CPL Burnis Leroy Bond

Burnis Leroy Bond was a Mississippi farm boy.

A brief October 1936 news article mentioned that he was one of three Stone County 4-H Club members participating in a pure-bred pig project.

His life soon changed. By the next summer, just as he turned 18, he enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps — a federal Depression-era jobs program — and was sent to North Carolina.

When his service ended, he returned to his hometown of Wiggins about 40 miles northwest of Biloxi. His father, John, died unexpectedly in 1938 while tending to his cows. The son attended Wiggins High and played on the football team.

It remained difficult for young men to find work, though, so in March 1940 Burnis Bond left Wiggins — population 1,141 — and took the course of many others his age. He joined the military. He was a Marine Corps corporal on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Survivors described Mr. Bond, burned nearly black, directing his 5-inch gun crew just before the bombed battleship exploded, sank, and had to be abandoned.

His body was one of the few recovered from the Arizona. After the war his remains were returned to Wiggins, where military rites were performed at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post, which by then had been named in his memory. A church service took place at Wiggins Baptist. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.

Mr. Bond was born July 26, 1919. He was survived by his mother, Ellen Sinclair Bond, a homemaker. At least one brother, J. L. Bond, served in the Coast Guard in World War II.

He was a member of the Arizona’s whale boat team, which was runner-up in the Pacific fleet championship races in the fall of 1941.

Sources: Stone County (Mississippi) Enterprise; Biloxi (Mississippi) Daily Herald; the Hattiesburg (Mississippi) American; U.S. Headstone Application for Military Veterans; Census; Navy enlistment records; grave markers. Note: Mr. Bond’s birth year in some Marine records is 1918, but that is wrong. When his mother applied for his grave marker she said the year was 1919. In the January 1920 Census he was 5 months old, matching a birth date of  July 26, 1919. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.