Robert Fredrick Hunter hoped that the battleship on which he served as a seaman first class would make it to San Pedro, California before Christmas.

If the U.S.S. Arizona got that far, his uncle, William W. Saunders, was ready to loan him the money to travel to Detroit for the holiday.

The Arizona’s departure from Honolulu kept getting delayed, though, and the ship was still berthed at Pearl Harbor when Japan attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, killing Mr. Hunter and 1,176 of his shipmates.

He was born Jan. 10, 1923 at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. His mother, Florence Faith Saunders Hunter, divorced his father, Howard, on June 12, and in October 1923 married Robert T. Smith of Akron.

Young Robert attended Henry grade school in Akron.

He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program. The CCC, as it was known, employed single men 18 to 25 to plant trees, build roads and trails and make other improvements to public land, forests and parks. The men lived at camps across the country and were provided a bed and three meals a day. Of their $30 monthly pay, $25 was sent to their families. He served at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

As of April 1940 his mother and step-father were still in Akron with his step-sister and step-brother. After April but by October 1940 he was living in Detroit and working at his uncle’s gas station. He enlisted on Nov. 27, 1940.

His older brother Richard served in the Navy during World War II and survived.

Sources: the Detroit Free Press; the Detroit Times; The Akron Beacon Journal; Ohio marriage and birth records; Navy enlistment records and muster roll. Navy records in 1942 and circa 1990 show his middle name as Frederick, but it’s Fredrick in the ship’s muster roll and according to the National Park Service. He signed his name Fredrick. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.