S1c Clarence Edward Buhr

Clarence Edward Buhr paid his way from Ratón in far northeast New Mexico to Denver, Colorado to enlist in the Navy on Aug. 10, 1940.

The Navy would have paid for him to travel from its recruiting office in Albuquerque to Denver, but that would have tripled the overall distance of the 218-mile trip from home, so he paid.

By Oct. 14, Mr. Buhr was aboard the U.S.S. Arizona at its home port at San Pedro, California. He was a seaman first class when he was killed in Hawaii in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Mr. Buhr and his twin, Mary Ann, were born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on March 31, 1922.  They were the oldest of 10 children. Their parents were Otto Edward Buhr, a carpenter, and Anna Mary McGraw Buhr, a homemaker. The father served as a mechanic in a machine-gun battalion in World War I.

By 1924 the family lived in Colorado Springs and in 1928 moved to Ratón. The spring 1940 Census said that both Clarence and Mary Ann had completed three years of high school and were still students — indicating that they were to graduate that year. The son also worked at a Safeway grocery for one year.

Most of Mr. Buhr’s siblings served in the war or later, and one, Virgil, died while in the Navy in the Marshall Islands in 1952. Brother Robert enlisted in the Navy on the first anniversary of Clarence’s death and served until 1946. Brothers Jack, Bernard, and Joseph also served in the Navy, as did a sister, Virginia.

Sources: the Albuquerque (New Mexico) Journal; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll, grave markers; U.S. headstone application for military veterans; marriage record. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.