YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — A career sailor who spent much of the last six months of his life aboard the USS Kitty Hawk — and died after collapsing there — was memorialized Thursday by crewmates.

Petty Officer 1st Class Jose Gonzales was remembered by some 200 sailors at Thursday’s service at the Fleet Theater on the base.

Gonzales, 35, died Monday night at the base hospital about six hours after he was taken off the Kitty Hawk. He’d collapsed at work in the aircraft intermediate maintenance work center, according to Kitty Hawk officials.

The cause of his death was not released pending autopsy results, said Kitty Hawk spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt. But Gonzales’ death occurred from a medical condition and was unrelated to a work injury, DeWalt said.

Gonzales enlisted in the Navy in 1989. Reporting to the Kitty Hawk in May, he was assigned to the aircraft intermediate maintenance department, where he worked as shop supervisor and lead repair technician in the Consolidated Automated Support System shop.

Gonzales is survived by a daughter, Larissa Juarez, and son, Jose Lewis Gonzales Jr., who live with their mother in El Cajon, Calif., DeWalt said, adding that his body is expected to be flown to the United States next week.

As is customary, a member of the Kitty Hawk’s crew will accompany Gonzales’ remains from Japan to the United States, where Gonzales’ family is to receive them. Gonzales was from Buckeye, Ariz.

Migrated