Wiley Coy Goff was born March 27, 1917 in Lamont in north-central Oklahoma. His mother, Martha Caughey Goff, was a homemaker, and his father, William Goff, a blacksmith.

By the time of the spring 1940 Census the son had completed two years at Lamont High School but was no longer enrolled. He’d been unemployed for 50 weeks in 1939 but had a new job as a baker.

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.

Young Mr. Goff left the town — population 577 — on March 22, 1941, to enlist in the Navy. He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources: the Blackwell (Oklahoma) Daily Journal; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; World War II draft registration card. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.