Donald Standly Hultman was born at Dassel, Meeker County, Minnesota on April 11, 1922. His father, Oscar, managed the pool hall in the town of about 800, and his mother, Ruth Olson Hultman, was a homemaker. The parents divorced after 1930.

The 1940 Census said the son had completed two years of high school and was working as a truck driver for a reforestation project. Judging by his pay — $360 in 1939 — he likely was employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC, a Depression-era federal jobs program, employed single men 18 to 25 to plant trees, build roads and trails and make other improvements to public land, forests and parks. The men lived at camps across the country and were provided a bed and three meals a day. Of their $30 monthly pay, $25 was sent to their families.

Donald went to Minneapolis and enlisted in the Marines on Oct. 10, 1940. He traveled with two other men from Meeker County. The other men were Russell Duane Wittenberg — who was accepted — and Clifford Ailie, who was rejected because he was color blind.

Hultman and Wittenberg were assigned to the U.S.S. Arizona, and both were killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Mr. Hultman was a private first class and Mr. Wittenberg a private.

Mr. Hultman’s body was not recovered after the attack. There’s a cenotaph in his memory at Dassel Community Cemetery. Mr. Wittenberg’s body was recovered and is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at the Punchbowl in Honolulu.

The third friend, Mr. Ailie, was drafted into the Army after the war started. He served until August 1945.

Sources: the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Fayette (Iowa) County Leader; The Courier of Waterloo, Iowa; the Dassel-Cokato (Minnesota) Enterprise Dispatch; Evangelical Lutheran Church in America records; Census; Marine Corps enlistment records and muster rolls; Iowa birth record; U.S. National Cemetery Interment Control Form. Marine photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.