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Fireman Apprentice 2nd Class Willard Charles Aves was Killed in Action on December 7, 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was stationed aboard the USS Arizona BB39.
Comments/Citation:
F2c AVES, Willard Charles
Willard Charles “Bill” Aves was four in 1925 when his mother died in childbirth, leaving his father with three young children. He was born June 28, 1921, to Charles and Mamie Gliddon Aves.
The Depression was tough on the Aves family, as it was for most Americans. His father lost the grocery store he operated in Kingston, Illinois. He then worked for farmers and fished and planted gardens to raise food for his family. Bill delivered newspapers. While attending Kingston High School, Bill played basketball and then graduated in 1940.
After graduation, Bill enlisted in the Navy on 08 October 1940 and was assigned the service number 3001918. He first went on board the USS Arizona in December 1940. He was a Fireman Second Class when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
At the onset of the 07 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 8:00 am, the ship’s air raid alarm 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.
F2c Willard "Bill" Charles Aves’ remains have never been recovered and are interred at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii. His name is also inscribed on the Walls of the Missing in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also located in Honolulu, Hawaii.
A memorial service in his memory was held in February 1942 at the Methodist church in his hometown of Kingston, DeKalb County, Illinois. The local American Legion Post 1010 was named in his honor.
This information was researched, written, and edited on behalf of the USS Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.
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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 Together We Served and 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's name and read his/her story.
Valerie Jones and Jackie Menasco - Contributing Editors, Stories Behind the Stars
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