William John Day was born in Seattle, Washington on Sept. 30, 1920 to William Day, a truck driver for the power company, and Elizabeth McGinnis Day, a homemaker.
He attended Greenwood Elementary and Lincoln High. The 1940 Census, conducted in the spring, said he had completed one year of high school and worked 40 weeks the previous year as a laborer at a salmon cannery. He earned $270.
Mr. Day enlisted in the Navy on Aug. 8, 1940. He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was fatally injured in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He died the next day, Dec. 8, 1941. He is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
Sources: The Seattle Times; Census; Navy muster roll; military interment control form. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.