S1c Carroll Volney Jr. Lee

Carroll Volney Lee Jr. was born Oct. 19, 1920 in Long Beach, California, where his father worked for a ship building company. His mother, Ella, was a homemaker.

By 1930 the family had moved to central Texas, and by 1940 they were in Maverick County  bordering Mexico in the southern part of the state.

The son attended Eagle Pass High School. He reported working 32 weeks in 1939 for $150 as a sanitary engineer for the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program.

Young Mr. Lee enlisted in the Navy on Aug. 12, 1940. He 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.

Sources: Census; California birth index; cenotaph at Hill Crest Cemetery in Gillespie County, Texas; family grave marker; Navy muster roll. Navy rolls show Mr. Lee’s first name as Carroll, though the California birth index says it was Carrol. His father signed his World War I draft registration card as Carrol but his World War II card as Carroll. The father’s gravestone says Carol. The son’s cenotaph says C.V. The photo is from the 1942 Eagle Pass High School yearbook. The friend in the photo was not on the Arizona. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.