I spend many hours researching each profile prior to publication. Some have a development period of just a few days, while others have sat in various stages of completion for more than a year. I often work on a piece until I hit a wall, and then shift gears while I wait for a solution. As this project approached the five-year mark, I decided to present some work in its incomplete, unpolished state. As an article is finished, I will publish a full-length article and remove it from this page.
The reasons each story is on hold varies. In many cases, I am waiting for my next visit to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, to obtain unit records which contextualize the servicemember’s experiences, or photos to better illustrate the piece. In other cases, I am waiting to obtain morning reports or personnel files that may shed light on a servicemember’s career. In a few cases, I’m stumped by a mystery and fear publishing inaccurate information.
One of the motivations in presenting these briefs is the hopes that family members of the fallen—or somebody with information about the man or his unit—may stumble across them and provide assistance in getting them across the finish line. Bibliographies and acknowledgments have been omitted until final publication. Completed articles are removed from this page.
Sergeant William A. Rittenhouse (1917–1943)
Author’s note: This piece incorporates some text from my previous article, Sergeant Paul E. Hayden (1911–1943), who lost his life in the same incident.
Early Life & Family
William Alexander Rittenhouse was born in his parents’ home, 803 West 3rd Street in Wilmington, Delaware, late on August 17, 1917. He was the third child of a shipyard riveter, George Rittenhouse (1888–1968), and Pearl Anna Rittenhouse (née Walls, c. 1893–1927). He had two older sisters, Virginia Pearl Rittenhouse (later Carden, 1912–1998) and Georgia Rittenhouse (1915–1938). The Rittenhouse family was still living at 803 West 3rd Street when the census was taken in January 1920.
By the time Rittenhouse was 10, his family had moved to 531 East 8th Street in Wilmington. Tragedy struck the family when, on November 22, 1927, Rittenhouse’s mother succumbed to tuberculosis at the family home, about a year after she was first diagnosed.
The Rittenhouse family was not recorded on any known indexed 1930 census records, though other census records state he was living in Wilmington as of April 1, 1935. All his known addresses from 1935 onward were on the south side of the Christina River in Wilmington, known today as Southbridge.
Rittenhouse’s home of record was Commerce Street in Wilmington when he married Eleanor Laura Haas (1918–2018) in Wilmington on December 12, 1935. At the time, he was working for the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.). [There should be more information available in C.C.C. enrollee files at NARA St. Louis, but his has not been digitized yet.] The couple had two sons and three daughters, the youngest daughter born after (or around the time) he went overseas.
On June 23, 1938, Rittenhouse lost his older sister, Georgia, also to tuberculosis.
Rittenhouse was recorded on the next census in April 1940 living with his wife and three children at 615 Church Street. His occupation was described as a laborer for the Pullman Company.
The 1940 census recorded that Rittenhouse dropped out of school after completing the 8th grade. Similarly, his enlistment data card stated that his highest completed level of education was grammar school.
When Rittenhouse registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, he was living at 615 Church Street. His employer was listed as the Pyrites Company on Christiana Avenue in Wilmington. The registrar described him as standing about five feet, 6½ inches tall and weighing 174 lbs., with brown hair, hazel eyes, and a “Scar across bridge of nose[.]” On the other hand, according to his military paperwork, Rittenhouse stood five feet, 4¾ inches tall and weighed 165 lbs., with brown hair and hazel eyes. An undated alteration to Rittenhouse’s draft card indicated that he moved to 315 Bradford Street. Curiously, his father also told the Public Archives Commission that Rittenhouse’s prewar address was 1237 Lobdell Street.
Rittenhouse’s occupation was recorded as welder or flame cutter on his enlistment data card and burner on his father’s statement for the Public Archives Commission.
Military Career
Early in the war, men who had been fathers at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor had been deferred from conscription. Had he not chosen to volunteer for the U.S. Army, he would not have been drafted until November 1943 at the earliest. Nonetheless, he voluntarily enlisted. Rittenhouse’s father told the Public Archives Commission that his son joined the U.S. Army in Wilmington on November 5, 1942. On the other hand, his enlistment data card stated that he joined the Army in Camden, New Jersey, on November 6, 1942.
He was briefly attached unassigned to Company “A,” 1229th Reception Center, Fort Dix, New Jersey. By November 8, 1942, he had been classified as semiskilled, with the specification serial number code most closely matching his civilian work experience recorded as 341, shop maintenance mechanic. That did not necessarily mean that the Army intended to use him in that capacity. A set of orders came down that day dispatching him by rail the following day to join the 31st Signal Construction Battalion at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. In the same group was a fellow Delawarean who had enlisted on the same day, Donald Blair Ellis (1922–1943).
Documentation is little unclear, but it appears that Rittenhouse and Ellis were in a group of 198 men from the 1229th Reception Center who joined Company “B,” 31st Signal Construction Battalion, on either November 10 or 12, 1942. The battalion had been activated at Camp Atterbury on August 17, 1942, and fillers were still flowing into the unit. During World War II, it was not uncommon for men to have their basic training directly with their future units under the direction of experienced cadre rather than first attending training at a replacement training center. Some of the men in the battalion were reservists who in civilian life worked for the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company.
Signal construction battalions placed poles and wires to provide vital communications between command posts and other installations behind the lines.
Rittenhouse was promoted to private 1st class on January 4, 1943. He was hospitalized on January 11, which a document in his individual deceased personnel file (I.D.P.F.) indicates was due to a dental issue. He returned to duty on January 19.
Life for families on the home front was never easy, but Rittenhouse’s wife had a particularly traumatic experience. On the night of February 9–10, 1943, an intruder broke into her home at 615 Church Street and armed himself with a butcher knife from her kitchen. She struggled with him, suffering a laceration to her hand before her terrified screams and those of her children caused the suspect to flee.
Rittenhouse was promoted to technician 5th grade on February 22, 1943, the same pay grade as corporal. [Need T/O to try to interpret what job he might have performed.] On February 27, 1943, his unit Battalion departed Camp Atterbury to participate in Second Army Maneuvers. After an overnight stop at Fort Knox, Kentucky, they arrived in Lebanon, Tennessee, on February 28. They remained in the Tennessee Maneuver Area until June 24, when they headed back to Camp Atterbury, arriving the following day after the night at Fort Knox.
Many records pertaining to Rittenhouse’s military career have been lost. What remained of his personnel file after the tragedy that claimed his life was destroyed in the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire. Although morning reports preserve some details about his military career from November 1942 to February 1943, all Company “B” morning reports between March and July 1943 were lost or destroyed before they could be microfilmed. Sometime during that interval, he was promoted to technician 4th grade. [See if rosters have survived.]
A set of movement orders came down on August 4, 1943, ordering a number of units, including the 31st Signal Construction Battalion, to prepare to go overseas as part of Shipment 5198.
On August 9, 1943, Rittenhouse was appointed to the grade of sergeant, which was at the same pay grade as technician 4th grade. [Need earlier T/O&E, requested from WDA] He may have been an assistant team chief, telephone and telegraph.
On August 28, 1943, the battalion began a 25-mile road march as part of a Second Army physical fitness test. They got an early start at 0400, finishing at noon.
On September 22, 1943, the 31st Signal Construction Battalion departed Camp Atterbury by train, arriving the following day at Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia, to enter staging before going overseas. A morning report recorded that on October 1, Company “B” was “presented with cup for winning bn softball championship[.]”
Overseas Service
The battalion was split up for shipment overseas. At 1630 hours on October 2, 1943, Company “B” and a detachment of medical personnel entrained at Camp Patrick Henry, arriving at Newport News, Virginia, 45 minutes later. At 1745 hours, they boarded S.S. Andrew Hamilton, which departed the pier at 1930 hours and anchored at Lynnhaven Roads to the east. Their voyage began in earnest at 0700 hours on October 5 when the transport joined a transatlantic convoy, UGS-20. Portions of the convoy were bound for Port Said, Egypt, though some vessels were scheduled to go into intermediate ports (Oran, Algeria, in the case of Andrew Hamilton).
The 31st Signal Construction Battalion was bound for the China Burma India (C.B.I.) Theater. Far from the public eye, at the end of tortuously long supply lines, and with a fraction of the American personnel deployed to Europe, the Mediterranean, or the Pacific, the C.B.I. was nonetheless vital to the war effort. Enormous numbers of Japanese troops were tied down fighting and occupying China. If China collapsed, those troops could be moved to the Pacific, threatening the Allied island-hopping campaign.
