This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Andy Hill, LCDR
to remember
Peterson, Oscar Vernon, CWT.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Prentice, WI
Last Address 3743 Highland Ave San Diego, CA
Casualty Date May 13, 1942
Cause KIA-Died of Wounds
Reason Burns
Location Pacific Ocean
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Richfield Cemetery - Richfield, Idaho
Wall/Plot Coordinates Block 9w Lot 3 (memorial marker)
After Peterson's death, his widow and and two sons Fred and Donald moved from California to Richfield, Idaho. Mrs. Lola C. Peterson wrote to thank the Saturday Evening Post for an article; they published her letter and a picture of her husband and sons in a later issue.
Lola, accompanied by her son Lewis Fred and sister, Nell Albert, went to Orange, TX, where she christened a new United States Navy destroyer the U.S.S. Peterson, on May 15, 1943. A training camp at the Farragut Naval Training Center in north Idaho was also named Camp Peterson in his honor. It was decommissioned in 1946.
In 1980 a 6.5 million dollar building was completed at the fleet training center in San Diego and called the Peterson Engineering Building. Donald and his wife of Arizona attended the dedication.
His wife Lola died in 1991, and his son Donald in 2008. On April 3, 2010, sixty-eight years after the Battle of the Coral Sea, a Medal of Honor presentation ceremony was held to amend for the one Peterson's wife never received. Rear Admiral James A. Symonds presented the medal and a forty-eight star U.S. flag to Peterson's surviving son, Fred. May we never forget those who gave their lives for our country.