James Monroe Blake

From the 1930 United States Census, James M. Blake lived with his mother, father, and brother at Rolla Township, Phelps County, Missouri. The family at the time consisted of:

• Head Harman M Blake 66
• Wife Rebecca B Blake 56
• Son James M Blake 18
• Son Wayne H Blake 15

At the age of 20, James Monroe Blake was serving onboard USS Arizona (BB-39) in Pearl Harbor as a Fireman Second Class (E-2). On Sunday morning, 7 December 1941, the Japanese Navy surprised everyone in the United States by bombing all ships at Pearl Harbor. The Arizona suffered the greatest damage. Fireman Blake was one of the 1,177 USS Arizona sailors and Marines killed at Pearl Harbor. He was one of the more than 900 that could not be recovered and remains entombed on the ship that sank in nine minutes. The USS Arizona Memorial, built in 1962 and maintained by the National Park Service, sits above the wreckage.

USS Arizona (BB-39) was the second and last of the Pennsylvania class of "super-dreadnought" battleships built for the United States Navy in the mid-1910s. Named in honor of the 48th state's then recent admission into the union and commissioned in 1916, the ship remained stateside during World War I.