Rusty was living at the Louisville and Jefferson County Children's Home in 1930, then graduated from Ormsby Village High in Anchorage, Kentucky, in 1933.
Enlisted on 29 April 1940 in Louisville, Kentucky
Musician Second Class, 2873939, U.S. Navy
Missing in Action aboard the USS Arizona (BB-39)
Emmett Isaac Lynch had the daily Navy routine down pat.
He knew that at 8 a.m. he would be playing the national anthem to wake up all the sailors aboard the USS Arizona. But 7 December 1941, was different.
The 25-year-old Louisville-raised sailor and Georgetown College graduate was stationed at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. But Lynch wasn't a fighter, he was a musician — the bass drummer in the battleship's 21-member band.
But just minutes before he would have normally picked up his sheet music, Lynch's life became a living hell.
Swarmed by Japanese pilots dropping bombs and strafing the harbor with machine-gun fire, Lynch threw down his instrument and picked up a weapon. For the next 15 minutes, Lynch spent his last breaths fighting for his life. He began shuttling ammunition to his fellow band mates to aid the guns on the main deck, according to an Associated Press story from 1942.
At Georgetown College, Lynch majored in music and minored in economics before graduating in 1939. He was also the vice president of the men's glee club and the treasurer of the school's band and orchestra.
Georgetown College still honors Lynch, awarding a scholarship in his name to one student in financial need every year.
After graduation, Lynch headed to Washington, D.C., and married Lorraine Lee Sisk on 29 October 1940
According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Mr. Lynch had also been a member of the Louisville Symphony. It reported in April 1942 on a concert in memory of him and a woman who had been a board member of the symphony. The orchestra performed Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in B Minor and a member of the chorus of the Young Men's Hebrew Association sang a Hebrew prayer for the soul of the dead, El Malei Rachamim.
"The music closed with these words," the newspaper reported: " 'Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with Thee in the days of Thy youth; and I will establish unto Thee an everlasting covenant.' "
Enlisted on 29 April 1940 in Louisville, Kentucky
Musician Second Class, 2873939, U.S. Navy
Missing in Action aboard the USS Arizona (BB-39)
Emmett Isaac Lynch had the daily Navy routine down pat.
He knew that at 8 a.m. he would be playing the national anthem to wake up all the sailors aboard the USS Arizona. But 7 December 1941, was different.
The 25-year-old Louisville-raised sailor and Georgetown College graduate was stationed at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. But Lynch wasn't a fighter, he was a musician — the bass drummer in the battleship's 21-member band.
But just minutes before he would have normally picked up his sheet music, Lynch's life became a living hell.
Swarmed by Japanese pilots dropping bombs and strafing the harbor with machine-gun fire, Lynch threw down his instrument and picked up a weapon. For the next 15 minutes, Lynch spent his last breaths fighting for his life. He began shuttling ammunition to his fellow band mates to aid the guns on the main deck, according to an Associated Press story from 1942.
At Georgetown College, Lynch majored in music and minored in economics before graduating in 1939. He was also the vice president of the men's glee club and the treasurer of the school's band and orchestra.
Georgetown College still honors Lynch, awarding a scholarship in his name to one student in financial need every year.
After graduation, Lynch headed to Washington, D.C., and married Lorraine Lee Sisk on 29 October 1940
According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Mr. Lynch had also been a member of the Louisville Symphony. It reported in April 1942 on a concert in memory of him and a woman who had been a board member of the symphony. The orchestra performed Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in B Minor and a member of the chorus of the Young Men's Hebrew Association sang a Hebrew prayer for the soul of the dead, El Malei Rachamim.
"The music closed with these words," the newspaper reported: " 'Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with Thee in the days of Thy youth; and I will establish unto Thee an everlasting covenant.' "
Rusty was living at the Louisville and Jefferson County Children's Home in 1930, then graduated from Ormsby Village High in Anchorage, Kentucky, in 1933.
Enlisted on 29 April 1940 in Louisville, Kentucky
Musician Second Class, 2873939, U.S. Navy
Missing in Action aboard the USS Arizona (BB-39)
Emmett Isaac Lynch had the daily Navy routine down pat.
He knew that at 8 a.m. he would be playing the national anthem to wake up all the sailors aboard the USS Arizona. But 7 December 1941, was different.
The 25-year-old Louisville-raised sailor and Georgetown College graduate was stationed at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. But Lynch wasn't a fighter, he was a musician — the bass drummer in the battleship's 21-member band.
But just minutes before he would have normally picked up his sheet music, Lynch's life became a living hell.
Swarmed by Japanese pilots dropping bombs and strafing the harbor with machine-gun fire, Lynch threw down his instrument and picked up a weapon. For the next 15 minutes, Lynch spent his last breaths fighting for his life. He began shuttling ammunition to his fellow band mates to aid the guns on the main deck, according to an Associated Press story from 1942.
At Georgetown College, Lynch majored in music and minored in economics before graduating in 1939. He was also the vice president of the men's glee club and the treasurer of the school's band and orchestra.
Georgetown College still honors Lynch, awarding a scholarship in his name to one student in financial need every year.
After graduation, Lynch headed to Washington, D.C., and married Lorraine Lee Sisk on 29 October 1940
According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Mr. Lynch had also been a member of the Louisville Symphony. It reported in April 1942 on a concert in memory of him and a woman who had been a board member of the symphony. The orchestra performed Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in B Minor and a member of the chorus of the Young Men's Hebrew Association sang a Hebrew prayer for the soul of the dead, El Malei Rachamim.
"The music closed with these words," the newspaper reported: " 'Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with Thee in the days of Thy youth; and I will establish unto Thee an everlasting covenant.' "
Enlisted on 29 April 1940 in Louisville, Kentucky
Musician Second Class, 2873939, U.S. Navy
Missing in Action aboard the USS Arizona (BB-39)
Emmett Isaac Lynch had the daily Navy routine down pat.
He knew that at 8 a.m. he would be playing the national anthem to wake up all the sailors aboard the USS Arizona. But 7 December 1941, was different.
The 25-year-old Louisville-raised sailor and Georgetown College graduate was stationed at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. But Lynch wasn't a fighter, he was a musician — the bass drummer in the battleship's 21-member band.
But just minutes before he would have normally picked up his sheet music, Lynch's life became a living hell.
Swarmed by Japanese pilots dropping bombs and strafing the harbor with machine-gun fire, Lynch threw down his instrument and picked up a weapon. For the next 15 minutes, Lynch spent his last breaths fighting for his life. He began shuttling ammunition to his fellow band mates to aid the guns on the main deck, according to an Associated Press story from 1942.
At Georgetown College, Lynch majored in music and minored in economics before graduating in 1939. He was also the vice president of the men's glee club and the treasurer of the school's band and orchestra.
Georgetown College still honors Lynch, awarding a scholarship in his name to one student in financial need every year.
After graduation, Lynch headed to Washington, D.C., and married Lorraine Lee Sisk on 29 October 1940
According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Mr. Lynch had also been a member of the Louisville Symphony. It reported in April 1942 on a concert in memory of him and a woman who had been a board member of the symphony. The orchestra performed Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in B Minor and a member of the chorus of the Young Men's Hebrew Association sang a Hebrew prayer for the soul of the dead, El Malei Rachamim.
"The music closed with these words," the newspaper reported: " 'Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with Thee in the days of Thy youth; and I will establish unto Thee an everlasting covenant.' "
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