Rodney Shelton Foss

Ensign Foss was born in Monticello, Arkansas on May 8, 1919 to George and Linnie Shelton Foss in the home of his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. R. W. Shelton.

The family moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where Rodney graduated from Pine Bluff High School. He attended the University of Arkansas and Louisiana State University before entering the military. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on September 5, 1940 and received training at Northwestern University in Chicago and was commissioned as an Ensign.

Ensign Foss was stationed to Naval Air station, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, assigned to patrol squadron 11.[1] To prepare for a deployment, one of the VP-11 crews had worked the graveyard shift to install self-sealing fuel cells in the wings of PBY-5 aircraft 11-P4.[2] Foss was the graveyard shift duty officer when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor at 0752 hours, December 7, 1941. Ensign Foss was due to be relieved by the Sunday duty officer in about eight minutes just as Japanese aircraft began strafing the flight line occupied by VP-11 and VP-12 and the two rows of the squadrons' PBY aircraft lined up neatly along the ramp area between the hangar and the sea wall. Because they approached from the north, the Japanese arrived at NAS Kaneohe several minutes before the rest of the attack force reached Pearl Harbor, making the shots fired at Kaneohe the first fired in the attack.[2]

Ensign Foss was struck and killed instantly by a 20mm cannon shell during the first strafing run, making it highly probable that he was the first US casualty in the Pacific Theater. Excepting those Americans who volunteered to serve in allied military forces before the entry of the United States into the war, his would be the first combat death of the second world war. When the Sunday duty officer, Ensign Joe Smartt, arrived at the hangar to relieve Ensign Foss, he found Foss dead.[2]

His body was returned to Monticello and he is interred in Oakland Cemetery.

He was posthumously awarded a Commendation, a Pacific Fleet medal, and a Purple Heart.

The Buckley-class destroyer escort, USS Foss (DE-59), was named in his honor. The ship was christened by his mother on April 13, 1943 at the shipyards in Hingham, Massachusetts.[3]