found: New York times WWW site, July 27, 2006(Carl M. Brashear; b. Carl Maxie Brashear, Jan. 19, 1931, Tonieville, Ky.; d. Tuesday [July 25, 2006], Portsmouth, Va., aged 75; son of Kentucky sharecroppers who in 1970 became the United States Navy's first black master diver, and whose story was told in the 2000 movie Men of honor)
found: African American National Biography, accessed April 27, 2015, via Oxford African American Studies Center database:(Brashear, Carl Maxie; sailor, U.S. Navy diver; born 19 January 1931 in Tonieville, Kentucky, United States; joined the U.S. Navy (1948); completed course of training for salvage diver, Naval Training Center Beach Master Unit, Great Lakes, Illinois (1948-1951); graduated as U.S. Navy diver at diving school (1954); first- and second-class diver to saturation diver, master diver (1979), was the first African American to graduate Deep Sea Diving Program, Bayonne, New Jersey; senior chief boatswain's mate (E-7), assigned to the aircraft carrier Tripoli (1960); first amputee to be certified as a diver (1968), first African American U.S. Navy master diver (1970), master chief boatswain's mate (1971); retired as a master chief petty officer (E9) and master diver, U.S. Navy (1979); was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for Heroism in Saving Lives, the Good Conduct medals (eight awards), the Navy Commendation Medal, the Navy Achievement Medal, the National Defense Medal, the China Services Medal, and the Korean Service Medal; died 25 July, 2006 in Portsmouth, Virginia, United States)
