Seaman Second Class Pete Turk

Seaman Second Class Pete Turk of the U.S. Navy was killed in action on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the day President Franklin Roosevelt described as "a date which will live in infamy,” the day that marked America’s entry into World War II. Seaman Turk was stationed on the USS California in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, and his passing was a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that resulted in more than 2400 American lives lost that day. Turk was 20-years-old. The California itself lost around 100 more crewmen and slowly settled at the bottom of Pearl Harbor where it came to rest on 10 December until its resurrection and modernization to join the fleet again in 1944.

Pete Turk was born on March 8, 1921, in Roseland, Kansas to John and Josephine Turk. Until joining the service, he lived in Roseland his whole life. His niece Carmen Eakes remembers his visits to her family home when she was a little girl. At age 19, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy on September 24, 1940, in Kansas City, Missouri. Leaving his home town and after completing boot camp, he found himself reporting for duty aboard the USS California, flagship of the Battle Force, on November 25, 1940.

From the lowlands of Cherokee County in southeast Kansas to the tropical Territory of Hawaii from under the waters of the Pacific where the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Lab identified him and back to the mainland, Seaman Turk returns to where his remains will be laid to rest in the rolling Flint Hills in northeast Kansas just west of Manhattan and east of Ft. Riley at the Kansas Veterans Cemetery, no longer far away from those family members who remain. Johnson Funeral Home in Junction City, at the Eakes family request, has been given the honor of conducting this service for Pete Turk.