S2c Clarence Arthur Walters

Clarence Arthur Walters was born in Riverside County, California on Sept. 20, 1922 to Phillip Walters and Nora Brown Walters.

His father worked on a dairy farm and his mother was a homemaker.

In early 1930 the family lived in Colton, population 8,014, a suburb west of San Bernardino. The next year they moved to fast-growing Madera County, California 15 miles northwest of Fresno and less than 10 miles southeast of the county seat, Madera. The county population increased 38 percent from 1930 to 1940 – from 17,164 residents to 23,314.

The 1940 Census said the father was a farm foreman and Clarence Walters had completed the 8th grade and worked 26 weeks in 1939 on a farm, earning $325. The 2022 equivalent would be about $6,300.

He enlisted in the Navy on June 21, 1941, and was killed less than six months later in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona.

At least two of his brothers, Phillip Jr. and Glenn, served in the Army — Phillip in World War II and Glenn in Korea.

Sources: Madera (California) Tribune; Tulare (California) Advance-Register; California birth index; Census; Navy muster roll; application for military headstone or marker. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.