Seaman Max Edward Flory and his older brother Dale were both assigned to the U.S.S. Arizona. Max died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Dale barely escaped. He had been on furlough to the mainland United States but was back in Hawaii that fateful morning preparing to return to the ship when the attack on Pearl Harbor began.

In a letter to his family, Dale wrote: “It was the most unbelievable thing I ever saw, and now I have to keep going by the remains of the vessel, knowing it is my brother’s grave and that of a lot of my shipmates. But the flag is still flying on the remains of the ship. I did not expect to see the states again so soon, if ever, but by the time you get this I will be gone again.”

Dale did not see home again. He was killed in May 1942 aboard the U.S.S. Neosho, a fleet oiler that survived Pearl Harbor, but was sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Dale, a watertender and petty officer, was 23 when he died. Max was 19. Dale was survived by his widow, Lola, whom he had married during that furlough. The brothers were from Bloomfield, Indiana. Dale was born on on Nov. 17, 1918, and Max on Oct. 6, 1922. They were the sons of Elmer Flory, a truck driver, and Clara Killinger Flory, a homemaker. They had 10 children.

Dale enlisted in the Navy in August 1937 and Max followed in March 1941. Max completed 11th grade at Bloomfield High in 1938 and worked on a farm at Arcola, Illinois, for six months.

Mrs. Flory died on Aug. 1, 1927, and her mother, Emma Killinger, who lived with her daughter’s family, died on Aug. 4, leading to a double funeral.