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Casualty Info
Home Town Agana, GU
Last Address Lot 1158 San Nicolas St Agana, GU (Father~Juan Torres Aguon)
Casualty Date Dec 07, 1941
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Hawaii
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment USS ARIZONA (BB-39) - Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
Wall/Plot Coordinates Entombed in the Hull of the Arizona
It appears that he was Mess Attendant for Commander Battleships Division 1 and was transferred as staff for Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, rasied his command flag and was Killed in Action on December 7, 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was stationed aboard the USS Arizona BB39.
Comments/Citation:
Gregorio San Nicholas Aguon was born in 1921 in Agana, Guam. He was the son of Juan Torres Aguon and Joaquina San Nicholas, both natives of Guam. Juan and Joaquina lived in Agana, Guam, where Juan worked as a gardener. The couple raised two daughters and four sons. Gregorio Aguon was the couple’s oldest child.
Gregorio San Nicholas Aguon enlisted in the Navy on 2 December 1938 in Guam. His service number was 4210348. Gregorio served as a Mess Attendant Third Class on the USS Henderson. He served as a Mess Attendant Second Class on the USS West Virginia. On 18 November 1941 Gregorio Aguon was transferred to the USS Arizona as a Mess Attendant First Class.
Gregorio Aguon spent the evening of 6 December 1941 ashore with an old friend, Henry Cruz. The two men got tattoos.
On the morning of 7 December 1941, a fleet of Japanese carriers launched an air strike against the U.S. Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. The attack decimated the ships and personnel of the fleet and thrust the United States into World War II. At the onset of the 7 December 1941 attack, the battleship USS Arizona (BB-39) was moored at berth Fox 7 on “Battleship Row.” The repair ship Vestal (AR-4) was on the port side; and the starboard side faced the northeastern shore of Ford Island. Just before 8 am, the ship’s air raid alarm was sounded and the crew was ordered to general quarters. During the attack the battleship was struck by as many as eight aerial bombs, including one 1,700-lb armor-piercing shell which penetrated the deck near the Number 2 Turret and detonated in the smokeless powder magazine, causing a “cataclysmic” explosion “which destroyed the ship forward” and ignited a fire which burned for two days. Most of the Arizona crewmen who perished in the attack died instantly during the explosion. The ship quickly sank to the bottom of the harbor along with 1,177 of the 1,512 personnel on board, representing about half the total number of Americans killed that day.
Mess Attendant First Class Gregorio San Nicholas Aguan was listed as missing in action following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The remains of Mess Attendant First Class Gregorio San Nicholas Aguan were not recovered. Today, Mess Attendant First Class Gregorio San Nicholas Aguan is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
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This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org/). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen person’s name and read his/her story.
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Marilyn Murphy - Contributing Author, Stories Behind the Stars
