Mack Lawrence Smith was born March 26, 1918 at Stillwater, Oklahoma. His mother, Margarett Clementine Mullinix Smith, was a homemaker and his father, James A. Smith, a farmer.

His mother died in January 1928 and his father remarried the next year.  The son attended Stillwater High School, completing 8th grade in 1932. He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program.  It 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. He served in Co. 1671 at Jamestown, Tennessee.

Young Mr. Smith enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 4, 1940. He was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources: Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; the Stillwell (Oklahoma) Democrat-Journal. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.