WT2c William Joseph Curry

William Joseph Curry and six of his eight siblings served in the military. He was a watertender and petty officer second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The others, including a sister who was an Army nurse, all survived their service, though at least two had harrowing experiences. Robert, a Marine, was taken prisoner on Wake Island, and held by the Japanese for four years. Nathan was forced to bail out of his burning Vought Corsair fighter plane when it was hit while on a mission in the Korean War. Badly burned, he was able to deploy a lifeboat and was rescued after two or three hours by a destroyer crew.

The Currys were the children of Guy Curry, a farmer, and Edna Eaves Curry, a homemaker, in Parnell, Missouri, population 450, near the Iowa border. By 1930 the family had moved to Greene Township in Worth County.

William Joseph was born Sept. 30, 1916. He completed his schooling at the end of 9th grade at Parnell High School. He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934 and 1935. 

He enlisted in the Navy on Jan. 10, 1936, as an apprentice seaman earning $21 a month.

He was home on leave when he married a former high school classmate in April 1939 but soon realized the match was a mistake and they divorced.  Mr. Curry married Aletha Cage on Jan. 2, 1941, while the Arizona was dry-docked at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton west of Seattle. 

By the time he was killed, Mr. Curry was earning $79.20 a month.