This sailor's name was Donald Wayne Kennedy.  He was born on October 16, 1925 to Walter Francis and Elsie Hazel Kennedy in Grove City, PA.  He attended Grace United Methodist Church for his whole life at home.  He was in the Boy Scouts, in which he received first aid training which would be vital to his Navy assignment.  He also played basketball and tinkered with bicycles as a hobby.  His only job before the war was at the Wilson Aviation Company, where he worked odd service jobs repairing planes and janitorial work.  Kennedy was 17 when the war started.  While still in high school, he would have heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor, Operation Torch, and the Bataan Death March while listening to the radio at home.  He graduated from Grove City High School, and enlisted in Pittsburgh shortly afterword.