William Percy Westcott Jr. was born on Oct. 5, 1922 in Texarkana, Texas. His father was a foreman for a work train and, by 1940, a crane operator for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. His mother, Eleanore Josephine Bagnetto Westcott, was a homemaker born and raised in New Orleans.

By December 1925 the family lived in Peru, Indiana population about 12,500 and circa 70 miles north of Indianapolis. A second son was born in Peru but an older child had died. William was 11 when his mother died of pulmonary edema in November 1933.

The spring 1940 Census said William had completed three years at Peru High  School but was no longer enrolled.

When he applied to the Navy in July 1940 he said he’d also 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 in Co. 589 at Lagro, Indiana.

Mr. Westcott enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 8, 1940.

He was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

His younger brother, Edward, was 17 when he dropped out of high school in 1942 to enlist in the Navy. A gunner’s mate and eventually a petty officer first class, he served in the South Pacific for the duration of the war and in China after Japan’s surrender. He named his oldest son William.

Sources: Census; grave markers; Indiana death certificate; Louisiana marriage record; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls. Special thanks to nephew Bill Westcott for helping with this profile. He is one of the creators of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.