F3c Raymond Edward Grenger

Raymond Edward Granger’s mother died when he was one and his father when he was eight.

He was fortunate, though, that his father had remarried when he was four in April 1927 and he developed a strong relationship with his step-mother, Hazel Teague Granger. After he joined the Navy, she visited him when his ship, the U.S.S. Arizona, was on the West Coast in June 1941. And he began sending money home so she could join him in Hawaii — the Arizona’s main location during his enlistment.

That reunion was not to be. Mr. Granger, a fireman third class, was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

“It is hard that he is gone,” she told a reporter the next spring, “but we can’t win unless somebody makes sacrifices.”

Mr. Granger was born Oct. 14, 1922 in Des Moines, Iowa to Lloyd Granger, a post office clerk, and Georgia Marie Reeve Granger, a homemaker. He graduated from East High in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1940. The yearbook nicknamed him “rough cut” and said his ambition was to become an auto mechanic. “The mildest manners and the bravest heart,” the yearbook added. He was a member of the swim team.

He enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 15, 1940. His step-mother said he took special training to help operate the ship’s electrical equipment and was assigned to the engine room.

Sources: the Des Moines Tribune; the Des Moines Register; Iowa death and marriage records; U.S. Defense Department; Navy muster roll. East HIgh yearbook photo. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.