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World War II Honoree

World War II Veteran

John William Coltrane

Branch of Service

U.S. Navy

Hometown

Hamlet, North Carolina

Honored By

Charles Henry Atkinson

Branch Seal
Activity During WWII

enlisted in the Navy on August 6, 1945, the day that the first U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. He was trained as an apprentice seaman at Sampson Naval Training Station in upstate New York before he was shipped to Pearl Harbor, where he was stationed at Manana Barracks, the largest posting of African-American servicemen in the world. While stationed in Hawaii he played clarinet in the Navy band called the Melody Masters.