After over two weeks at sea, land finally came into view around noon on October 21, 1943. A few hours later, UGS-20 passed through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea. Andrew Hamilton docked at Oran at 2000 hours on October 22. Around 0950 hours the following morning, Company “B” disembarked and moved to a nearby bivouac site known as Staging Area No. 2. The main body of the 31st Signal Construction Battalion shipped out October 13 aboard S.S. John Harvey, arriving safely in Algeria on November 2.
Although both parts of the battalion were in the same staging area, they were assigned to different ships to continue their journey to the C.B.I. At noon on November 23, 1943, Sergeant Rittenhouse and Company “B” departed their staging area by truck, arriving at 1330 hours at Mers-el-Kébir, Algeria, a port near Oran. Around 1530, they boarded the British transport H.M.T. Rohna. That same day, the main body of the 31st Signal Construction Battalion boarded another ship, H.M.T. Rajula, but they would not ship out for a week.
Completed in 1926, the Rohna had been converted from a passenger liner to a troopship in 1940. On the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1943, Rohna departed Oran with about 2,201 aboard, including about 1,988 American soldiers and Red Cross workers. Rohna joined an eastbound convoy, KMF-26, which was traveling from Scotland to Egypt. The convoy consisted of 17 merchant ships with 10 escorts.
On the morning of November 26, 1943, KMF-26 was discovered by German reconnaissance aircraft flying out southern France. That evening, the convoy was sailing at 12 knots in the Mediterranean Sea north of Djidjelli (Jijel), Algeria, when it came under attack from about 35 German bombers. The attackers came in two waves beginning at 1640 hours. Eight Allied fighters were on patrol in the vicinity of the convoy and Allied controllers scrambled additional aircraft from fields in North Africa, but they were unable to fully blunt the attack.
Among the attacking aircraft were Heinkel He 177s armed with a deadly new weapon, the Henschel Hs 293 guided bomb. The Hs 293 was dropped from the attacking aircraft and briefly engaged a rocket motor. The rocket only had enough fuel for 10 seconds, after which the bomb glided towards the target, controlled by radio from the launching bomber. The weapon was known to the Allies and during the attack, the convoy’s escorts attempted to jam the radio signals guiding the weapons.
In the face of fierce resistance from both Allied aircraft and antiaircraft fire from the convoy—and possibly, the jamming—most of the German ordnance missed. Only one Hs 293 found its mark. This single bomb, however, which exploded in Rohna’s engine room around 1715 hours, during the second wave, was sufficient to cause tremendous loss of life.
In their book, Soldiers Lost at Sea: A Chronicle of Troopship Disasters, James E. Wise, Jr. and Scott Baron wrote:
As Second Officer Willis recorded in his statement, “The bomb struck the engine room on the port side, just above the waterline. The No. 4 bulkhead collapsed.” The bomb explosion caused extensive damage blowing holes in both sides of the ship so large that one survivor recalled, “you could drive a truck through them.” Fires broke out, and power was lost, resulting in no lights, no communication, and no water pressure. An estimated three hundred men died in the initial explosion. Powerless in the dark, and with no other options, Captain [T. J.] Murphy ordered the ship to be abandoned, though lack of power prevented his order from being broadcast throughout the ship.
Rohna slipped beneath the waves around 1830 hours. Wise and Baron added: “The rescue effort was hampered by failing light, high seas, and the loss of a significant number of lifeboats, both from the initial explosion and subsequent mishandling by troops and crewmen.”
According to a contemporary battalion history, “All personnel from Company B got safely off the ship into the water. Survivors, after being in a rough sea for one-half (½) to eight (8) hours, were picked up by allied rescue ships.”
Most of the details of what Sergeant Rittenhouse and his comrades experienced after their ship was hit are forever lost to history, although those of Private 1st Class James Willis Pope (1920–1995) give some idea of the chaos. A commendation in General Order No. 3, Headquarters 31st Signal Construction Battalion, stated that he came to the rescue of Technician 4th Grade William H. Wasp, who had lost his lifebelt:
[Wasp] was unable to swim and after calling to those in the water that he could not swim he dropped into the water. Private First Class Pope dove, caught hold of T/4 Wasp, and swam with him to a lifeboat. When the boat became overcrowded and capsized, Private First Class Pope again took T/4 Wasp in tow and swam with him toward the rescue ship **************. After covering part of the distance Pfc Pope found a life preserver which he placed about T/4 Wasp and continued to tow him to the rescue ship which was reached after being in the water about one hour.
Pope was later awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Few other stories pertaining to Rohna had such a happy ending.
129 men from Company “B” and two men attached from the battalion medical detachment were killed in the sinking, including Sergeant Rittenhouse and Technician 4th Grade Ellis. Another Delawarean was also killed, Sergeant Paul E. Hayden (1911–1943). Approximately 1,149 personnel were lost in the sinking, including about 1,015 American soldiers. (Some sources indicate that 35 Americans died of their wounds after rescue, but it is unclear if those men are included in the figures.)
Other ships from the convoy, most notably the minesweeper U.S.S. Pioneer (AM-105), rescued hundreds of survivors. A preliminary count reported that of 259 men in Company “B” aboard Rohna, Pioneer had rescued 84 men, the British destroyer H.M.S. Atherstone (L05) rescued 16 men, and S.S. Clan Campbell rescued another 10, a total of 110 survivors. Based on the fatality figure, it appears that another 18 men were eventually located alive, some of them wounded.
The Rohna incident represents the greatest loss of American soldiers due to the sinking of any troopship in history. In terms of American losses aboard ships in World War II, Rohna was exceeded only by the loss of the battleship U.S.S. Arizona (BB-39) during the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Japanese hellship Arisan Maru.
The Germans achieved few subsequent successes with their guided antiship ordnance. Historian Steven J. Zaloga has argued this largely due to increasing Allied air superiority, which suppressed German airbases before their bombers could even take off and either shot down or drove off others before they could attack. Allied intelligence coups, such as capturing a pair of Hs 293s, may have also played a role.
A summary of an American investigation included in Sergeant Rittenhouse’s I.D.P.F. noted:
An investigation of the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the “S. S. ROHNA” reveal the contributing factors in the extreme loss of life, and the unusual proportion of unrecovered remains, to be:
- The terrific effect of the explosion.
- The poor condition of the ship’s equipment and the conduct of its crew.
- The difficulties encountered in the rescue operations.
Sergeant Rittenhouse was initially held as missing in action, which Journal-Every Evening reported on January 17, 1944. With no indication that he could have survived or been taken prisoner, he was declared dead on May 5, 1944. On June 21, 1944, Journal-Every Evening announced that Rittenhouse, “formerly reported missing, was killed in the sinking of a troopship last November in the Mediterranean area.”
The scope of the Rohna tragedy was not publicly disclosed until June 13, 1945, when a War Department press release announced that 3,604 American soldiers had been killed by Germany and Italy in attacks against transport ships. The press statement disclosed that 2,687 soldiers, almost 75% of the total, were lost in just four sinkings: H.M.T. Rohna, S.S. Léopoldville, S.S. Paul Hamilton, and S.S. Dorchester. The statement added:
The sinking which involved the largest loss was that of the ROHNA, a British troopship sunk by enemy air attack on November 26, 1943, off Djidjelli, Algeria. The ship sank within one-half hour after being hit. Bomb damage, supplemented by heavy seas and darkness which hampered rescue work, resulted in a loss of 1,015 men, more than half the total 1,981 American military personnel aboard.
Many other details of the sinking would not come out for decades afterward.
On June 7, 1949, a board of officers concluded that Sergeant Rittenhouse’s body was non-recoverable. His name is honored on the Tablets of the Missing at the North Africa American Cemetery in Tunisia and at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware.
Eleanor Rittenhouse remarried on May 5, 1946, to William Henry Massey (1913–1956). The couple had three children before divorcing.
One of Rittenhouse’s sons, William Alexander Rittenhouse, Jr. (1938–1954), enlisted in the Delaware National Guard as a teenager and was killed in a tragic car crash, aged 16.
Private 1st Class Harry S. Bowman (1922–1944)
Early Life & Family
Harry Sharp Bowman was born in Minquadale, Delaware, on February 15, 1922. He was the fifth child of Elwood W. Bowman (an electrician, 1888–1964) and Bertha Cecilia Bowman (née Martin, 1891–1969). He had three older sisters, and older brother, two younger sisters, and a younger brother. Bowman was Protestant.
