Carroll Volney Lee Jr. was born Oct. 19, 1920 in Long Beach, California, where his father worked for a ship building company. His mother, Ella Watkins Lee, was a homemaker.

They parents were native Texans and an infant son died there in 1913.  The family moved to Long Beach in about 1918. A 10-year-old daughter died there of a heart condition in 1922. By 1930 the family had returned to Texas.

Carroll Jr. attended Eagle Pass High School for two years, ending in 1938.

He then served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program. The CCC, as it was known, 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 worked at CCC Co. 3808 at San Antonio, New Mexico, and was there when he applied to the Navy in June 1940.

He enlisted on Aug. 12, 1940 and 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.

There is a cenotaph for him at Hill Crest Cemetery at Morris Ranch in Gillespie County, Texas. His parents and only sibling who survived to adulthood (Cynthia) are buried there.

Sources: Census; California birth index; cenotaph at Hill Crest Cemetery in Gillespie County, Texas; family grave marker; Navy enlistment records and muster roll. Navy rolls show Mr. Lee’s first name as Carroll, though the California birth index says it was Carrol. His father signed his World War I draft registration card as Carrol but his World War II card as Carroll. The father’s gravestone says Carol. The son’s cenotaph says C.V. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.