Robert Asher Herriott Jr. was born March 27, 1923 in Dallas, Texas. His mother, Elizabeth Ward Herriott, was a homemaker and his father a painter.

Robert Jr. left James Bowie elementary school after 7th grade. The 1938 city directory said he was a mill worker. By the next year he was a painter and paperhanger, although the Census said he reported no income for 52 weeks of work in 1939.

He 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. 

The young man enlisted in the Navy on Jan. 22, 1941. Mr. Herriott 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.

Two of his brothers served in the military during World War II — Clarence in the Army and Lee Roy in the Navy.

Sources: Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; Texas birth index; U.S. Department of Veterans Affair death file; grave marker; Dallas city directory. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.