PVT Rudolph Herbert Reinhold

Rudolph Herbert Reinhold was four when he came to the United States from Germany with his mother and two siblings in the summer of 1926.

His father had moved to Salt Lake City, Utah two years earlier, and eventually the family, which grew to include eight children, all settled in Utah. The mother, Lina Martha Grund Reinhold, was a homemaker and active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The father, Rudolph Bernhardt Reinhold, worked for a hide and wool company.

Herbert, as he was known, attended Granite High School, though it is unclear whether he graduated. The spring 1940 Census said he was a hired hand on a farm at Dingle, Idaho. He worked 48 weeks in 1939 and earned $400.

Mr. Reinhold, born Oct. 31, 1921 in Buchholz, Germany 70 miles southeast of Leipzeg, enlisted in the Marine Corps in January 1941. He was a private on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that Dec. 7.

His parents, who became U.S. citizens just before he enlisted, had a tradition of giving their children a 48-star flag when they married. Herbert Reinhold didn’t live long enough to receive the gift.

By Dec. 7, 1961, there were 50 U.S. states, but on that anniversary Mr. Reinhold’s widowed mother flew his 48-star flag outside her home.

Sources: the Deseret News and Salt Lake Telegram; The Salt Lake Tribune; Census; Utah military record; 1926 passenger list for New York arrivals; applications for U.S. naturalization. Marine photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.