S2c Paul Morgan Whitlock

Paul Morgan Whitlock was born Nov. 8, 1916 in Crawford, Texas 18 miles west of Waco. His mother, Jessie Edwards Whitlock, was a homemaker and his father, William W. Whitlock, a farmer.

The family included nine children, including one who died at birth and another as a toddler. The father died of pneumonia in 1935, when Paul Morgan was 18.

At some point after that, at least part of the family, including Paul Morgan, moved 400 miles south to Los Fresnos, a town of about 475 near Brownsville and the Mexican border along the Rio Grande.

Paul Morgan Whitlock enlisted in the Navy on July 31, 1940. He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars organized a memorial service in his honor at Los Fresnos school in February 1942. American Legion Post 632 in Los Fresnos was named in memory of Mr. Whitlock and another local man, Paul Moses, also killed in World War II.

Mr. Whitlock’s body was not recovered, but his name is engraved on the gravestone of his parents at Osage Cemetery in Osage, Texas west of Crawford.

Sources: The Valley Morning Star of Harlingen, Texas; The Brownsville (Texas) Valley Sunday Star Monitor Herald; the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram; Texas birth and death records; Census; Navy muster roll; grave marker. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.