San Diego resident Phillip Young shared photos and news clippings with KPBS to tell us about his father, Maurice Young.
Maurice Young was the 3,000th man to enlist in the Navy in San Diego following the attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
He was one of 93 enlistees sworn in at the Balboa Park Spreckels Organ Pavilion on June 7, 1942, six months after the attack.
More than 12,000 others were enlisted in the Navy throughout the United States on the same day, according to a San Diego newspaper article. They were called the "Avengers of Pearl Harbor."
At the Balboa Park ceremony, the enlistees stood in a V formation at the organ pavilion at 11:25 a.m., the time that the attack on Pearl Harbor began. At the same time, a group of "avengers" in Washington, D.C., were sworn in. The D.C. ceremony was simultaneously broadcast at the organ pavilion, according to the San Diego newspaper article. The same thing happened at the Navy's 500 recruiting stations across the U.S.
The enlistment ceremony at Balboa Park was witnessed by 4,000 people, according to the Navy newspaper The Hoist.
Maurice was 26 when he was sworn in and from El Centro in Imperial County.
During World War II, he did anti-submarine patrol out of Naval Air Station Banana River, Florida, and ground operational duties at Naval Air Station Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. He was en route to the Pacific Theater near the war's end.
"Thankfully, the two atomic bombs dropped over Japan quickly ended World War II," Phillip Young wrote.
KPBS is collecting your Balboa Park memories as the city marks the 100th anniversary of Balboa Park's 1915 Panama-California Exposition.
Share yours here: Tell us about your Balboa Park memory
