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Casualty Info
Home Town Morristown, TN
Last Address Morristown, TN
Casualty Date Dec 07, 1941
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Hawaii
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment USS Arizona Memorial - Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
Wall/Plot Coordinates (cenotaph)
Military Service Number 2 953 332
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
MM1 Robertson was stationed aboard the USS Arizona (BB-39) when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. His remains were never recovered.
Comments/Citation:
On December 7, 1941, Japanese carrier-based aircraft launched a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base and ships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. During the attack, the USS Arizona (BB-39) was struck by eight armor-piercing bombs. One penetrated the Arizona's deck near its No. 2 turret, causing a large explosion that destroyed the forward half of the ship and started a fire that burned for two days. It is thought that most of the Arizona’s crew members died instantly during the explosion. More than 1,100 sailors and Marines were lost along with the ship.
Machinist's Mate First Class James M. Robertson, who joined the U.S. Navy from Tennessee, was aboard the Arizona on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack and was among the men lost with the ship. His remains were not recovered. Today, Machinist's Mate First Class Robertson is memorialized in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
James Milton Robertson “was noted for his sunny disposition and friendly nature, making friends of all who knew him,” the Daily Gazette and Mail of Morristown, Tennessee, wrote after he died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Mr. Robertson was a machinist’s mate first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941.
He was born Aug. 24, 1918, in Hamblen County in northeast Tennessee. His father, Rufus, was a farmer and his mother, Lennie, a homemaker. She died when the boy -- the youngest of seven children -- was nine. An older sister, Kate, helped raise him.
Mr. Robertson worked at Interwoven Knitting Mills in Morristown before he enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 26, 1937. He was a member of Holston Chapel Methodist Church.
Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5266 in Morristown is named in his honor.
Six months after his death, the local newspaper reported on what it called “an excellent example of loyalty.” His father received a check for a life insurance policy taken out by his son. “He immediately came into town and invested the entire amount in War Bonds,” the paper said. The government sold war bonds to help finance military operations in World War II.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Attack on Pearl Harbor
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1941
Description The attack on Pearl Harbor, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, and Operation Z during planning, was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.
Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time. The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese fighter planes, bombers, and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.
The attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. Domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been fading since the Fall of France in 1940,[19] disappeared. Clandestine support of the United Kingdom (e.g., the Neutrality Patrol) was replaced by active alliance. Subsequent operations by the U.S. prompted Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to declare war on the U.S. on December 11, which was reciprocated by the U.S. the same day.
From the 1950s, several writers alleged that parties high in the U.S. and British governments knew of the attack in advance and may have let it happen (or even encouraged it) with the aim of bringing the U.S. into war. However, this advance-knowledge conspiracy theory is rejected by mainstream historians.
There were numerous historical precedents for unannounced military action by Japan. However, the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy". Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was judged by the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.
