Woodstock, IL.
Date of Birth: 29 May, 1922
Date of Death: 7 December, 1941
Branch of Service: United States Navy
Rank: S2c (Seaman Second Class)
Ship: USS Arizona (BB-39) Pennsylvania-class Super-dreadnought battleship
Place of Death: Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii
S2c Thomas W. Lounsbury
Thomas William Lounsbury was nineteen years old when he became one of the first McHenry County men to die in World War II — killed on the very day the United States entered it.
Born on May 29, 1922, Tommy, as he was known to friends, grew up at 409 Austin Street in Woodstock, where his father Robert managed a grocery store and his mother Florence devoted her time to church and civic causes. He graduated from Woodstock High School in 1940 and enlisted in the Navy that October. Within a year, he was assigned to the USS Arizona as a Seaman Second Class.
On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese forces launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The USS Arizona was struck by an armor-piercing bomb that ignited the ship’s forward ammunition magazine, triggering a catastrophic explosion. The battleship sank in less than nine minutes, taking 1,177 of her crew with her. Tommy Lounsbury was among them. The local newspaper noted that he had a legion of friends “among the younger set” in Woodstock, in a town of some 6,100 people where such losses were felt by everyone.
His older brother James also served, with the Army in Europe. He was wounded in Germany in 1944. The telegram informing their parents arrived on December 7 — the third anniversary of the day they had lost Thomas.
Because the USS Arizona has never been fully salvaged, the remains of most of her crew, including Thomas Lounsbury, were never recovered. His name is inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial in Hawaii, where it stands as his permanent marker.
USS Arizona (BB-39)
USS Arizona Memorial
Also known as the Pearl Harbor National Memorial
Honolulu, Honolulu County, Hawaii
Also
Honolulu Memorial- Courts of the Missing
Honolulu, Honolulu County, Hawaii
To visit the USS Arizona Memorial, click on the Memorial
