From left to right: Ensign Delmore Sederstrom; The USS Sederstrom at sea; A bell from the USS Sederstrom. regonian Delmore "Verdi" Sederstrom died during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was a graduate of Salem High School in 1935 and the University of Oregon in 1940. Sederstrom was commissioned Ensign, Supply Corps, U.S. Naval Reserve, on January 17, 1941. He later served on the battleship USS Oklahoma. In 1943 the Navy commissioned the USS Sederstrom in his honor. The ship was a destroyer escort, a smaller version of the destroyer. It served in various locations in the Pacific during the course of the war. On duty off the coast of Okinawa in 1945, the ship was targeted by a kamikaze pilot. It escaped disaster when its anti-aircraft guns damaged the suicide plane enough to cause it to crash into the water about 10 feet off the starboard bow. Gasoline and pieces of metal rained down on the bridge and forecastle but the ship suffered no major damage. The Sederstrom was decommissioned at the end of the war and scrapped in 1947. O.H. Duncan, a classmate of Sederstrom in the Salem High School class of 1935, served on the ship during the war. A bell from the USS Sederstrom is on display in a case in the Veteran's Affairs Building in Salem. Sources: Salem Statesman Journal, June 13, 1995 page 2d USS Sederstrom history: http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/escorts/de31.txt On to Other Resources Casualties | Arizona | Football | Oregon Responds | USS Sederstrom | Other Resources | Exhibit Home Oregon State Archives Home