James W. Downing
American military personnel
James Willis Downing (August 22, 1913 – February 13, 2018) was a lieutenant in the United States Navy. He retired in 1956 after 24 years of service, which included being commanding officer of the USS Patapsco. At the time of his death, he was the second-oldest living survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor, about which he authored a book.
Background
Downing was born in Oak Grove, Missouri. At the time of his high school graduation, America was in the Great Depression. Jobs were scarce, so Downing enlisted in the Navy in September 1932. He began serving at Long Beach Naval Shipyard, California, the port for most of the Pacific naval fleet. He became a gunner's mate and postmaster aboard the USS West Virginia.
Pearl Harbor
On the morning of December 7, 1941, Downing and his new wife Morena were staying with his shipmates in Honolulu. The radio announced an attack on the Naval Station Pearl Harbor, and the sailors rushed to the port.
The public source identifies “James W. Downing” as american military personnel. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around James, Downing and American.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48975613. VIAF identifies the subject as 103468541. The Library of Congress control number is n2009078101. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913, 2018, 1956 and 1932.
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This entry incorporates text from “James W. Downing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.