and Alma Long Hopkins, a homemaker. Sometime in the 1930s the family moved to Muskegon, where the father went to work as a machinist at a piston-ring factory.
The U.S.S. Muskegon, a patrol frigate, was built for the Navy in 1943 and launched in Superior, Wisconsin. Mr. Hopkin’s mother christened the ship.
His older brother, Robert, served in the Army in World War II.
Sources: The Escanaba (Michigan) Daily Press; the Muskegon (Michigan) Chronicle; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; grave marker; Muskegon high yearbooks. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.