The Bowman family was recorded on the census in April 1930 living on State Road in Representative District 10 in unincorporated New Castle County, Delaware. Census records also state that if not before, they were living in Minquadale by April 1, 1935. After completing the 8th grade at the Minquadale School in 1938, Bowman dropped out of school. At the time of the next census in April 1940, Bowman was unemployed and living with his family in Minquadale.
Bowman was living on Tyrone Avenue in Minquadale when he entered the service. Based on his father’s death certificate, this was 18 Tyrone Avenue.
Bowman’s Marine Corps service record booklet described his civilian work history as machinist’s helper at a hosiery mill for two years, earning $20 per week (about $415 in 2026 dollars). His qualification card stated that he worked as a shop maintenance mechanic at Wilmington Hosiery Mill at Front and Orange Streets. The card stated he had worked for the company for 16 months, earning $22 per week (about $455 in 2026 dollars).
Bowman told the Marine Corps that while still in school, he played baseball and football and participated in school plays. His hobbies included rifle shooting and woodworking.
Military Career
Shortly before he turned 20, Bowman volunteered for the Marine Corps. Since he was under 21 years old, the age of majority at the time, his parents consented to his enlistment on January 30, 1942. Bowman enlisted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 3, 1942. An exam described hm as standing five feet, six inches tall and weighing 124 lbs., with brown hair and eyes.
On February 4, 1942, he joined the 8th Recruit Battalion, Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. He transferred to the 3rd Recruit Battalion on February 7 and to the 4th Recruit Battalion on February 20.
During World War II, Marines often had only one opportunity to qualify on various weapons during boot camp and it was not required to become a rifleman. Private Bowman attempted to qualify with the M1903 Springfield rifle on March 24, 1942, but his score of 187 of 250 was just under the minimum score of 196 to qualify. On April 11, 1942, he also failed to qualify with the bayonet.
On April 14, 1942, Bowman transferred to and joined the Barracks Detachment, Marine Barracks, Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia. On May 7, around 1400 hours, he boarded U.S.S. Joseph T. Dickman at Norfolk, sailing at 1300 on May 9. At 1500 on May 14, 1942, his ship arrived at the Naval Operating Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At 0830 the following morning, May 15, he disembarked and joined the Guard Company, Marine Corps Barracks, Naval Operating Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Also or later known as 1st Guard Company?
Bowman’s first M.O.S. was 522, guard-patrolman. He was promoted to private 1st class on July 1, 1942.
On October 1, 1942, he transferred to the 155 mm 3” Artillery Group, which was or later became part of the 13th Defense Battalion, at Guantanamo Bay. On November 3, 1942, he shot for qualification with the new M1 Garand rifle, but his service record book does not reveal whether or not he qualified.
On March 1, 1943, he transferred back to the 1st Guard Company, 13th Defense Battalion, Fleet Marine Force, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On June 29, 1943, he qualified with the Reising submachine gun, one of the more distinctive Marine weapons. Due to its poor reliability in the rain and mud of Pacific battlefields, it was relegated to guard and shipboard use. Curiously, although Bowman would later earn high honors in combat with the Browning Automatic Rifle, there is no record of him ever attempting to qualify with it.
Bowman’s records indicate that by the summer of 1943 he had gained one inch of height and 21 lbs. of weight. He now stood five feet, seven inches tall and weighed 145 lbs.
On August 13, 1943, Bowman took the Army General Classification Test. His score of 65 placed him in Class IV, below average on the five-class scale. He also scored a 96 a mechanical aptitude test, placing him in Class III. At his classification interview, also on August 13, Bowman stated that his preferred duty would be aviation mechanic.
On August 20, 1943, Private 1st Class Bowman transferred to the Casual Detachment, 25th Marines, Marine Corps Barracks, Naval Operating Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was at sea from August 28, 1943, until September 8, 1943. He was able to take a lengthy furlough from September 17, 1943, until October 16, 1943. On October 20, 1943, probably at Camp Elliott, California, he transferred to and joined Company “A,” 1st Battalion, 25th Marines, 4th Marine Division. Shortly thereafter, on October 29, 1943, his M.O.S. was reclassified to 745, rifleman. However, according to his qualification card, his principal duty was 746, automatic rifleman.
In early 1944, the Marine Corps implemented a 13-man rifle squad composed of a squad leader and three four-man fire teams. Each fire team consisted of a team leader, an automatic rifleman, an assistant automatic rifleman, and a rifleman. The automatic rifleman was armed with the Browing Automatic Rifle (B.A.R.). It was a popular weapon, though heavy. Its 20 round magazine and high rate of fire gave it more firepower than the 8-round M1 Garand semiautomatic rifles carried by the other three members of the fire team.
Combat in the Pacific Theater
Company “A” (Reinforced) boarded U.S.S. LST-267 on Maui on the morning of May 12, 1944. The following day, they began five days of rehearsals for their next operation in the Mariana Islands. They set sail on May 19, arriving the following day at Pearl Harbor. On May 21, 1944, a landing ship laden with fuel and ordnance exploded. The conflagration spread to other vessels in what became known as the West Loch Disaster. 1st Battalion, 25th Marines lost one man killed and 11 injured, all from Company “B.” Despite the setback, Landing Team 1 sailed for the Marshall Islands on May 25, 1944, arriving on June 9 at Eniwetok Atoll. The following day, they sailed west again, arriving in the Mariana Islands on June 15.
Amphibious tanks from Company “C,” 708th Amphibian Tank Battalion—a U.S. Army unit—led 1st Battalion, 25th Marines to Beach Yellow 2.
According to the sample citation included with his commander’s recommendation for the Navy Cross submitted after the battle:
(b) During the early hours of morning on D plus one day, heavy enemy artillery and mortar fire was delivered on positions occupied by Private First Class BOWMAN’s platoon. After the fire had ceased, the enemy under cover of the darkness of early morning, launched a severe close in counter-attack employing light machine guns, knee mortars, and rifle fire as well as throwing of many hand grenades. His platoon leader ordered a withdrawal to a more covered position which was begun immediately.
(c) Private First Class BOWMAN without being ordered to do so, elected to remain in his fox-hole to cover the withdrawal. So effectively did he fire his automatic rifle that the withdrawal with carried out without any further casualties. When later the positions were reoccupied by his platoon, he was found dead in his fox-hole, killed by enemy hand grenades. Beside his body were found twenty four empty magazines and all his hand grenades thrown.
If accurate, the detail about 24 empty magazines indicates that Bowman had fired as many as 480 rounds from his B.A.R. at the Japanese attackers before he was overwhelmed. The B.A.R. magazine belt held 12 magazines, suggesting either that Bowman had been carrying extra ammunition, that Bowman’s assistant had left magazines before withdrawing, or both.
Although the citation stated that Bowman was killed by enemy grenades, his death certificate stated that he suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
Around August 23, 1944, Bowman’s company commander, Captain John R. Schumerth (1917–2008), recommended that Bowman be awarded the Navy Cross, noting: “It is doubtful whether such a withdrawal could have taken place had it not been for Private First Class BOWMAN’s action.”
Bowman’s personal effects included a watch, a wallet, two driver’s licenses, a vehicle registration and bill of sale, his Social Security card, a calendar, a civilian identification card, and 76 cents.
On August 15, 1944, Journal-Every Evening reported that “Memorial services for Pfc. Harry S. Bowman, U. S. Marine Corps, killed on June 16 on Saipan, will be held at 8 o’clock next Sunday evening [August 20] at the Peoples Baptist Church in Hamilton Park.”
Bowman was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor. It was presented to his mother on September 28, 1945, at the Marine Barracks, Navy Yard, Philadelphia. He was also awarded the Purple Heart. For the collective actions of its members, the 4th Marine Division was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.
Bowman was initially buried at the 4th Marine Division Cemetery on Saipan on June 19, 1944. After the war, Bowman’s mother requested that his body be repatriated to the United States. In 1948, his body returned aboard Albert M. Boe. On June 13, 1948, following his funeral at the Mealey Funeral Home in Wilmington, Bowman was buried at Gracelawn Memorial Park near New Castle, Delaware. His name is honored nearby on the Wall of Remembrance at Veterans Memorial Park.
Private 1st Class William K. Baynard (1917–1943)
Early Life & Family
William Kirk Baynard was born at the Delaware Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, on June 9, 1917. He was the first child of William J. Baynard (c. 1895–1980) and Julia Baynard (née Julia Sarah Kirk, 1894–1997). His parents were residents of Wilmington at the time, but their address was not recorded. The family was living at 2117 Biddle Street in Wilmington as of July 10, 1919, when his younger brother, Philip Gladwin Baynard (1919–1998), was born.
