HA1c Sherman Maurice Watts

Sherman Maurice Watts was born Feb. 15, 1918 near Pleasant Plains, Arkansas about 70 miles northeast of Little Rock to Edgar W. Watts, a farmer, and Johnnie Emma Pearce Watts, a homemaker who died when her son was 11.

Sherman graduated in 1937 from the high school in Pleasant Plains, a town of about 150.

By the time of the spring 1940 Census he and an older brother, Albert, lived in Nicolaus, California north of Sacramento. Sherman had completed three years of college, the Census said, and worked 48 weeks in 1939 as a hired hand on a farm, earning $525 – about $10,000 in 2022 dollars. He enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 10, 1940.

Mr. Watts was a hospital apprentice first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. The Arkansas Gazette reported that he had earned an associate’s degree from nearby Yuba City Junior College.

His brother Albert served in the Army from August 1940 through August 1945.

Sources: The Arkansas Gazette of Little Rock, Arkansas; Census; Navy muster roll; Arkansas birth and death certificates. Newspaper photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.