William Frank Vaughan was a pharmacist’s mate and petty officer second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

He was survived by his wife, Madeline Dickerhoof Vaughan, and their 18-month-old daughter, as well as by his father, Joseph Vaughan. His mother, Emily Sargeant Vaughan died in 1934. The parents were English immigrants.

William was born April 22, 1913 in Rochester, New York. The family moved to Santa Monica, California after 1919. The 1930 Census said the father was a janitor and the mother a homemaker. William attended Santa Monica High School from 1930-1931. He worked at a dental lab in the Central Tower from 1931 to 1933.

He also served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program.  The CCC, as it was known, employed single men 18 to 25 to plant trees, build roads and trails and make other improvements to public land, forests and parks. The men lived at camps across the country and were provided a bed and three meals a day. Of their $30 monthly pay, $25 was sent to their families.

Willliam served in camp Co. 993 in Calaveras County. One of his superiors there told the Navy that Mr. Vaughan was a “fine young man of excellent character.”

Sources: The Santa Monica (California) Evening Outlook; the Wilmington (California) Daily Press; Census; grave markers; immigrant record; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; birth record; Social Security. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.