Today is known as "Pearl Harbor Day," an honor set aside for the men and women killed or wounded during the attack there by Japanese forces on the 7th of December. I'm sure its a generation thing, but many older Americans still remember where they were that fateful day or were raised by those who do! Later generations would add similar fateful events such as the assassination of President Kennedy, the crash of the Challenger, or the 11th of September (911).
But one Pensacola family would carry the memory of the Pearl Harbor attack to their graves and beyond! Lonnie James Mattox Sr. (1889-1964) and Lavada Bell Hinote (1892-1969) were just sitting down to Sunday dinner at 11:55 AM at their home at 802 East Hatton Street. Their oldest son, Lonnie James Jr. (1913-1964) had graduated from Pensacola High School in 1932 and was now working at the Frank Kelton Nehi Bottling Co. Their youngest, James Durant Mattox was born on June 16, 1919 and had chosen a different path than his older brother. He had enlisted in the US Navy on November 21, 1939, five months after his own graduation from PHS.
Conversation around the dinner table would have centered around the war overseas where the Germans had overrun Europe and were now invading Russia. England had defeated Germany's attempt to bomb London into oblivion just fourteen months before. But that was "over there" and everyone here prayed we would not have to become involved in another "war to end all wars!" But as a barber, Lonnie Sr. was off on Sundays from his shop on North 9th Avenue and probably just wanted to relax in the unusual 60 degree December weather. Talk around the table also centered around their son James and his letters home about life aboard the USS Arizona amidst the beautiful tropical weather of Hawaii.
Sadly, that dinner was the last peaceful moment that the citizens of Pensacola and specifically Lonnie and Lavada would have for the rest of their lives. Fifteen minutes later and halfway around the world, a 1,760 pound Japanese bomb crashed through the deck of the Arizona and ignited the ship's munitions and fuel. The devastating explosion was so powerful that it lifted the entire battleship out of the water, instantly killing young James and 1,176 of his shipmates. Only 335 men escaped! But at that very moment, the Mattox family and all Pensacola was going about their day, unknowing how their life was about to change!
But suddenly, radios across the nation interrupted their programs to broadcast a report from station KTU in Honolulu. The broadcast was made by a reporter standing atop a rooftop of a Honolulu office building as he described the attack as it was occurring. The reporter was talking to New York City on the phone, as the New York station broadcast his call to the nation. The news was picked up and spread like wildfire. Upon hearing the news, the Mattox's were shocked and terrified of what may have befallen their youngest son. For days after the attack they waited and waited with mounting fear for any kind of news. Little did they know that young James was already entombed for eternity with over a thousand of his shipmates.
His death made him Pensacola's first casualty of World War II, a list that would grow by the day for the next four years. Following his death, his brother Lonnie Jr. (1913-1964) enlisted in the US Coast Guard on January 21, 1942 and would serve throughout the war as a 2nd Class Boatswain Mate.
Following the attack, the Arizona's superstructure and main armament were salvaged for use elsewhere. Today, only two gun turrets and the hull sit quietly in forty feet of water on the bottom of the harbor, where she sank 79 years ago. Inside that sacred hull, lies the remains of 1,102 young men who died never knowing they were at war! In all, 1,177 perished on the Arizona with 335 escaping of which only two 98-year old survivors remain today. Sadly, nearby lies the wreck of the battleship USS Utah with 58 entombed bodies of its own still aboard.
Lonnie Jr. would retire from civil service at NAS and eventually pass away on May 7, 1964. Within weeks his father would follow him to Bayview Cemetery. Five years later, Lavada would join her husband and her boys.
