Comments/Citation:
A residence hall at the Ohio State University is named in memory of 1939 graduate James Wallace Haverfield, who was killed in the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
James Wallace Haverfield was born April 11, 1917, at Uhrichsville, a town of about 6,500 in east-central Ohio. His father, George Haverfield, was a doctor, and his mother, Bessie (Long) Haverfield, a homemaker. James graduated from Uhrichsville High School in 1935. He carved his name into a wall behind the school auditorium, where it remained as recently as 2014.
James belonged to Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Ohio State University and was a member of Scarlet Mask, a musical comedy group. After earning his bachelor of arts degree, James enlisted in the Naval Reserve and attended officer’s training at Northwestern University. He was commissioned as an Ensign (ENS) on June 2, 1941, and was assigned to the battleship USS Arizona.
ENS James Wallace Haverfield was aboard the USS Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
At the onset of the December 7, 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 ships 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 an 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.
ENS James Wallace Haverfield is listed as Missing in Action or Buried at Sea. He is listed on the ‘Courts of the Missing’ at the Honolulu Memorial and remembered at the USS Arizona Memorial; both are in Honolulu, Honolulu County, Hawaii. There is also a memorial gravesite at the Union Cemetery in Uhrichsville, Ohio.
ENS James Wallace Haverfield was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The U. S. Navy launched the USS Haverfield, a destroyer escort, in a 1943 ceremony in Houston, Texas, attended by ENS Haverfield’s parents and brother, Robert, who had joined the U. S. Navy in July 1942. A pharmacist’s mate, Robert served aboard his brother’s namesake ship for about nine months and then elsewhere for the rest of the war. Robert was there, too, in 1969 when the ship was removed from service. The decommissioning ceremony took place at Pearl Harbor.
A third Haverfield brother, William, served in the U. S. Army from May 1942 through February 1946.
This information was researched and written on behalf of the USS Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.
SOURCES:
The Daily Times of New Philadelphia, Ohio
The Bargain Hunter of Wooster, Ohio
The Daily Ohio State University Special Collections Library
Census Records
Grave Markers
U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs Death Files
https://pearlharbor.org/facts-uss-arizona-bb-39/
http://www.ibiblio.org/phha/arizona/history.html#pearlharbor
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