S1c Ballard Burgher Cobb

Ballard Burgher “Buck” Cobb was born Jan. 2, 1921, at Dallas, Texas. His mother, Josephine McCracken Cobb, was a homemaker and his father, William Cobb, a farmer. They were Baptists.

Ballard, the fourth of their five children, was 12 when his father died of a hemorrhaging gastric ulcer. Six years later his mother was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver while returning from the grocery store.

Ballard was a student at Sunset High School in Dallas, but stayed for just two years. By the time of the spring 1940 Census he was living with an uncle and his family and working as a messenger for the telegraph company. He worked 52 weeks in 1939 and earned $780. He also served in the 112th Cavalry of the Texas National Guard.

Mr. Ballard enlisted in the Navy on Aug. 6, 1940, as an apprentice seaman earning $21 a month. He was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

His brother John also served in the Navy during World War II and his brother Harvey in the Army.

Sources: the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman; Texas birth index; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls; Texas death certificates; 1936 Sunset High School yearbook; Army enlistment record. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.