Hometown: Rutland, VT
Branch: U.S. Navy
Unit: USS Arizona (BB-39)
Military Honors: Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: December 7, 1941 - KIA at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
Age: 22
Conflict: World War II, 1939-1945

Myron was born in Dorset, a small town in the Green Mountains of Vermont, on November 1, 1919. His father, Myron A. Brophy Jr., worked in a novelty shop. When the elder Brophy passed away in 1927, Myron III was just seven years old. Brophy’s mother, Mary Eliza, took a job as a hospital housekeeper to support the family.

When Mary Eliza passed away in 1933, the 13-year-old Myron moved in with his sister Jessie in nearby Rutland, Vermont, 30 miles to the north. He graduated from Rutland High School in 1938.

Brophy enlisted in the United States Navy on January 23, 1940—at a time when Europe was at war and Japan was aggressively seizing territory throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The United States remained at peace but was beginning to build its military preparedness for a looming involvement in Europe that many believed was inevitable.

Brophy was trained as a Fireman Second Class and appointed to the USS Arizona (BB-39), a battleship assigned to the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.

On December 7, 1941, Arizona, along with much of the Pacific Fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor, was “suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared in an address to Congress a day later. In that speech, Roosevelt famously referred to December 7 as “a date which will live in infamy.”

The surprise attack by the Japanese propelled the United States into World War II (1939-1945). A few days later, on December 11, 1941, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the U.S. and formed an alliance with the Empire of Japan—the “Axis Powers.”

At Pearl Harbor, America’s first battle in a war that would see an estimated 70-85 million lives lost worldwide, Arizona was moored at berth Fox 7 on “Battleship Row,” alongside the repair ship USS Vestal (AR-4).

Just before 8:00 a.m. on December 7, 1941, Arizona’s air raid alarm sounded. With barely enough time to realize that the alarm was not a drill, the battleship was hit by eight Japanese armor-piercing bombs dropped from horizontal bomber planes. The massive explosion set Arizona ablaze.

Most of the ship’s crewmen perished in the explosion. Arizona quickly settled to the bottom of Pearl Harbor—where she still rests today.

Arizona had 1,512 personnel on board that day. Of the 2,341 U.S. service members lost in the attack on Pearl Harbor, nearly half were aboard Arizona. Fireman Second Class Myron Alonzo Brophy III, age 22—along with 1,177 of his fellow crewmen—is entombed in the hull of the ship, half a world away from the Green Mountains of Vermont.

In Honolulu, Hawaii, F2C Brophy is memorialized at the “Courts of the Missing” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Sources
Artist’s rendering by Craig Du Mez, from an original photo.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency: F2C Myron Alonzo Brophy
The National WWII Museum: Pearl Harbor Attack, December 7, 1941
Naval History and Heritage Command: USS Arizona During the Attack
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency WWII: Report for VERMONT
Together We Served: Brophy, Myron Alonzo, III, F2C
Rutland Daily Herald, May 5, 1942: 2991 Dead On Navy List
Rutland Daily Herald, July 16, 1943: Medal for M.A. Brophy
Traces of War: Brophy, Myron Alonzo
Burial Site: Find a Grave