Brothers Homer Loyd Jones and Edmon Ethmer Jones enlisted in the Navy in Denver on Nov. 5, 1940.

They were killed little more than a year later on the U.S.S. Arizona in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Homer was a cook and petty officer third class and Edmon was a seaman first class.

Homer was born Dec. 12, 1915 in either Stephenville or Thurber, Texas (records vary). His father, Ambus Otto Jones, was a miner and his mother, Cordelia Nail Jones, a homemaker. Edmon was born June 20, 1922 in Oklahoma.

By early 1930 the family was in Harding County in northeast New Mexico. By April 1935 they had moved over 80 miles west-northwest to Ute Park, N.M. They were still there in late April 1940, but then were in Raton, New Mexico just south of Colorado, and in October moved to Montrose, Colorado between Grand Junction and Telluride so Ambus could work on the renovation of the Gunnison Tunnel. When it opened in 1909, it was the world’s longest irrigation tunnel and brought large-scale agriculture to Montrose.

A short obituary in the Montrose Daily Press in January 1942 described the family as “comparatively newcomers to the community.”

When Homer applied to the Navy he said he’d completed 8th grade at Mills grade school in Mills, N.M. and had worked as a mechanic for two years at Maxwell Land Grant Co. in Cimarron, N.M. When Edmon applied he said he’d completed 7th grade in Cimarron and worked as a laborer for Maxwell Land for one year.

Sources; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; Montrose (Colorado) Daily Press; Grand Junction Sentinel; military registration cards; Department of Defense. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.