S1c Charles Eugene Hardin

Charles Eugene Hardin was a popular student at Monette High School in northeast Arkansas.

“Gene” was president his junior year and reporter his senior year — 1940. The local newspaper said he was elected most popular, best all-around, friendliest, and wittiest boy.

He enlisted in the Navy that November and was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Mr. Hardin was born Aug. 31, 1922 to Charles Edgar Hardin and Lola Goss Hardin. They divorced in 1924. His mother remarried, but her second husband died when Charles Eugene was six. They moved in with his maternal grandparents, the 1930 Census showed, but tragedy struck again when Charles was nine. His grandfather and his mother died within months of each other. Charles  remained with his grandmother through high school.

There is a cenotaph in Mr. Hardin’s memory at Monette Cemetery. His mother is buried there.

Sources: the Monette (Arkansas) Weekly Sun; Census; Navy muster roll; Arkansas marriage, divorce and death records; cemetery records. Ancestry.com photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.