Cleburne Earl Carl Masterson was born March 16, 1902 at Osawatomie, Kansas to Eva Fittell Masterson and Elmer H. Masterson.

By the time of the 1910 Census the family, which included a younger brother, lived in Beatrice, Montana, where the father was a lumber-yard merchant and the mother a homemaker.

By 1920 the family had moved to Pueblo, Colorado, and Cleburne was identified in the Census as an apprentice at an electric company. That was probably the Colorado Steelworks, where he applied in November 1917 and worked off and on, initially as a door boy in the open hearth department and later in the electric department.

He enlisted in the Navy on April 23, 1921 and was discharged when his enlistment was up in March 1925. By that September, he was back in the Navy.

He married Helen Owen in Pueblo on Nov. 2, 1930. The 1940 Census said they made their permanent home in Los Angeles and had a year-old daughter.

Mr. Masterson was a pharmacist’s mate and petty officer first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. His body was recovered and he is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at the Punchbowl in Honolulu.

Mr. Masterson belonged to the Masonic Lodge and was a member of Silver State Lodge #95 in Pueblo.

Sources: The Pueblo (Colorado) Chieftain; Masonic Lodge; Census; U.S. Veterans Administration master index; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; California voter registration; Colorado Steelworks employment record; Colorado marriage record; grave marker. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.