Every name, and the document behind it

The eight — 27 October 1943

Killed aboard Cony in the air attack over the Treasury Islands. The Navy's history records the count — eight killed, ten wounded — but not the names. The ship's own action report names them — four killed in the attack, four who died of their wounds — and the same eight stand in the U.S. Navy Memorial's tribute to the ship and in the wartime casualty lists filed with the National Archives.

• Seaman Second Class · USNRMario Earl BalistreriSan Francisco, California
• Seaman Second Class · USNRBernard BarneyBrooklyn, New York · Navy Cross, posthumous
• Seaman First Class · USNRHoward William BuntingHonesdale, Pennsylvania
• Seaman First Class · USNRClaude Ballentine DentonCouncil Bluffs, Iowa
• Steward's Mate Second Class · USNRHerman Matthew JohnsonOxon Hill, Maryland · buried Honolulu
• Shipfitter First Class · USNRCharles Francis McCluskeyBoston, Massachusetts
• Gunner's Mate First Class · USNBenjamin Clay MottMountain Grove, Missouri
• Seaman Second Class · USNRHarry Edward NelsonChisholm, Minnesota

Places given are the next-of-kin homes of record in the wartime casualty lists, except where noted. Seaman Barney was critically burned fighting the fires the bombs started; he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross — the citation records that although fatally burned he volunteered for the repair party "and contributed materially to the survival of his ship." He was later reinterred at Oakwood Cemetery, Penfield, New York. Steward's Mate Johnson rests at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu. For Seaman Nelson, the casualty-list compilation once marked the next-of-kin pairing probable; the ship's own action-report transcription independently names him — Harry Edward Nelson, whose parents' home was Chisholm, Minnesota — and the two lines agree, so the name prints plainly. Gunner's Mate Mott prints USN per the casualty lists; the action-report transcription records him as USNR, a conflict the site notes rather than resolves.