(Publisher’s Note: Patriots, join us for the 2025 Medal of Honor Celebration, the annual gathering of all living recipients hosted by the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center. This is a week-long convention beginning on 30 September, featuring public and private events to celebrate American Patriots whose heroic acts of valor have forever shaped our nation’s story. The Patriot Awards Gala is the capstone dinner on Saturday, 4 October. Learn more about corporate, foundation, and individual sponsorship opportunities for this high-profile event before they close. If you have questions, please use the comment link below this profile.)
When folks who know a little bit about historic musicians hear the name “Oscar Peterson,” they think of the Canadian jazz composer and pianist. But there is a lesser-known Oscar Peterson who was the recipient of an award that is far more distinguished than any musician might receive.
Oscar Verner Peterson was born in the small town of Prentice, Wisconsin, at the turn of the last century. He enlisted in the Navy in December 1920, following World War I, at the age of 21. After his initial training, he spent the next two decades on sea duty on various ships.
Watertenders were stationed in the fire rooms of major vessels, where they ensured the ship’s boilers had the correct amount of feed water to generate steam and maintained the safe and efficient operation of the boilers. As a Watertender, Peterson was also responsible for the ship’s feed and freshwater storage system and piping network.
In World War II, he was a Chief Watertender, by today’s ranking equivalent to a Petty Officer First Class. He was assigned to the USS Neosho, a fleet oiler ship tasked with resupplying fuel and other materiel to larger Pacific Theater battle group ships.
On 7 May 1942, five months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Neosho had just resupplied the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier during the Battle of the Coral Sea. That battle, and the U.S. victory at Midway the following month, marked the turning point of the war in the Pacific Theater.
More than 70 Japanese dive bombers and other aircraft attacked the Neosho and a nearby destroyer, USS Sims. Neosho suffered heavy damage in the attack, which lasted almost 20 minutes, an eternity when you are on the receiving end. Peterson and several members of a repair party he was leading were severely wounded in that attack. But that did not deter him from assisting in the closing of critical valves to keep the ship afloat and attending to the wounded, despite his own third-degree burns.
By shutting the bulkhead stop valves, Peterson isolated the steam to the engine room, which helped keep the ship operational and afloat. The Sims was sunk in the attack, and only 15 survivors made it to the Neosho, joining its 123 survivors. After being adrift for four days, thanks in large measure to Peterson’s actions, all the survivors were rescued by the USS Henley, and they scuttled the Neosho to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
Oscar Peterson died of his burn injuries two days after the rescue on 13 May and was ceremonially buried at sea. For his actions that day, he would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor.
His MoH citation notes: “For extraordinary courage and conspicuous heroism above and beyond the call of duty while in charge of a repair party during an attack on the USS Neosho by enemy Japanese aerial forces on 7 May 1942. Lacking assistance because of injuries to the other members of his repair party and severely wounded himself, Peterson, with no concern for his own life, closed the bulkhead stop valves and in so doing received additional burns which resulted in his death. His spirit of self-sacrifice and loyalty, characteristic of a fine seaman, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the service of his country.”
But moreover, as is universally true of Medal of Honor recipients killed in combat, he gave his life for his brothers in arms.
Though awarded the Medal of Honor in 1942, because we were deep in World War II, there was no ceremony at the time for his wife and family. However, in 1943, the U.S. Navy Edsall-class destroyer escort USS Peterson was commissioned in his honor. The ship was decommissioned in 1965.
After Oscar’s death, his wife, Lola, and their two sons, Fred and Donald, moved from California to Richfield, Idaho. Lola died in 1991, and his son Donald in 2008. But on April 3, 2010, 68 years after the Battle of the Coral Sea, thanks to petitions by friends, the Department of Defense arranged a Medal of Honor presentation ceremony for Oscar’s remaining descendants. RDML James Symonds presented Oscar’s Medal and a 48-star U.S. flag (from the era of Peterson’s service) to their surviving son, Fred. A MoH Headstone was placed in the Richfield cemetery.
At the belated ceremony attended by more than 800 people, Symonds observed: “The aftermath for Lola must have been devastating. I believe she would have benefitted greatly by a presentation with more ceremony, with more importance, than receiving her husband’s medal in the mail. She sacrificed much for her country, in a different way, but in no less a terrible way than her husband. And that’s why it’s important for us to be here today.”
Symonds added: “Certainly the first reaction of the family must be, ‘Why my husband? Why my dad?’ Maybe later with time and a perspective fed by other stories, they become, ‘Wow, that was my dad.’”
Of the ceremony, Fred Peterson said: “The thing that got me, I’d put everything back past it. Then it all came back up again. It kind of hurts, kind of like opening up a wound again. … I guess I should be big enough to accept it.”
On 27 June 2025, SecDef Pete Hegseth officially announced that the John Lewis-class replenishment oiler USNS Harvey Milk, unfortunately named for a homosexual activists and pedophile under order of Barack Obama and christened as such under Joe Biden, will be appropriately renamed for Oscar V. Peterson.
CWT Oscar Peterson: Your example of valor — a humble American Patriot defending Liberty for all above and beyond the call of duty and in disregard for the peril to your own life — is eternal.
“Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Live your life worthy of his sacrifice.
(Read more Profiles of Valor here.)
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
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