CM2c Charles Titus Anderson

Two months to the day after sailor Charles Titus Anderson was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, his parents wrote to the Navy.

“Am returning to you (the) form for six months’ gratuity pay,” their letter said. “We started to fill out this form but it seems too much like selling our boy. We gave our son to uncle Sam. We know in our hearts our boy was glad to give his all for his country.”

Charles, born on March 23, 1921, in Evansville, Indiana, was the son of Charles S. Anderson, a steel worker, and Etta Trent Anderson, a homemaker. They had one other son, who was younger.

The Andersons were entitled to six months of their son’s pay. He was a carpenter’s mate second class, which made the $564 total payment no small sum. The average American family back then earned about $2,000 a year.

His parents also wrote that if thousands of families received the death payment “what would be left to fight the yellow snakes with.” They concluded with this: “We are proud he died defending the greatest and best country in the world. We want to do our bit to keep it so.”

The family had moved from Indiana to California before 1930. The 1940 Census showed them in Elsinore, where young Mr. Anderson finished high school. He also worked as a farm tractor driver for two years. He enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 10, 1939.