John Robert Wolverton was born on October 31, 1920 in San Pedro, California, the son of Frank Wolverton and Eva May (Howerton). He grew up in Lomita and moved to Torrance with his parents in the 1930s. He graduated from Narbonne High School in Harbor City, where he was a letterman. Wolverton enlisted in the U.S. Navy on November 14, 1939. He was an Aviation Pilot First Class (AP1c) and received his navy pilot wings at the Pensacola, Florida training station in August 1942.

On May 15, 1943, while part of the crew of Patrol Squadron 54 operating a PBY-5A (“flying boat”) plane on a routine night search mission from Guadalcanal, his plane went missing. The entire crew was lost, and AP1c Wolverton was initially listed as missing in action somewhere in the South Pacific.

No enemy action seen as cause of the loss, but he is listed as dead in the State Summary of War Casualties from WWII…under casualties “resulting directly from enemy action or from operational activities against the enemy in war zones from Dec 7, 1941 to the end of the war.” 

His wife Doris received a letter from him about two weeks before he died, and four of his brothers were in service in the Army, Navy and merchant marines at the time. John Wolverton was awarded the Purple Heart Medal posthumously. He is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines in addition to the Torrance Veterans Memorial Wall.