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Who was the first American serviceman or woman to fall while on active duty in WWII? The United States went to war on Dec 7th 1941 even though war not be declared until the 8th and 11th of that month, but its official casualties list begins on the 7th.

Online gives Seaman Second Class Warren McCutcheon of the USS Maryland or Ensign Wesley J Ruth of the USS Oklahoma both navy men of course, but I thought the very first of the four targets that day to get hit was Wheeler Field sitting close to central Oahu, so you would expect an army man at least but there seems to be no mention of an army man anywhere. Even if there was, turns out all those names are wrong anyway.

The very first American serviceman in uniform to lose his life on Dec 7th 1941 was F/O Richard Fuller Patterson of 121 Eagle Sdn RAF, who was shot down on the Belgium coast on that day. Details are few and scarce because the only witnesses were a few Belgium's on the ground, and all info comes from only one, the local police officer Henri Verhelst. This is a tiny extract from a long letter he wrote to Patterson's mother in 1946 who, for over four years, was informed that her son was 'missing', only:

"On that fateful day 7 December 1941, my heart was beating anxiously as my eyes scrutinised the skies - believing, and wanting to believe, that this time again the friendly 'plane would escape the grasp of the enemy.
Alas, fate decided otherwise and it was with a heavy anxious heart that I saw the big bird being massacred. The 'plane which carried your beloved son, its wings broken, flew on towards the sea. But it had to succumb at the edge of that great expanse of water, the North Sea..."

Fuller Paterson was flying a 'Rhubarb', short-range harassing sorties over enemy territory in a Spitfire V W3711, AV-H, and was killed about eight hours before any Japanese bombs dropped on Oahu.

He was born in Richmond Virginia in 1915 and was the heir to the Lucky Strike cigarette empire. Educated at Princeton and Harvard he a great life in front of him but put it aside in 1940 to head to Canada like a lot of other Americans, to join the RCAF. After completing training he was sent to Britain to join 121 Sdn flying Spits, which was an exception because at twenty five the RAF normally considered you too old then to fly fighters. He spent almost a full year flying ops with the squadron until his death.

After the Germans were finished with his body Verhelst buried Fuller Patterson at the village church at Bredene, Belgium, right under the clock tower over which the Spitfire had passed just moments before it crashed, and his grave is still there today, tendered.

By a tragic twist of fate Fuller's younger brother, James, also a fighter pilot, was killed in the very last days of the war, during August 1945, fighting in the Pacific.