- Rank: Seaman 2nd Class
- Service No: 274-65-13
- Branch: US Navy
- Enlisted: June 17, 1941
- Basic: San Diego NTS
- Rpt For Duty: August 13, 1941
- Home Town: Elizabeth, LA
- Date Of Birth: July 5, 1917
- Age: 24
- Height: 5'-6"
- Disposition: Unrecovered
- Family DNA on File: YES
S2c Wilburn James Ashmore
Wilburn James Ashmore was born July 5, 1917, at Elizabeth, Louisiana. His parents, Lou Ella Cloud Ashmore and William Ashmore, were farmers, according to the 1920 Census.
The son completed 11th grade at the high school in nearby Pitkin, Louisiana, in 1939 and then studied one year at Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now called the University of Louisiana, Lafayette).
He also served in the Civilian Conservation Corps in a company headquartered at Lafayette. The CCC was a Depression-era federal jobs program that 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.
He enlisted in the Navy on June 17, 1941, and went aboard the U.S.S. Arizona on Aug. 13. He was a seaman second class when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor less than four months later.
At least one of Mr. Ashmore’s brothers, Johnny, served in the Army during World War II.