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Casualty Info
Home Town Albany, NY
Last Address 1273 Rowland Ave El Monte, CA
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 (BB-39) - Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
Wall/Plot Coordinates Entombed in the sunken USS Arizona
Military Service Number 1 036 899
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Chief Printer Teeling served in the Navy during both WWI and WWII. He originally enlisted on March 12, 1917. At some point (dates unknown), he was discharged from the Navy and he spent at least a few years working as a messenger for the US Postal Service. He reenlisted on March 1, 1938 and served until his death. He was aboard the USS Arizona (BB-39) when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the ship sunk. His remains were not recovered and he was later declared dead.
Comments/Citation:
Charles Madison Teeling was born August 9, 1899 in Albany, New York, son of William Teeling and Mary Ingraham Teeling. He had two brothers and one sister. The family lived in Albany, where his father worked as a painter. His father died before 1915, when he, his mother and siblings were living with his maternal grandmother in Albany. Charles attended one year of high school.
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On March 12, 1917 he entered the Navy at the Albany, New York Recruiting Station. As an apprentice seaman he served aboard USS Louisiana from April 6, 1917 to November 11, 1918. He was discharged on September 6, 1919 as a Seaman Second Class. In 1920 he was living in Albany with his mother, working as a post office manager.
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Charles married Edith B. Bink on December 5, 1933 in Los Angeles, California. On March 1, 1938 he enlisted in the Naval Reserves at San Pedro, California. In 1940 he and Edith were living in El Monte, Los Angeles county, California. He reported aboard USS Arizona (BB-39) on September 11, 1941 as a Chief Printer.
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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 Arizonaâ??s crew members died instantly during the explosion. More than 1,100 sailors and Marines were lost along with the ship.
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CPrtr Charles M. Teeling was aboard the Arizona on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, December 7, 1941. His remains have not been recovered. He is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
 Reference:
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State Census, 1905, 1915
1910; Census Place: Albany Ward 3, Albany, New York; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 0015
1920; Census Place: Albany Ward 3, Albany, New York; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 15
1940; Census Place: El Monte, Los Angeles, California; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 19-160A
Ancestry.com. California, U.S., County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1849-1980
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919
Ancestry.com. U.S., Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940 https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=361408 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7886091/charles-madison-teeling
Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949
 This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and 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.
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.
