RM3c Bill Lester Driver

Lester R. “Bill” Driver was born July 2, 1917 in Kemp, Texas. His father, Edgar Driver, was a farmer, and his mother, Hulda Frosch Driver, a homemaker.

The family moved about 300 miles north to Sentinel, Oklahoma, in 1927. The son graduated from Sentinel High School in 1938. He worked for a few months as a cafe helper in Sentinel.

In January 1939, he left Sentinel, population 1,000, to enlist in the Navy.

He married a woman named Loyce in about that same year and they made their permanent home in Long Beach, next to the Arizona’s home port of San Pedro.

Mr. Driver was a radioman and petty officer third class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

In 2017, Oklahoma designated a bridge over Elk Creek on State Highway 44 about two miles south of Sentinel the Bill Lester Driver Memorial Bridge.

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