Baynard’s mother was described as a housewife on her sons’ birth certificates. However, her obituary stated: “She taught at schools in Richardson Park, Arden and Dover and later lived in a house on South State Street in Dover that was built by her great-grandfather, Thomas Stevenson, a cabinetmaker and prominent citizen of Dover.”
Baynard’s father’s occupation was recorded as cigar maker when he married in 1916, brakeman when his first son was born, and riveter when his second son was born. In a 1945 letter to the Army Effects Bureau, Baynard’s mother stated: “He was deserted by his father at the age of two.” During World War II, he worked at the Pusey and Jones shipyard in Wilmington.
Baynard was recorded on the census in January 1920 living at 420 South State Street in Dover with his mother, brother, and maternal great-aunts, Sarah and Mary Kirk. Baynard’s mother filed for divorce in Kent County, Delaware, obtaining a decree nisi on October 19, 1920.
Baynard’s mother remarried on August 2, 1926, to Alfred S. Biggs (d. 1974), with whom she had one additional son, Jimmy Biggs (1928–1968).
In a 1948 letter, Baynard’s mother mentioned that “my son is always known as Kirk here in his home town.” Baynard’s enlistment data card stated that he was a plumber with a high school education before entering the service, while his mother described him as a plumbing and heating mechanic. Journal-Every Evening later reported:
When the boy was two years old the family moved to Dover. He went to the Dover schools. After graduating, he went into the plumbing business with his step-father in Dover. Later he came to Wilmington and was employed at the DuPont dye works plant at Deep Water, N. J.
Baynard’s younger brother, Philip, served in the 198th Coast Artillery, which was federalized in 1940.
Military Career
Baynard volunteered for the U.S. Army, enlisting in Dover, Delaware, on February 24, 1941. As a Regular Army volunteer prior to the U.S. entry into World War II, he had more control over his assignment than the draftees swelling the Army’s ranks. Baynard was specifically enlisted for service in the Signal Corps in the Philippine Islands. The Philippines were an American possession but had been promised independence in 1946. Until then, the U.S. was still responsible for the defense of the archipelago.
A morning report stated that on February 26, 1941, Private Baynard was attached for duty to Company “D,” 2nd Signal Training Battalion, Signal Corps Replacement Training Center, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. He was attached to Company “A” in the same battalion “for rations and quarters only[.]” He was detached from Company “D” at 1800 hours on March 19, 1941, and attached to Company “C,” 3rd Signal Training Battalion for training as a student at the Signal Corps School at Fort Monmouth. Several of the other men in his training units were also earmarked for the Philippine Department.
Effective June 14, 1941, at 1800 hours, Private Baynard and a group of several dozen men were detached from Company “C” and transferred to Signal Company, Aircraft Warning, Philippine Department (also known as Aircraft Warning Company, Philippine Department).
In her statement for the Public Archives Commission, Baynard’s mother wrote that in July 1941 her son went overseas from San Francisco, California, to Manila aboard S.S. President Coolidge.
Beginning in August 1941, Signal Company, Aircraft Warning, Philippine Department, was based at Fort William McKinley, near Manila. Many records were lost in the fall of the Philippines. According to notes made in a prison camp by 1st Lieutenant William D. Thompson (1913–1948), “Service Records of Co. buried in Bataan near Co. area.” However, there is no indication that these were ever recovered. Thompson’s notes indicate that Baynard’s commanding officer, presumably his platoon commander, was 1st Lieutenant Jack Rogers. Thompson also wrote that 1st Sergeant Joseph Giles Pase (1912–1955), a Delawarean like Baynard, “had in his possession at Hoten [Camp, a prison camp in Manchuria] the Co’s. morning reports.”
The U.S. Army first began developing air warning systems in the 1930s. The technological challenges were daunting. To have an effective system, enemy aircraft first had to be detected far from their targets. Observers had to identify them as hostile, ascertain their route and altitude. If they managed to do that accurately, they had to rapidly communicate that information to a center capable of rapidly alerting antiaircraft defenses and scrambling fighters (then known as pursuit aircraft). Of course, dispatching aircraft was not enough. They had to be routed to intercept the enemy aircraft, meaning the enemy aircraft would have to continuously be tracked and that information relayed to the fighters.
During initial testing, the early warning network was reliant on ground observers. Of course, the disadvantage was that no matter how comprehensive the network, no matter how vigilant the observers, they could not detect the enemy until attackers were practically on top of them. In the 1930s, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Signal Corps Laboratory conducted some experiments in detecting aircraft using radio waves, culminating in the development of the Army’s SCR-268 and SCR-270 radar sets. Similar efforts were underway in the United Kingdom, culminating in the Chain Home network. The system proved instrumental in ensuring their victory during the Battle of Britain in 1940. The Royal Air Force also developed an effective system to plot the locations of enemy aircraft and direct fighters to intercept them.
Of course, radar detection was only one link in the chain of a successful system. In his book, “Radar Contact!”: The Beginnings of Army Air Forces Radar and Fighter Control, Randall DeGering noted that the British pioneered ground-controlled interception, in which a controller could view a radar display and direct pilots by radio. The British also developed the first identification-friend-or-foe system, making it easier to distinguish which aircraft on their screens were hostile. Although the American were on friendly terms with the British even before the U.S. entry into World War II, and had officers permitted to observe British advances, it would take time for the Americans to catch up.
Extant rosters give the Signal Company, Aircraft Warning duty station as Fort William McKinley even after that base was evacuated at the end of 1941. However, other documentation shows that its men served at several locations in the Philippines. Randall DeGering wrote:
The Signal Company, Aircraft Warning, Philippines Department, arrived in August of 1941 to Fort William McKinley, in Manila, but without any AW equipment. However, by October, a single SCR-270 radar had been established at Iba Field, 75 miles northwest of Manila. Although seven radar sets had reached the Philippines by December 1941, only two—one at Iba and another one outside Manila—were operational.
The Japanese wasted no time in attacking the Philippines on December 8, 1941, just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor (the Philippines being on the other side of the International Date Line from Hawaii). The Iba radar station detected suspected Japanese aircraft but American fighters were unable to locate them in the early morning darkness. Later that day, the Japanese caught the 3rd Pursuit Squadron returning to Iba from an unsuccessful patrol. Virtually all of them were shot down or forced to crash land, and the radar station was demolished. Lieutenant Thompson’s notes indicate that during the attack on Iba, five men from the Signal Company, Aircraft Warning were killed and five others wounded. Clark Field was also devastated. In less than a day the Japanese had established air superiority over the Philippines and air supremacy soon afterward.
Journal-Every Evening reported that coincidentally, Baynard’s last letter to make it home was delivered that same day, December 8, 1941.
Thompson’s notes indicate that some of the unit evacuated to the Bataan Peninsula, since one man was wounded by a grenade during the Battle of the Points. Other members of the unit were on Corregidor and destroyed equipment to prevent it falling into Japanese hands on the night of May 5, 1942, hours before the island surrendered. Baynard’s movements and actions during the campaign are unknown. If he was captured on Bataan on April 9, 1942, he survived the Bataan Death March. If not, he would have been captured when Corregidor surrendered on May 6, 1942.
Baynard was promoted to private 1st class on an unknown date.
Prisoner of the Japanese
Baynard’s name appears in a list of men in a notebook belonging to Captain Walter J. Hewitt of the 12th Signal Company (Philippine Scouts). The list was described as “Pertaining to 200 man labor detail taken from Cabanatuan, Phil, Islands to Japan[.]” He wrote that the detail went to Bilibid Prison in Manila on October 28, 1942. Several pages of names were crossed out, including Baynard’s. It is unclear what that alteration means, but he was clearly in Japan by the end of the year.
Most likely, Baynard traveled to Japan aboard the hell ship Nagato Maru to Moji, Japan, and then by train, arriving on or about November 26, 1942, at the Yodogawa Branch Camp (later known as Yodogawa 3-B and eventually Yodogawa 3-D). The camp was located on the Yodo River north of Osaka. Prisoners had to work in various local industries such as blast furnaces, machine shops, and on the docks. Meals at the camp were typically watery vegetable soup and rice. Protein was rare. There were few opportunities to bathe. It was not until December 27, 1942, that the prisoners were first issued Red Cross packages, which had potentially lifesaving food and other amenities, and even then, three men had to share each package. There was inadequate heating in quarters for the men, still wearing the clothing they had been captured in, suffered immensely from the cold. Beatings were common for the most trivial offenses.
