GM3c Anthony August Vosti

Anthony August Vosti was born Dec. 20, 1920 in California to Basil Vosti, a Swiss immigrant, and Cora Albertini, a native Californian.

The 1930 Census showed him living in Gilroy, California 30 miles south of San Jose with his mother, who worked in a private home, and his sister.

A 1936 article in the Salinas Morning Post said Anthony was a newsboy for the paper and aspired to attend college and become a machinist. He was 15 and a freshman at Salinas Union High School.

He was also an active Boy Scout, rising to the level of senior patrol leader for Troop 68 in Salinas. Mr. Vosti was living with friends when his mother, by then a waitress, was murdered in February 1937.

He enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 7, 1939.

Tragedy struck again in February 1940 when his father, a janitor in Salinas, killed himself.

And then, on Dec. 7, 1941, Anthony, a gunner’s mate and petty officer third class on the U.S.S. Arizona, was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

A fellow Boy Scout, Erminio Joseph Brignole, also died on the battleship. They had participated together in many Scout activities.

Sources: Santa Cruz (California) Sentinel; The Californian of Salinas; Salinas Morning Post; the San Francisco Examiner; California marriage license; Census; Navy muster roll. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.