Clyde Donald Shaw was born Feb. 1, 1917 in Yoder township, Ohio. His father, George, was a farmer and his mother, “Nannie” Sellers Shaw, a homemaker.

The father died in March 1918. By 1920 the Census said the mother was a farmer in Perry Township near Lima. Ohio. Nannie was the head of a household that included four of her children, one of them an older son who was married and had a small son. 

By 1930 Clyde and his mother lived with the family of another older brother, a grocery store salesman, in Lima, population 42,287.

Clyde attended Central High School in Lima through 7th grade, then worked two at Superior Coach Co. in the city. He enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 7, 1940 in Cincinnati, Ohio and completed his basic training at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Arizona and reported aboard for duty on December 9, 1940. 

His brother Salone was 43 when he died in January 1941. Clyde Shaw, a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona, was killed that Dec. 7 in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

A memorial service conducted by the minister from South Side Church of Christ at his mother’s home on Dec. 28 paid tribute to the second son to die that year. Their mother lived seven more years.

Sources: the Lima (Ohio) News; The Dayton (Ohio) Herald; Census; Ohio birth record; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; grave markers. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.