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| Brothers Francis and Norman Morse served together on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/22512363/francis-jerome-morse https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/22509734 https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/uss-arizona-life-and-death.html |
Francis Jerome Morse never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on November 22, 1919 in Colorado. His parents Royal and Clara were born in Minnesota and Tennessee, respectively. His father worked as a stable foreman for a sugar beet farm, and later as a farm laborer. He died in 1930. Francis had a younger brother Norman two years his junior.
Francis joined the navy in December 1936. He was assigned to the battleship USS Arizona in April 1937. Norman joined the navy in August 1938 and he joined his brother on Arizona in December 1938. Francis reached the rank of boatswain's mate first class. His duties included handling the ropes and chains and helping with steering of the ship. Norman reached the rank of water tender second class. His duties involved working in the boiler rooms.
Francis married Dorothy Fletcher in August 1939. They set up residence in California. Meanwhile Norman established residence with his widowed mother in Virginia.
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Morse brothers were on duty onboard Arizona when it was hit by four Japanese bombs. The final one penetrated to the forward magazine and exploded with devastating loss of life. Francis and Norman were one of 23 sets of brothers on the Arizona who all died.
The brothers are still entombed in the USS Arizona. They have cenotaph gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. His mother, who had lost her husband and all her children, died in 1981. Dorothy Morse did not remarry, as far as I can tell, and died in 2004.
Last year on this date I profiled Battle of the Bulge fallen Clark Zills, 3rd Armored Division. You can read about Clark here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
23 sets of brothers, and 23 devastated families, among so many others 7 December 1941...and over 400,000 to follow...RIP all
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