RM2c George Frederick Maybee

George Frederick Maybee was interested in sound.

His talk about a film sound system called the Vitaphone was one of the most interesting presentations of 1929 at the Santa Rosa (California) High School Science Club, the yearbook reported.

Mr. Maybee, who graduated that year, also belonged to the club that produced the school newspaper and to the Scholarship Society.

He and his older brother, John, studied radio, too. As early as 1932, John was advertising a radio service and repair business he ran out of the family home. Two years later, George became a radio operator at the new Navy Reserve headquarters in Santa Rosa.

George and three other reservists were called to active duty in December 1940.

He was assigned to the U.S.S. Arizona and was in the radio room of the battleship when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. He was a radioman and petty officer second class.

Mr. Maybee was born Nov. 17, 1912 in Alameda County, California to Arthur Maybee, a cabinetmaker, and Edna Karman Maybee, a homemaker. 

George also became a cabinetmaker, working with his father at a shop at their home. The young man reported earning $950 for 52 weeks of work in 1939.

Sources: The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, California; The Petaluma (California) Argus-Courier; 1929 Santa Rosa High yearbook; California birth index; Census; Navy muster roll. The final muster roll for the U.S.S. Arizona said Mr. Maybee enlisted on Jan. 11, 1938, but perhaps that was when he re-enlisted in the Naval Reserve. Yearbook photo. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.