The Empire of Japan did not report its prisoners of war in timely fashion. A document in Baynard’s individual deceased personnel file (I.D.P.F.) stated that the War Department only learned of his capture via the International Red Cross on January 18, 1943, and that Baynard’s mother was informed that he was a prisoner of war only on January 20.
Baynard’s decline is better documented than most other prisoners of the Japanese thanks to records kept by Captain Frank L. Richardson, a doctor originally with the 3rd Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, who arrived at the camp on December 7, 1942. His notes indicate that Baynard’s health had deteriorated by the end of 1942, diagnosed as beriberi due to malnutrition. White rice, a dietary staple for Baynard both before and after capture, is poor in thiamine, and many of the prisoners were already suffering from beriberi by the time they arrived at the camp. Men died regularly from disease.
Richardson wrote that Baynard received an injection of “VB”—vitamin B1, thiamine—on December 30, 1942. Baynard was hospitalized in the camp sick bay on January 1, 1943, apparently due to eye issues. He returned to light duty on January 2, and full duty on January 6. However, he returned to light duty on January 8 due to his eyes, and to sick bay on January 10. Being able to work could mean the difference between life and death in the camps. The Japanese cut rations for men who could not work, making it even more difficult to recover and when the Japanese distributed overcoats on January 1, 1943, only men who were in work details received them.
It is unclear when Baynard returned to duty. Dr. Richardson documented further vitamin B injections during January 25–31, and February 1–9, 1943. He also received cod liver oil January 14–17.
Baynard was hospitalized again at Yodogawa on March 7, 1943. As of March 12, 1943, he was being treated at a ward run by Storekeeper 2nd Class William Floyd Jeffries (1919–2005), who despite his rating served as a hospital corpsman under Captain Richardson. Baynard’s beriberi had led to heart failure. Richardson wrote that Baynard “Ate a bowl of rice 15 min before he died” on March 12, 1943.
The Japanese government belatedly reported his death via the International Red Cross, which forwarded the notice to the United States on July 20, 1943, that Baynard had died of cardiac beriberi at Osaka Prison Camp. The War Department received that notice on July 25, Of course, he had been dead for over four months by that point, a fact that subsequently came to light. Initially, since the Japanese did not report a date of death, the War Department made his official date of death July 20, 1943.
Journal-Every Evening reported Baynard’s death on August 7, 1943, recording his mother’s reaction at length:
“When we complain of the lack of our accustomed comforts, we might realize that many of our soldiers who lived to be captured by the Japanese, face a slow death, caused by improper food.
“These are the same boys who persisted in the face of hopeless odds, who waited in vain for re-enforcements and supplies.
“At a time when our attention is focused on our increasing victories both in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific, it might be well for us to have another thought for the remnants of our forces from Bataan,” Mrs. Biggs said.
“Those boys who are in Japanese prisons do not all receive the help needed by them offered by the Red Cross because—as I understand it—of the lack of cooperation of the Japanese Government,” Mrs. Biggs spoke not in a spirit of resentfulness but in the hope of aiding other prisoners of war, and to prevent them, if possible, from meeting the same fate as her own son.
The Japanese cremated Baynard’s body. At the end of the war, a box of his ashes was recovered along with those of other prisoners of war at Juganji, a temple in Osaka. They were initially transported to the crypt at an American military cemetery in Manila. In 1947, Baynard’s mother requested that her son’s ashes be repatriated to the United States. The following year, his remains crossed the Pacific Ocean aboard U.S.A.T. Sgt. Morris E. Crain, arriving at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. They traveled across the country to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and from there to Dover by train on October 15, 1948.
On October 16, 1948, following a funeral with military honors from the American Legion, Private 1st Class Baynard’s ashes were buried at Christ Churchyard (Christ Episcopal Church Cemetery) in Dover. His name is honored on a memorial in Dover and on the Wall of Remembrance at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware.
Julia Sarah Kirk Barnard Biggs outlived two of her three children prior to her death in 1997, aged 102. She and her other two sons were buried next to Private 1st Class Baynard after their deaths.
Notes
Grade
The earliest known document to describe Baynard as a private 1st class was a corrected Adjutant General’s Office report of death dated November 16, 1945. All known wartime documents describe him as a private including company rosters through March 1942, a War Department letter about his capture dated January 27, 1943, Captain Hewitt’s notebook, Captain Richardson’s list, and Baynard’s initial death report dated August 2, 1943. Discrepancies of this sort are remarkably common with regard to prisoners of war held by the Japanese.
Private Paul A. August (1917–1944)
Early Life & Family
Paul Aloysius August was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on January 25, 1917. He was the third child of Joseph Bernard August (1882 or 1883–1937) and Bertha Ellen August (née Davis, 1887–1966). He had two older brothers, James Edward August (1910–1926) and Francis August (1913–1942), a younger brother, Joseph Fred August (1919–1989), and a younger sister, Margorie or Majorie Ann August (1920–1920).
Available records suggested that August lived in Wilmington until he entered the service. The August family was recorded on the census in January 1920 living at 338 South Claymont Street. August’s father was working as a cooper. The family was living at the same address when his younger sister was born on August 3, 1920. Tragically, she died two months later, on October 15, 1920.
The August family had moved to 320 South Claymont Street by November 10, 1926, when another tragedy struck the family. August’s 15-year-old brother, James, died of tetanus at the Physicians and Surgeons Hospital in Wilmington a few days after accidentally shooting himself in the hand with a pistol. August was recorded on the census in April 1930 at the same address. His father was unemployed and his mother was working for a meatpacker, while his older brother, Francis, was working as a laborer. August’s father died of heart disease at the Delaware Hospital in Wilmington on October 22, 1937.
August was recorded on the next census in April 1940 still living at 320 South Claymont Street and working as a molder for an iron company. His mother was working for a wholesale meatpacker, his brother, Francis, as a truck driver for a beer company, and his other brother, Fred, as a welder at a shipyard.
When he registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, August was living at the same address and working for W. E. Williams at 821 Orange Street. The registrar described him as standing five feet, 11 inches tall and weighing 186 lbs., with brown hair and blue eyes and a scar on his right knee.
According to his personnel file, which survived the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire largely intact, August was a laborer at a foundry who had completed one year of high school. He told the Army that he “molded metal parts by machine” and earned a weekly wage of $25 (about $568 in 2026 dollars). His mother told the Public Archives Commission that her son worked at the malleable iron works.
Military Career & Marriage
After he was drafted, August was ordered to report at the State Armory in Wilmington at 0730 hours on April 29, 1941. Later that day, he was inducted into the U.S. Army in Trenton, New Jersey. He immediately went on active duty and was attached unassigned to Company “I,” 1229th Reception Center, Fort Dix, New Jersey. By May 5, 1941, he had been assessed and classified. At the time, his specification serial number was recorded as 521, basic, indicating that he did not have civilian skills applicable to a specific military job.
During World War II, some soldiers had basic training while attached unassigned to training units, while others were assigned directly to units, where they were trained by more experienced men. On May 8, 1941, August was one of seven men from his reception company dispatched to the Field Artillery Replacement Center, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. However, once there, he was assigned not to a Field Artillery unit but a Coast Artillery Corps unit. On May 9, 1941, August joined Company “A,” 67th Coast Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft). At the time, antiaircraft artillery was not a separate branch but under the Coast Artillery Corps.
On May 13, 1941, August’s unit moved to Windy Hill, South Carolina. They returned to Fort Bragg on June 4. A roster dated July 31, 1941, the earliest to list Private August’s duty, recorded his code as 704, field telephone operator. Effect August 2, 1941, his basic training was complete and he ceased to be a mere “recruit” in the eyes of his regiment.
On August 27, 1941, Private August and his unit moved by road to Quewhiffle, North Carolina. The following day, they moved to Lakeview, North Carolina, before returning to Fort Bragg on August 29.
Private August went on furlough on August 30, 1941, returning to duty on September 6. Later that month, his battery had target practice. On October 8, 1941, August’s battery spent the day “on Motor Convoy practice” driving to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The next day, they drove back. Then on October 11, they moved again to Wilmington, North Carolina, where they installed communications equipment. A morning report noted that during October 20–25, they “Participated in Interceptor exercises[.]” They returned to Fort Bragg on October 26. On November 6, August’s unit departed Fort Bragg again, heading to South Carolina. They spent most of the month participating in the Carolina Maneuvers with IV Corps before arriving back at Fort Bragg late on November 30.
The November 1941 roster, the earliest to list both duty and military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) codes, listed August as a field telephone operator for both.
