George B. Salter  (1916 – 1999) played trumpet in a 20-piece band at Earle Naval Station. According to family, he received the American Theatre Victory Ribbon in 1944.

He was born in Hickory, Mississippi, to Sallie Johnson and Frank Salter, and married his high school sweetheart, Louise Lucille; they had two daughters.  After the war, Salter worked for the Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad, becoming in the process the company’s first African-American crew chief.

Salter, who participated in a Great Lakes reunion in 2003 in Chicago, is the only player in this band that I’ve been able to identify,

Named after Rear Admiral Ralph Earle, chief of the Bureau of Ordnance during World War I, Naval Weapons Station Earle was commissioned on December 13, 1943.

• • • 

Source
“George B. Salter.”  in A Little Known Legacy: The Great Lakes Experience: A Salute to African-American Navy Bandsmen at the Great Lakes Naval Base 1942-45 [Chicago, IL] [Feb. 2003]: 23. Collection of Carl Foster.

Rush, Bobby L. “Tribute to Mr. George Salter.” Congressional Record. 1 Nov. 1999: 27730. Web. 24 May 2021.

–Alex Albright
May 2021