Private Freddie Beaton had served on the U.S.S. Arizona just two months when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.
Mr. Beaton turned 18 on May 17, 1941, and enlisted in the Marines the next month. He trained in San Diego and sailed for Hawaii in October.
He was born May 17, 1923 in Caddo County, Oklahoma, to Charlie Beaton, a carpenter, and Edna Mahan Beaton, a homemaker. The father died when Freddie was 14.
His mother remarried before 1940. The Census for that spring said Freddie was a student in Chickasha, Oklahoma, and had completed 7th grade.