In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war on the United States, antiaircraft units were rushed to defend vital factories and military installations along the East Coast. This was either due to paranoia or to provide public reassurance. Germany and Italy did not have any operational aircraft carriers nor did they possess land-based aircraft with the range to threaten the continental United States from their bases in Europe and Africa. In theory, the Germans could have developed a submarine capable of launching a plane, a capability that the Japanese demonstrated, but in the event no such U-boats were deployed. The Japanese did not have the necessary logistical capabilities to attack the West Coast with their aircraft carriers, much less the East Coast.
Private August and Battery “A” departed Fort Bragg on December 9, 1941, and headed north. On December 12, the battery arrived at Mitchel Field, New York. 1st Platoon was dispatched to Paterson, New Jersey, home of the Curtiss-Wright aircraft engine factory, that same night. The following day, the rest of the unit headed to Camp Upton, New York. 2nd Platoon also headed to Paterson that night. The entire battery was reunited at Paterson on December 14. It operated as a searchlight battery there.
On January 28, 1942, the Wilmington Morning News reported that Private August “has recovered from an illness in which he received treatment at the Governor’s Island Hospital, and is with his company at Pearl River, N. Y.” That location is a little northeast of Paterson.
The February 1942 roster listed August’s duty as field telephone operator but his M.O.S. code changed was 691. It is unclear what 691 was at the time, though later it was flexible gunnery trainer operator mechanic. There were no further changes until the May 1942 roster, when both were crossed out and 544, control station operator, written in for both. That duty involved controlling an antiaircraft searchlight control station, and according to AR 615-26, to qualify in that M.O.S., a soldier needed “at least 2 months’ training and experience in control station operating.”
On June 15, 1942, Battery “A” was disbanded and its personnel transferred to other three other batteries in the newly activated 3rd Battalion, 67th Coast Artillery. Private August was one of 162 men transferred to Battery “I,” which was activated as the 3rd Battalion searchlight battery at Paterson the same day.
Another shuffle occurred the same month. Effective June 1, 1942, technician grades were introduced in the U.S. Army, involving a pay bump (and at the time, noncommissioned officer status) to men with special skills. The Battery “I” morning report dated June 22, 1942, stated that August was promoted to technician 5th grade effective June 1. On the other hand, his personnel file gave the effective date as June 15. Battery “I” finally departed Paterson on October 31, 1942, moving a short distance to Teaneck, New Jersey. From this point, 3rd Battalion operated separately from the rest of the regiment.
On November 11, 1942, Technician 5th Grade August lost another brother when Francis August died of testicular cancer in the Memorial Hospital in Wilmington. The funeral was scheduled for the morning of November 16, 1942. August was reported absent without leave (A.W.O.L.) at 2300 hours that night. It is unclear if he overstayed a pass as a result of the death or whether he slipped off base to attend the funeral after failing to obtain a furlough. He returned to duty at 1400 hours on November 18. Going A.W.O.L. for any length of time for any reason could have serious repercussions for a soldier’s career.
On November 19, 1942, August and his unit headed south by road, staying overnight at Havre de Grace, Maryland, before continuing on to the A.P. Hill Military Reservation, Virginia, on November 20. Likely as a result of going A.W.O.L., August was reduced back to private on December 14, 1942.
At 0700 hours on New Year’s Day 1943, Private August and his battery moved to Portsmouth, Virginia, arriving at 1545 that afternoon. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard was a vital military facility in the area, though as before there was no threat from Axis aircraft. On the morning of January 3, 1943, August went on a special duty assignment with Battery “I,” 502nd Coast Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft). He returned to his regular unit at 1600 hours on January 5. On the morning of March 15, 1943, he went on detached service at Camp Myles Standish, Massachusetts. He returned to Battery “I” at 1800 hours on March 21.
The 67th Coast Artillery Regiment, less August’s 3rd Battalion, had gone overseas to the Mediterranean Theater in January 1943. The orphaned 3rd Battalion was inactivated on May 24, 1943, and reorganized into the 371st Antiaircraft Searchlight Battalion. Battery “I,” 67th Coast Artillery became Battery “A,” 371st Antiaircraft Searchlight Battalion. They remained at Portsmouth. On the initial roster, dated May 24, 1943, Private August’s duty and military occupational specialty codes were listed as 763, searchlight crewman. He went on furlough on June 20, 1943, returning to duty on June 27.
August married Eula Gertrude Jarrett (née Charlton, 1900–1989) in New Haven, Connecticut, on December 24, 1943. His bride, a resident of Norfolk, Virginia, across the river from where August had been stationed in Portsmouth, had lost her first husband to tuberculosis. August became a stepfather, though his stepdaughter, Edna Banasiak (later Weller, 1918–2004), was just a little younger than him. His stepson, Charles Holland Jarrett (1921–2014), was an aviation cadet under instruction with the 999th Technical School Squadron at Yale University, which presumably is why the wedding happened in Connecticut rather than in Virginia or Delaware. Neither morning reports nor August’s personnel file mentioned a furlough, suggesting he had a pass for Christmas.
On December 27, 1943, Battery “A” moved by road to Camp Pendleton, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Two days later, they moved a short distance south to Pungo, Virginia, before returning to Camp Pendleton on December 30. On January 7, 1944, they moved west by road to Franklin, Virginia, but returned to Camp Pendleton during the night of January 10–11. On January 19 they moved to Oceana, near Virginia Beach, returning to Camp Pendleton on January 27.
August went on furlough on February 1, 1944, returning to duty on February 7. This may have been as close as he got to a honeymoon, since it was the first furlough he had after his wedding. On March 1, 1944, his battalion began moving south to Camp Davis, North Carolina. 91 men from Battery “A” moved by road that day, while the 131 others followed the next evening by train. The unit was reunited at Camp Davis at 0945 hours on March 3.
On April 7, 1944, Private August was in a group of men from his battalion who went on temporary duty at the Ordnance Shop, Camp Butner, North Carolina. He returned to Battery “A” the following day.
By this point, of course, the aerial threat to the American homeland had failed to materialize. Allied advances pushed the Axis back further and further while increasingly degrading enemy air forces. At the same time, combat losses made it clear that when a new front opened in 1944 in northwest Europe, the U.S. Army faced a shortage of replacement infantry. Recognizing that it had more antiaircraft personnel than it needed, the Army began combing through units looking for soldiers to retrain as infantrymen.
A set of orders from Headquarters Antiaicraft Artillery Training Center dated May 9, 1944, transferred Private August and a large number of men from his battalion to the 300th Infantry Regiment, with a report date no later than May 15. His M.O.S. at that time was still searchlight crewman.
On May 13, 1944, Private August was one of 104 men from Battery “A” who left Camp Davis to join the 300th Infantry at Camp McCain, Mississippi. The following day, he and 138 other former members of the 371st joined Company “H,” 300th Infantry.
Private August went on furlough again on July 3, 1944. Journal-Every Evening mentioned that August and his wife visited August’s mother during this furlough. It is possible that he did not disclose his marriage to his family until then, since Norfolk papers announced the marriage in January but the Wilmington papers did not until the end of July. August was late returning from furlough and was reported A.W.O.L. at 0600 hours on July 17, 1944. He returned to duty at 2300 hours on July 20.
Effective July 17, 1944, August’s M.O.S. changed to 745, rifleman. With the completion of his retraining, a set of orders came down on July 29, 1944, transferring Private August to Army Ground Forces Replacement Depot No. 1, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. He and 72 other men from Company “H” departed the 300th Infantry on August 3. On August 17, he was transferred to a replacements shipment, GC-900(a)-A.
Combat in the European Theater
Private August shipped out from the New York Port of Embarkation on August 24, 1944. He arrived in the United Kingdom on August 31 and entered the replacement system for the European Theater of Operations. He shipped out again for France on September 17, 1944, arriving the following day. On September 26, 1944, Private August was transferred from the Detachment 71, Ground Forces Replacement System (71st Replacement Battalion), to the 79th Infantry Division. That same day, he joined that division’s Company “L,” 314th Infantry Regiment.
August was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge effective November 1, 1944.
Private August was reported killed in action on December 2, 1944, near Niederschaeffolsheim, France. According to his burial report, he suffered fatal shell fragment wounds to his head, left side of his torso, and left leg. A morning report stated that his battalion was in defensive positions and that Private August was the only casualty his company suffered that day. He was initially buried on December 12, 1944, at a military cemetery in Epinal, France.
