S1c Harry Anderson

Harry Anderson was born July 25, 1920, in New York.

By 1930 he was living in Lynwood, then a town of about 7,000 near Los Angeles, with his mother, Mary Chamberlain, and step-father, Douglas Chamberlain. He attended Lynwood junior high from 1932 to 1936, completing 10th grade.

Harry was still living with them and two younger half-siblings when the spring 1940 Census was conducted. He’d completed one year of high school and worked 52 weeks in 1939, earning $624 at an unidentified job. That was probably at Central Garden Market, where he was a clerk for three years. But he’d been out of work for two weeks by April 1940 and was seeking new employment. He found it on July 25, 1940, when he enlisted in the Navy in Los Angeles, California. He completed his basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois and boarded the U.S.S. Arizona for duty on October 14, 1940. 

Mr. Anderson was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources: Census; Navy muster roll and enlistment records. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona and Operation 85.