Monroe, Donald, Matt2c

This Military Service Page was originated/owned by Felix Cervantes, III (Admiral Ese), BM2

Mess Attendant/2c Donald Monroe was Killed in Action on December 7, 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  He was stationed aboard the USS Arizona BB39.

Donald Monroe was born April 19, 1920 in St. Louis County, Missouri. His parents, Guy Monroe and Lucille Fischer, had three sons. Donald was the middle child. Both of his parents died when he was young.

Donald was raised by his aunt, Nannie Stewart, of North Webster Groves, a suburb of St Louis. She worked as the truant officer at Douglass High School. In the mid 1930s he was living in Boys Town, Nebraska. There Father Edward J. Flanagan took in thousands of boys and became so famous that Hollywood made a movie about him in 1938. “Boys Town” won two Oscars, including one for Spencer Tracy for best actor.

Donald Monroe joined the Navy in September 1939 and he saw the movie in the summer of 1941 while serving aboard the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. He wrote home to Father Flanagan that “It was wonderful! I enjoyed myself. Everyone enjoyed it. All the boys on the ship ask me was Boys Town just like in the picture? I told them that was you up and down.”

Because of his race, only one branch of the segregated military was open to Donald -- mess attendant -- men who cooked, cleaned and performed other services. He had attained a second- class rating when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

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 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

Matt2c Donald Monroe (Serial Number 3371939) is entombed in the hull of the USS Arizona.

After his death, an ensign on the battleship, John Paul Howatt, wrote to Father Flanagan that Mr. Monroe “was a fine example of what a young American should be, and in every sense more than lived up to the very highest standards set by our Navy and our country. Donald Monroe was proud of Boys Town; I know that Boys Town is proud of him. If he is an example of the average boy from Boys Town, then I can easily see why our whole country is proud of Boys Town.”

A funeral Mass for Matt2c Monroe was held in February 1942, at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Brentwood, Missouri. American Legion Post 375 in North Webster Groves was named in his honor.

This information was researched and written on behalf of the USS Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.

Sources: Carrol (Iowa) Daily Times; “Father Flanagan of Boys Town, A Man of Vision,” by Hugh Reilly and Kevin Warneke; The St. Louis Star and Times; “North Webster: A Photographic History of a Black Community,” by Ann Morris and Henrietta Ambrose; Census; Missouri death certificates; Navy muster rolls; Defense Department.