August’s personal effects included his wedding ring, an identification bracelet, a Bible, a prayer book, a crucifix, a Ronson cigarette lighter, a pocket knife, two religious medals, an Eversharp fountain pen and pencil kit, an address book, and 10 photographs.
In a letter dated June 22, 1945, an officer from the Quartermaster Corps wrote to August’s widow:
I regret to advise that included among your husband’s effects are books which are damaged, apparently by bloodstain and water. Please say whether you want these items sent with the remainder of the property. It is our desire to refrain from sending any article which would be distressing; at the same time, we do no feel justified in removing the items without your consent.
Eula August responded:
Thanks for your consideration, but wish to have all of my husbands [sic] effects, regardless of condition, if my husband had to fight and give his life in a Hell, I think I can stand to know a little about the circumstances. Even tho the Army seems to think we should be deceived about so many things concerning our loved one’s [sic] and what they had to suffer[.]
In 1947, Private August’s widow requested that his body be repatriated to the United States for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia. His casket returned to the United States from Antwerp, Belgium, aboard Lawrence Victory, and then went from the New York Port of Embarkation to Washington, D.C., by train. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on May 19, 1948. His name is honored on the Wall of Remembrance at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle.
Why on hold: Unit records and trying to get a photo
Private 1st Class Joseph M. Le Van (1919–1944)
Early Life & Family
Joseph Michael Le Van was born on the morning of March 22, 1919, at the Homeopathic Hospital, 1501 North Van Buren Street in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the second son of John Paul Le Van (also known as Paul John LeVan, 1893–1977) and Sophia Levan (née Gallagher, c. 1890–1955). At the time he was born, his parents were living at 415 Lombard Street in Wilmington.
Le Van’s father was a house painter whose first wife, Sophia’s sister, Bridget (1891–1914), had died from tuberculosis complicated by childbirth. The couple’s two children also died very young. In addition to those two half-siblings, Le Van had an older brother, Paul Le Van (1916–1989), and a younger sister, Marie Le Van (1921–1973). Le Van was Catholic.
Available records indicate that Le Van moved several times during his childhood but remained in Wilmington. The Le Van family was recorded on the census in January 1920 living at 1 South Lincoln Street in Wilmington. When his sister, Marie, was born on September 25, 1921, the Le Vans’ address was listed as 701 Bennett Street.
Le Van attended various parochial schools in Wilmington: St. Mary’s, St. Paul’s, and St. Patrick’s. His hobbies included movies, reading, and swimming. As of the spring of 1936, Le Van was living at 204 West 7th Street.
On May 8, 1936, Le Van applied for the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) in Wilmington. During the 1930s, the C.C.C. provided opportunities for unemployed young men to earn money for their families while completing various public works projects as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal. Although not a military organization, the C.C.C. was administered by military officers in paramilitary fashion. Le Van told the C.C.C. that he dropped out of school in February 1936 after completing the 6th grade.
Le Van enrolled in the C.C.C. on May 14, 1936. His term of enrollment was variable at the discretion of the government, with discharge possible as soon as September 30, 1937, or as late as October 15, 1938. He was examined at Fort DuPont, Delaware, where a physician noted that he stood five feet, 6¼ inches tall and weighed 139 lbs. Le Van began doing mosquito control work while assigned to the 1295th Company at Camp MC-54, Magnolia, Delaware. He was honorably discharged on September 30, 1937.
Le Van applied to reenroll in the C.C.C. in Wilmington on May 21, 1938. He wrote that he wanted to find work as a painter after completing his C.C.C. service.
At the time of his second enrollment in Wilmington on July 7, 1938, he was still living at 204 West 7th Street. He stood five feet, eight inches tall and weighed 165 lbs., with brown hair and eyes and a scar on his left hand. He committed to serve with the 1295th Company at Magnolia again until December 31, 1938. He compiled a satisfactory record doing mosquito control work there through November 8, 1938. The following day, a detachment from his company was dispatched to Redding, California, presumably by train. On November 14, 1938, Le Van began doing forest reclamation work at Camp Baird No. 2. He performed satisfactorily there and agreed to an extension of his enrollment. On September 17, 1939, after declining to reenroll, Le Van departed the 1295th Company. He returned to the East Coast and was honorably discharged from the C.C.C. at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on September 25, 1939.
Le Van’s older brother was in the Delaware National Guard and federalized on September 16, 1940.
Military Career
Le Van enlisted in the U.S. Army in Wilmington on September 4, 1940. As a volunteer prior to the American entry into World War II, he was able to choose his branch and duty station: Infantry, Panama Canal Department. He was briefly stationed at Fort Slocum, near New York City. On October 1, 1940, he joined Company “B,” 33rd Infantry Regiment at Fort Clayton, Canal Zone. A roster dated August 31, 1941, the first to include duty codes, listed Le Van’s as 745, rifleman. Later rosters also listed his military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) code as 745. The attack on Pearl Harbor saw his unit with Force “A” in Dutch Guinea (Surinam). His parent organization was later redesignated U.S. Army Forces in Surinam.
On July 20, 1942, the Wilmington Morning News reported about Le Van’s activities in surprising detail considering wartime censorship pertaining to overseas military activities, stating that he
is among the U. S. soldiers in the vicinity of Paramaribo, Dutch Guinea, South America, who are keeping close watch against sabotage on the bauxite ships. He and his companions have been making round tripos on the Surinam River from the capital city of Paramaribo to a point 104 miles up stream to the bauxite village of Moengo.
Military necessity sometimes resulted in ironic assignments. Regulars like Private Le Van who had volunteered to become infantrymen sometimes ended up in backwater assignments far from combat zones, even as draftees with less time in service began entering combat.
Le Van was promoted to private 1st class on April 12, 1943. It appears that around June 1, 1943, his company was redesignated or inactivated and a new Company “B,” 33rd Infantry reconstituted from Company “B,” 166th Infantry Regiment.
July 1943 found Private 1st Class Le Van a member of Company 18, 2nd Provisional Battalion at Jackson Barracks, New Orleans Port of Embarkation. At 1800 hours on August 1, 1943, Le Van and a group of men departed Jackson Barracks, en route to the 69th Replacement Battalion, Infantry Replacement Training Center, Fort McClellan, Alabama. There , he was attached to Company “C,” 69th Replacement Battalion. On August 7, 1943, he was placed on special duty “at S.P.A. Fort McClellan[.]”
On September 17, 1943, Private 1st Class Le Van joined Company “C,” 64th Armored Infantry Battalion at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas. On October 25, 1943, he went on a special duty assignment at the officers’ mess. He returned to regular duty with Company “C” on November 22, 1943. He was hospitalized at the Station Hospital, Camp Chaffee, during February 3–11, 1944. Le Van went on furlough on March 23, 1944, returning to duty on April 4.
On April 15, 1944, Le Van and three other men from his company were transferred to the 7th Armored Division. Two days later, Le Van joined Company “B,” 48th Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Private 1st Class Le Van served as a rifleman in his new unit.
Private 1st Class Le Van was one of 35 men from his company declared missing in action as of October 29, 1944.
Private Lawrence P. Traynor, Jr. (1921–1945)
Early Life & Family
Lawrence P. Traynor, Jr. was born on June 15, 1921, at the Physicians and Surgeons Hospital on Adams Street in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the only child of Lawrence P. Traynor (1897–1950) and Leona E. Traynor (née Wiedeman, 1902–1933). His father, a salesman, was a World War I veteran, while his mother was an inspector for a bolthing [?] company. When Traynor was born, his parents were living at 411 North Van Buren Street. He had an older half brother, Francis Daniels (1919–?), whose father, John A. Daniels (1892–1918), was a victim of the Great Influenza pandemic.
Traynor was recorded on the census in April 1930 living at 1200 Elm Street with his paternal grandparents, parents, and half-brother. They were still living there as of early 1933.
When Traynor was 11, on March 1, 1933, his mother died in the Homeopathic Hospital in Wilmington from what her death certificate stated was “Degeneration of Brain Tissue[.]”
Traynor attended Wilmington High School.
Military Career
Most of the records pertaining to Traynor’s military career were destroyed during the fall of the Philippines and in the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire.
Traynor volunteered for the U.S. Army in Wilmington on August 14, 1939. Before the U.S. entry into World War II, volunteers often had their choice of unit or at least branch. His enlistment data card reported that he was enlisted for the Philippine Department. The following day, the Wilmington Morning News reported:
Family tradition of following the profession of arms was maintained yesterday by Lawrence P. Traynor, Jr., 18, of 1028 McDowell Street, who enlisted at the district recruiting office of the U. S. Army, postoffice building, for service with the Coast Artillery Corps in Hawaii.
