EM3c Reese Olin Griffin

When a Census-taker visited their Galveston County, Texas, homes in May 1940, Warren Guy Heckendorn and Reese Olin Griffin listed their occupations as oil refinery workers.

The Heckendorn household was the 120th visited by the Census-taker in their area, the Griffin household the 159th.

It isn’t clear that the two young men knew each other, but both enlisted in the Navy 17 days apart in November 1940. Their enlistment records listed home addresses in Dickinson.

By early the next year both were aboard the U.S.S. Arizona — the battleship on which they were killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Mr. Heckendorn was a seaman first class and Mr. Griffin an electrician’s mate and petty officer third class.

Mr. Griffin was born June 17, 1917, in Houston, to John Reese Griffin, a restaurant manager, and Anna Olin Griffin, a homemaker.  She died in childbirth when Reese Olin son was five. The baby, a boy, lived six months. The father remarried about a year later. The family also included two sisters.

Reese Olin graduated from high school, according to the Census conducted in the spring of 1940. In his enlistment application that fall he wrote that he’d completed 11th grade. His application did not name  the oil refinery where he worked. There were several in Galveston County back then.

Mr. Heckendorn was born Jan. 15, 1915, in Trinity, Texas, to John Robert Heckendorn, a farmer, and Julia Hennessy Heckendorn, a homemaker. She died of cancer when their son was 13. He finished 8th grade, according to his enlistment application.

He worked three years as a helper at the Pan American refinery in Texas City.

Mr. Heckendorn was one of six children, and at least one of his brothers, John Herbert, served in the Army in World War II and survived, though he was wounded twice and earned the Bronze Star.