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PFC Clarence Rankin Patterson
Clarence Rankin Patterson Jr. was born April 9, 1920 in Oklahoma. His father was a farmer and his mother, Lillian Beale Patterson, a homemaker.
The parents were native Texans, and it appears that their stay in Oklahoma lasted five years at most before they moved back to Texas, where the father became a truck driver in Plainview about 75 miles south of Amarillo.
By the time of the spring 1940 Census Clarence Jr. was living with an older brother and his family in Amarillo. He had completed the 8th grade and was a fountain clerk at a drugstore. He worked 40 weeks the previous year and earned $400.
Mr. Patterson enlisted in the Marines on Aug. 14, 1940, and was a private first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec, 7, 1941.
He was survived by his widow, Jadene L., who lived in Long Beach, California, near the Arizona’s home port of San Pedro.
Sources: the Amarillo (Texas) Daily News; Census; U.S. Navy casualty book. Marine photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.