S2c Walter Ray Barner

Walter Ray Barner was born Nov. 13, 1921, in Wichita Falls, Texas. His mother, Frances, was then a homemaker and his father, Robert, a house painter.

By the time of the spring 1940 Census, Walter had completed 8th grade and worked as a quarry laborer for the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program for young men. 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.

As in many families during that time, all adults in the household were working to make ends meet — the father and two older sons in construction, and the mother doing laundry out of their home. Four younger children were in school.

Walter enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 18, 1940. He went aboard the U.S.S. Arizona in January 1941 and was a seaman second class when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Three brothers also served during World War II — Roy in the Army Air Corps, Arthur in the Navy, and Joseph in the Marines. A sister, Gracie, worked during the war at a factory that made electric motors for bombs. In all, there were seven children in the family.

Sources: the Wichita (Texas) Daily Times; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster rolls; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs death file; application for military headstone; grave markers.This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.