Edna Lee Ward walked into a newspaper office in Portsmouth, Va., early in 1942 carrying a picture of her son, who was in the Navy. He had been declared missing in action after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
His name was David Walker. He was 19. He had dropped out of his African American high school to serve as a mess attendant in the segregated Navy. He had been on the battleship USS California when it was hit and sunk, and she had just learned that he was probably dead.
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