FC3c William Ruggerio

William Ruggerio was born July 24, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, Frances Gambardella Ruggerio, was a homemaker and telephone operator, and his father, Alfonso Ruggerio, was a longshoreman. The parents were Italian immigrants from the Amalfi Coast near Pompei. William was the youngest of their four children.

The mother died in March 1939 in Brooklyn. The spring 1940 Census said William and his two brothers were still together in Brooklyn, where each had completed the 8th grade. William worked 52 weeks in 1939 as a pressman at a metal factory and earned $936. His brothers were longshoremen but reported no employment in 1939.

William enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 8, 1940. Mr. Ruggerio was a fire controlman and petty officer third class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

His father, by then living in Chicago, petitioned four months after his death to become a U.S. citizen.

Sources: Census; Navy muster roll; petitions for U.S. naturalization. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.