WWII veteran George Coburn, a survivor of the USS Oklahoma, is seen in his Navy uniform at left and sitting with a display of his military medals. Coburn died April 19, 2023, at the age of 103. (Pearl Harbor National Memorial/Facebook)
(Tribune News Service) — USS Oklahoma survivor George Coburn died April 19 in Oceanside, Calif., at the age of 103, the National Park Service at Pearl Harbor National Memorial announced Wednesday in a news release.
Coburn was born in Mankato, Minn., on Oct. 26, 1919, but his family moved to San Diego shortly after he was born and he grew up in Southern California. He enlisted in the Navy in 1938 and was eventually assigned to the USS Oklahoma. He was on board, completing an inspection of the ship on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese navy launched its surprise attack.
As he and his shipmates began climbing the floors of the vessel to the main deck, several torpedoes hit the ship. The men became trapped under a sealed hatch as the ship quickly listed 45 degrees to its port side.
The blasts ruptured onboard oil tanks, and sailors found themselves slipping in oil that pooled on the floor. The lights were out, and Coburn could hear water pouring into the ship as sailors on a damaged ladder frantically tried to open the hatch to the deck above. They eventually got it open, and as the ship capsized, Coburn and fellow sailors managed to escape through a side porthole that by then was overhead.
They were lucky because 429 of their shipmates remained trapped inside and died in the ship.
Coburn continued to serve throughout the Pacific campaign during World War II. He served aboard the heavy cruiser USS Louisville and took part in several major battles in the Pacific theater. He received the Purple Heart after a kamikaze attack on the Louisville left him with shrapnel wounds during the Battle of Okinawa.
He left the Navy in May 1946. After his military service he continued working for the Navy as a contractor and electrician. He and his wife, Jenny, settled in San Diego, where they raised their two children. After retiring, Coburn and his wife relocated to Vista, Calif. His wife died in 2005.
In a 2020 interview with the San-Diego Union Tribune, as COVID-19 led to lockdowns that shut down Pearl Harbor commemoration events, Coburn said he didn't need commemoration events to remember the Oklahoma.
"Some of that stuff is indelible in my memory," Coburn told the newspaper. "You don't forget something like that."
In the same article, Marie Coburn, one of Coburn's two children, said that despite his traumatic experiences he didn't discriminate against Japanese people like some other veterans of the Pacific theater. She said that was important to her because one of her best friends since age 7 is Japanese American.
"He looked at his military service as a job he did with honor, and he didn't let that poison him or make him bitter," she told the San-Diego Union Tribune. "I'm so grateful for his strength of character to say, 'I was doing my job. So were they.' He didn't hold antagonism. He gave me the freedom to forge one of the best friendships of my life."
(c)2023 The Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Visit The Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
