CSKP Raymond Vincent Chace

Men from the ages of 18 through 45 were required to register for the World War I draft on Sept. 12, 1918. Raymond Vincent Chace dutifully did his part, though he was not yet 18.

Mr. Chace was eager enough to serve that he listed his birth date as Jan. 25, 1900. New York birth records and other documents he filled out all list his birth date as Jan. 25, 1901.

It isn’t clear when Mr. Chace joined the Navy, but by August 1920 he was serving and based in Constantinople, Turkey, now known as Istanbul. He was later based in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

He became a career Navy man, rising to the rank of chief petty officer and storekeeper aboard the U.S.S. Arizona. The ship’s newsletter jokingly referred to him as a “self-admitted spaghetti chef, standing by for lessons from a real ship’s cook.” He was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941.

Mr. Chace was born in New York City to George Chace, a machinist, and Elizabeth Chace, a homemaker. 

He was survived by his widow, Eleanor, and a son and daughter. 

The son, Raymond Nicholas Chace, married Mary Gannon. She was interviewed in 2016 by a reporter for the Baxter Bulletin of Mountain Home, Arkansas, about her late husband and his memories of his father.

“His dad had the hobby of collecting stamps from wherever he traveled in the world,” Gannon said. “He imagined that on that Sunday morning perhaps his dad was sitting at his desk, working on his stamp collection, when it hit.”