Motor Machinist’s Mate 3rd class, David Crockett Lowrey, Jr. was born 17 May 1912 in Waco, Texas. His father, David C. “Buck” Lowrey, Sr., was born in Tennessee and his mother, Florence Wilmeth Lowrey, was born in Texas. David had one older and one younger sister.

When David was five years old, his family moved to Arizona where his parents owned and operated a trading post north of Tuba City. Later, his father would open and manage two trading posts and a tourist lodge all located on the Navajo Reservation. David’s parents spent the rest of their lives in Arizona until his mother died in 1950 and his father died in 1959.

Although David spent most of his youth living on the Navajo Reservation, he attended school in Flagstaff and was a graduate of Flagstaff High School. By 1935, David was a student at Arizona State Teachers College (present-day Northern Arizona University). After one year of college, David became the proprietor of Lowrey’s Texaco Station in Flagstaff. On 12 March 1939, David married Clara Mertens and the couple established their home near the station.

On 20 August 1943, David was one of 21 men inducted into the U.S. Naval Reserve at the Naval Reserve Office in Phoenix, Arizona. By early March 1944, Fireman 1st Class Machinist’s Mate, David Crockett Lowrey, Jr., arrived on board the USS Salute AM-294, a newly commissioned minesweeper docked in Bremerton, Washington. He would serve on this ship for the next fifteen months.

Later that month, the Salute sailed from San Francisco for Hawaii. From there, the ship escorted convoys for the next six months until she joined Mine Division 34 near a group of islands in the Philippines in October 1944. In July of this same year, David’s rank was changed to MoMM3c(T) due to the Navy’s realignment of enlisted ranks.

Over the next eight months, the crew of the Salute, along with her division, carried out extensive minesweeping operations in the Pacific Theater and cleared multiple enemy harbors for subsequent invasion forces. In February 1945, the Salute and the other ships in her division performed continuous minesweeping support prior to the pivotal battles of Corregidor and Manila Bay. This outstanding pre-invasion support played a crucial role in the success of these engagements and earned the crews of the Mine Division 34 a Navy Unit Commendation.

Throughout the Spring of 1945, the Salute continued pre-invasion sweeps of bays and harbors in the Philippines and then sailed with the division to prepare for landings in Borneo.

On 08 June 1945, the Salute was leading three other minesweepers through Brunei Bay about three miles off the coast of Borneo when it struck a mine. According to a Navy Department press release, dated 21 August 1945, the Salute “collided with a shallow contact mine” that blasted “a hole through the center of the 184-foot minesweeper.” The explosion occurred “amidships, beneath the forward engine room, ripping out steel from the keel to the quarterdeck,” killing David Crockett Lowery, Jr., MoMM3c(T) along with eight other crew members.

In the aftermath of the explosion, other nearby ships quickly sent help to rescue survivors and treat the wounded. Although salvage vessels tried to keep the Salute afloat, she eventually “sank about seven hours after the blast.”

Due to the manner in which David was killed, his body was never recovered, and his official status was changed to Killed in Action on 06 August 1945. As such, David was presumed Buried at Sea and his name is listed among the 36,286 names inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines (see photo in the Gallery). David's sacrifice is also noted on a marker shared with his mother in Safford City Cemetery, Safford, Arizona.

After the war, the members of Flagstaff’s local Disabled American Veterans post honored David’s memory and that of another local fallen Marine by renaming it the Lowrey-Sedillo D.A.V. post. In 1949, Flagstaff High School dedicated a Memorial Gymnasium that had been built in honor of its alumni and teachers who served during World War II. David Lowrey’s name is inscribed on the special section of the plaque that pays tribute to the fifteen former FHS students who died during the war.

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Thank you MoMM3c David C. Lowrey, Jr. for your service and your sacrifice. You will not be forgotten.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

As part of the ongoing ‘Stories Behind the Stars’ project, members of the West Valley Genealogical Society and Library (www.azwvgs.org) located in Youngtown, AZ – the largest genealogical library in Arizona – are working to write stories about the heroes who fought and died during World War II. We honor them by sharing their life stories, photographs, and more in memory of their ultimate sacrifice for this country.

SBTS/Arizona/Coconino

David C Lowrey, Jr