S2c Russell Lee Moorman

Russell Lee Moorman was born July 3, 1923 in Pratt, a town of about 5,000 some 75 miles west of Wichita, Kansas. His father, Russell S. Moorman, worked in the poultry business and his mother, Cora Clark Moorman, was a homemaker.

By 1930 the family had moved to Maricopa County, Arizona – possibly north of downtown Phoenix – and the father was described in the Census as a poultryman. By April 1935 the family was in Glendale, California and by the spring of 1940 he was a buyer for a poultry business. The Census said son Russell was still in high school in 1940 and had completed one year.

The son enlisted in the Navy on Jan. 31, 1941. He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was burned in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He was taken to the U.S. Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor, but died there two days later and is buried at O’ahu Cemetery in Honolulu.

His younger brothers also served in the Navy — Charlie in World War II and Bernard in the Korean War.

Sources: Application for military headstone or marker; Census; Navy muster rolls; grave markers. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.

Moorman is one of twelve men who remains interred at the Oahu Cemetery who was killed in action at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Originally there were 459 men buried at the Oahu Cemetery, all but Moorman and eleven others were later moved to the National Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl Cemetery) which is just a short distance from the Oahu Cemetery.