S1c Richmond Frederick Blieffert

Richmond Frederick Blieffert was the son of German and Czech immigrants.

His parents, Carl Frederick Blieffert and Gertrude Stabena Blieffert, came separately to the United States in 1909. Richmond, “Dick,” was born on March 4, 1919 in Seattle, Washington.

The 1920 Census showed Carl, from northern Germany, working at a shipyard. By 1930, they were in Kitsap  and Carl was a hotel waiter. Gertrude was a homemaker.

Richmond graduated from South Kitsap High in Port Orchard, Washington where as a senior he played on the 1937 football team. He also worked as a bus boy and kitchen helper at the Washington Veterans Home for five years.

He ran into a spot of trouble when he stolen gasoline and spent 25 days in jail.

He enlisted in the Navy on April 8, 1940, and 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.

He was also a member of the ship’s swim team, which had defeated the other teams — Nevada and Oklahoma — in her battleship swim division the previous season, according to an August 1941 edition of the Arizona’s newspaper.

Sources: The Kitsap (Washington) Sun; Census records; Washington birth index; declaration of intent to become a U.S. Citizen; Navy enlistment and muster roll;  South Kitsap sports record; At ‘Em Arizona newspaper. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.