From the USS Arizona Mall at the University of Arizona Face Book page by Bobbie Joe Buel.
Rosa Sowell Kennington and Van Arthur Kennington lost three sons in wars. Their oldest, child, Lloyd, was killed in France in 1918 during World War I.
Two of their youngest, Charles Cecil and Milton Homer were killed at the start of World War II, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They were both aboard the battleship USS Arizona.
The morning after he received news that Charles and Milton were dead, their father told a newspaper reporter, "I would give all of my boys and I too would fight to pit down such sneaking and deadly enemies as the Japs, Hitler and Mussolini."
He had four more sons and at least one, Marvin, served on a Navy gun crew on a merchant ship.
The father, V.A. as he was known, was a framer and his wife, Rosa, a homemaker. They had fifteen children and resided in Humboldt, a town of about 5,000 in western Tennessee.
Charles, their third youngest, was born March 10, 1920, and enlisted in the Navy on December 5, 1939. Milton was born January 11, 1922, and enlisted in March 5, 1940. Both brothers were Seamen 1st Class on the USS Arizona when they were killed December 7, 1941.
--GreGen
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