Irvin Andrew Rubin Thompson,born in Weehawken, New Jersey in 1917, but his family moved to Ketchikan First Judicial District, Alaska Territory in 1922, when he was five years old. In his senior year he was class president, and he graduated from Kayhi (Ketchikan High School) in 1935 and then spent a year at the University of Washington in Seattle before being appointed to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Because of his Alaska heritage, he was called "Igloo" by everyone at the Academy. He was serving on the battleship USS Oklahoma and died when the ship capsized and flooded. He was the first Alaskan to be killed in World War II. Initially, Thompson's body was not identified when it was removed from the partially submerged ship several months after the attack and was buried with other "unknowns" in mass graves in Hawaii. Eventually, Irvin Thompson's remains were identified in 2008 and reinterred at the Sacramento National Cemetery in Dixon, California. The Department of Defense chose that site because it was near the home of Thompson's only known living relative.
Father, Andrew A Thompson,
Mother, Margaret P Thompson
Father, Andrew A Thompson,
Mother, Margaret P Thompson
Irvin Andrew Rubin Thompson,born in Weehawken, New Jersey in 1917, but his family moved to Ketchikan First Judicial District, Alaska Territory in 1922, when he was five years old. In his senior year he was class president, and he graduated from Kayhi (Ketchikan High School) in 1935 and then spent a year at the University of Washington in Seattle before being appointed to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Because of his Alaska heritage, he was called "Igloo" by everyone at the Academy. He was serving on the battleship USS Oklahoma and died when the ship capsized and flooded. He was the first Alaskan to be killed in World War II. Initially, Thompson's body was not identified when it was removed from the partially submerged ship several months after the attack and was buried with other "unknowns" in mass graves in Hawaii. Eventually, Irvin Thompson's remains were identified in 2008 and reinterred at the Sacramento National Cemetery in Dixon, California. The Department of Defense chose that site because it was near the home of Thompson's only known living relative.
Father, Andrew A Thompson,
Mother, Margaret P Thompson
Father, Andrew A Thompson,
Mother, Margaret P Thompson
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