At Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 was was a 22-year veteran serving as a Navy machinist at the Naval base on Oahu. Chief Jessie Lee Suarez (below) was 39-years old when the Imperial Fleet launched their airstrike against the unsuspecting Americans. He was the son of Thomas F. and Henrietta Suarez who owned a house at 604 South “O” Street in Pensacola. Ironically, Jessie was the son of a Confederate Civil War cavalryman who had passed away on August 8, 1919. Thomas F. and Henrietta Suarez had married on May 11, 1892 in Escambia County, Florida and the birth of Jessie and his three sisters soon followed. His father was born in Baldwin County, Alabama on October 4, 1845 and upon the outbreak of hostilities during the Civil War had enlisted in the Confederate Army at Oyster Bay near his home on June 2, 1862. His unit would later be designated Company “E” of the 15th Confederate Cavalry under the command of Captain Norvelle Leigh out of Milton, Florida. When the Civil War ended Thomas received his parole from the Union Army and returned to Baldwin County before migrating eastwards to Pensacola where his life ended when Jessie Lee was 16-years old.
Following the debacle of Pearl Harbor Jessie received orders from the War Department to report to the new Independence Class Carrier CVL-23 USS Princeton. Here he and his shipmates would serve and fight heroically in one major engagement after another until the Princeton met its fate on October 24, 1944 in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Chief Suarez was killed in the attack and went down with his ship.
