Orville Adalbert Isham had been in the Navy nine years when he was killed on the U.S.S. Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

He was a gunner’s mate and chief petty officer on the ship.

Mr. Isham was born Nov. 11, 1911 in Ponca City, Oklahoma, but his family moved before 1930 to Oregon, where he attended high school in Dorena south of Eugene. He was elected sophomore class president. In his senior year, 1930, he performed in the play “Wake Up, Nora.”

He also served in the Oregon National Guard as part of Battery E of the 249th Coast Guard Artillery At Forest Grove, Oregon.

His father, John, was a farmer and later a firefighter, and his mother, Alice, a homemaker.

In 1935 Mr. Isham married Alice A. Wickenberg in Los Angeles. She and their son, James, born the next year,  survived him.

Sources: The Eugene (Oregon) Register Guard; Census, Los Angeles marriage index; California birth index; Veterans Administration; Navy enlistment records. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.