PHM2c Ivan Lee Block

Ivan Lee Block was born May 29, 1918 in St. Johns, Arizona, but his family soon moved to New Mexico.

When he was born his father, Vern Block, was a farmer, and his mother, Sarah Viola Buckelew Block, a homemaker. She died when Ivan was eight.

Ivan Lee completed high school at Belen — about 30 miles south of Albuquerque — and then worked at a laundry for one year. He and a younger brother, Charles, traveled to Denver to enlist in the Navy on July 9, 1938.

Ivan Lee was a pharmacist’s mate and petty officer second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. His brother became a chief machinist’s mate and served on several ships, including the light carrier U.S.S. San Jacinto with the future President George H. W. Bush,  through September 1945.

Sources: The Albuquerque (New Mexico) Journal; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls; Historical Society of New Mexico; grave marker. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.