F3c Luster Lee Martin

Luster Lee “Bug” Martin was born March 10, 1916 at Clayton, Oklahoma about 130 miles southeast of Oklahoma City. His father, George William Martin, was a farmer, and his mother, Rella Miller Martin, a homemaker.

The father was alive in September 1918 when he filled out a military registration card, but by the time of the January 1920 Census Mrs. Martin was identified as a widow. She and her three sons, all five and younger, were living with her father, Robert A. Miller, also a farmer, about 30 miles north in Quinton, Oklahoma.

She soon married Ervin Whittington and lived in Quinton till at least 1927, but in 1930 the family lived in Amarillo, Texas, where the step-father worked at a zinc smelter.

They were back in Quinton by at least late 1932, and the local newspaper briefly mentioned various members of the family during that decade. Two articles named Luster Lee as a member of the Quinton High School class of 1933.

The 1940 Census said he’d completed one year of college but was no longer enrolled. He worked 50 weeks in 1939 as a farm hand and earned $90. He lived on the family farm with his step-father, mother, and four siblings.

Young Mr. Martin left Quinton — population 1,245 — in November 1940 to enlist in the Navy at Dallas, Texas. As an apprentice seaman, his starting pay was $21 a month.

Mr. Martin was a fireman third class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources: The Quinton (Oklahoma) Times; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; military registration cards. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.