Paxton Turner Carter
USS Arizona
Information provided by Melissa Newcomer.
Paxton Carter's photo abum, with the Arizona
on the cover.
The Navy telegram to Mrs. Carter (signed by Rear Admiral Nimitz) announcing Paxton's death.
The Christmas card Paxton sent to his wife, which was dated December 8, but mailed before the attack.
Paxton, ashore with his nephews Harry and Arthur Dean.  True to his uniform, Arthur (right) is now a naval lieutenant commander at Norfolk, VA.  He arranged for his uncle's memorabilia to be loaned to the Arizona Memorial Museum.
With shipmates undergoing Equator-crossing rites.
An exhibit is being mounted by the National Park Service at Pearl Harbor.  It is in the Arizona Memorial Museum, which stands across the harbor from the somber stretch of mooring known as Battleship Row.  On display are familiar but still horrifying photographs of the Japanese attack that thurned a tranquil Sunday morning into an inferno; in particular, the destruction of the Arizona, with the loss of 1,177 men, whose bodies - all but 75 - are still entombed in the sunken wreck nearby. 

The exhibit also has photographs and memorabilia, recently come to light, that once belonged to an Arizona creman who lost his life that day.  He was the ship's acting pay clerk, Paxton Turner Carter by name, and he had served on the Arizona for his entire seven years in the Navy.  He was evidently a model seaman who rose steadily through theratings.  He was married in 1938, at 26.  "The Navy was his life," says his widow, Edyth, who lives in Downey, California.  "He loved everything about it."  Carter's snapshots celebrate his comradeship with his shipmates and his pride in his ship - an elegy to life aboard the prestigious battlewagons in the palmy days before th war. 

Carter had had premonitions.  On his last leave home in the summer of 1941, he told his father-in-law, "If you ever see me again, we'll be at war - but I don't think I'll ever be back."  And he left his scrapbooks behind, something he had never done before. 

Now on public view for the first time, Carter's poignant records make the tragedy at Pearl Harbor a personal and human experience - even for those who weren't there.
Above are some of Carter's buddies in a strip of head shots made in a shoreside booth (Carter is at left in top picture.)
The First Division on the Arizona whose duty in battle was to man the forward turret of 14-inch guns.  (Carter in the middle row, fourth from right).
A five-inch gun in firing practice
Carter's buddies astride the 14-inch guns of the forward turret.