His father, Lawrence P. Traynor, served in the Searchlight Division during the World War. His uncle, Andrew P. Traynor, was in the Second Tank Corps during the way.
His first cousin, Andrew F. Traynor, Jr., is now a sergeant with the Twelfth Infantry at Fort Howard, Md.
On October 27, 1939, Private Traynor joined Battery “A,” 59th Coast Artillery Regiment (Harbor Defense) on Fort Mills on Corregidor. Early the following year, on January 17, 1940, he transferred to Headquarters Battery, 59th Coast Artillery. He was promoted to private 1st class on July 26, 1940. A roster noted that on December 24, 1940, Private 1st Class Traynor went on detached service “for purpose of visiting points of military interest in” the Philippine Islands. He returned to duty on January 2, 1941. He was reduced back to the grade of private effective February 1, 1941. On June 1, 1941, he was transferred to Headquarters & Headquarters Battery, Harbor Defenses of Manila & Subic Bays, also located at Fort Mills. On November 5, 1941, Private Traynor was hospitalized at Sternberg General Hospital in Manila.
Wilmington newspapers reported that Traynor was still in the hospital when the Pacific War began. For the Philippines, on the other side of the International Date Line from Hawaii, it was December 8, 1941.
Many records were lost in the fall of the Philippines, including the morning reports for Harbor Defenses of Manila & Subic Bays. However, Traynor must have returned to duty by February 1942 since he signed that month’s payroll. He was also in the March 1942 payroll, the last to make it out of the Philippines before the surrender.
The Empire of Japan was slow to report the names of its prisoners of war. It was only on February 24, 1943, over a year after his capture, that the War Department was notified of his capture via the International Red Cross. The Wilmington Morning News reported on April 3, 1943, that his family had only been informed three weeks earlier that Traynor was a prisoner of war.
1st Lieutenant Edward V. Atwell, Jr. (1920–1944)
Early Life & Family
Edward Victor Atwell, Jr. was born at St. Paul’s Sanitarium in Dallas, Texas, on January 19, 1920. He was the only child of Edward Victor Atwell, Sr. (a real estate broker 1883–1969) and Ida Bakey Atwell (née Ida Mary Bakey, 1883–1933). His birth certificate noted that his parents were residents of Wilmington, Delaware, at the time. On September 30, 1921, Every Evening, a Wilmington newspaper, described Atwell’s father: “During the World War he left Wilmington to enter the military service, and after the declaration of the armistice he went to Texas. Since his return from the South he has resided in Delaware City.” On the other hand, in 1969, the Evening Journal reported that the elder Atwell “was formerly a real estate researcher for the Du Pont Co. Later, he went into the real estate business for himself, occupying an office at 10th and Market Sts.” The paper described him as a resident of Wilmington since 1901, though it appears that the Atwells divided their time between residences in Wilmington and a farm they owned in Cecil County, Maryland.
The Atwells were recorded on the census in April 1930 living at the Du Pont Building on West 10th Street in Wilmington.
Atwell was 13 when his mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage on May 23, 1933. Her obituary gave her residence as Barksdale, Maryland, in unincorporated Cecil County off Barksdale Road, north of Elkton, Mayland, while her death certificate described her as a resident of Elkton itself. Atwell graduated from Wilmington High School in June 1939. Later that year, on October 28, 1939, his father remarried in Wilmington to Emma Whiteman Snyder (née Emma Whiteman Richards, 1886–1973), herself a widow. The 1940 census recorded the Atwells as living in the Fair Hill area north of Elkton, Maryland.
When he registered for the draft on July 1, 1941, Atwell was living with his father on Rural Free Delivery No. 3 in Elkton, Maryland. His occupation was listed as “Farming & Automobile Mechanic” and his employer as Mackenzie & Strickland Automobile Agency in nearby Newark, Delaware. Similarly, his enlistment data card later that year described him as a semiskilled motor vehicle mechanic. The registrar described him as standing about five feet, eight inches tall and weighing 150 lbs., with blond hair and blue eyes and scars on his right elbow. His military paperwork described him similarly, albeit with brown hair.
Upon enlistment, Atwell described his work history as three years of “General Mechanic Work” earning $25 per week (about $525 in 2025 dollars). On the other hand, the Wilmington Morning News reported that “Atwell was an auditor with the Coca-Cola Company here before entering the service.”
Military Career
A portion of Atwell’s personnel file, mostly pertaining to his time as an enlisted man, survived the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire, meaning some more details about his career are available than many other soldiers. Microfilmed copies of his flight records and morning reports also survived.
Atwell was drafted before the U.S. entered World War II. The Wilmington Morning News reported that on November 17, 1941, Atwell and 14 other men selected by the Local Board, Cecil County, were notified to report for induction into the U.S. Army on November 24, 1941. On November 25, 1941, he went on active duty and was attached unassigned to Company “B,” 1303rd Service Unit, Camp Lee, Virginia. Evidently Atwell expressed interest in the Army Air Forces or was recruited based on his background as a mechanic, but there was a catch: Atwell had to commit to a three-year stint in the Regular Army. As a formality, he was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army on November 26, 1941, and reenlisted the following day. On December 6, 1941, he was transferred to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, though he did not leave Camp Lee until December 11, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Upon reporting at Jefferson Barracks on December 12, 1941, Private Atwell was attached unassigned to the 357th School Squadron.
In 1942, Atwell volunteered to become an aviation cadet. On September 7, 1942, he passed a flight physical at the Army Air Forces Classification Center, Nashville, Tennessee.
By May 25, 1943, Atwell had 231.4 hours under his belt as a student pilot, including 171.8 hours as first pilot. In April and May 1943 he was flying the AT-6 and AT-10.
Aviation Cadet Atwell was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army on May 27, 1943, at Blytheville Army Air Field, again as a formality. On May 28, 1943, Atwell was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant.
On May 29, 1943, a set of orders came down transferring 2nd Lieutenant Atwell to the 46th Bombardment Group at Will Rogers Field, Oklahoma. He was authorized to take 10 days of leave prior to reporting by June 10, 1943. He joined the 51st Bombardment Squadron (Light), 46th Bombardment Group (Light). On June 19, 1943, he was transferred to the 673rd Bombardment Squadron (Light), 417th Bombardment Group (Light). He accumulated more hours, mostly flying the A-20 and B-25.
On the morning of October 19, 1943, Lieutenant Atwell was cleaning a pistol but failed to verify that the weapon was unloaded. When he pulled the trigger, it discharged, fracturing the terminal phalanx (bone at the tip) of his left hand. He was treated at the Station Hospital, DeRidder Army Air Base, where physicians debrided the wound and applied a Banjo traction splint. He returned to duty on November 7, 1943.
The Pacific Theater
By May 22, 1944, 1st Lieutenant Atwell had 643 hours, 25 minutes of flight time under his belt, including 365 hours, 55 minutes as first pilot since getting his wings. May 1944 was a particularly busy month. During the first three weeks of the month, Atwell logged 20 flights in A-20s and B-25s, totaling 45 hours.
On May 22, 1944, 1st Lieutenant Atwell and his copilot, 2nd Lieutenant Chester N. Burns (1919–1944), took off from Nagzab, New Guinea, in B-25 serial number 41-29692. In addition to the three crew members, there were seven passengers aboard. Their route would take them over the dense mountains of eastern New Guinea to Saidor, on the northern coast. The bomber was not heard from again. Searches of the rugged terrain along their route turned up nothing.
In a March 11, 1947, letter to State Archivist Leon deValinger, Jr. (1905–2000), the elder Atwell glumly noted: “No further word have [sic] ever been received of my Son, or any of the 10 [sic] others in the Plane with him […] no one seems to know what happened and I doubt now if we ever will.” In 1950, a board of officers declared that Lieutenant Atwell and the others aboard the plane were non-recoverable. However, that was not the end of the story.
According to a summary by the Quartermaster Corps Memorial Division, in May 1959, a Lutheran missionary notified the U.S. consulate in Sydney, Australia, that
certain United States Army publications had been recovered from the wreckage of a plane found by natives at the headwaters of the Sorop and Erap rivers in New Guina. Human remains were reported to be present at the wreckage site.
A U.S. Army search and recovery team based in Hawaii arrived in New Guinea on June 23, 1959. The crash site was deep in the mountainous interior of the island. The town of Naramonke was the closest the team could approach by road. With an Australian guide and locals hired as carriers, the team hiked from village to village along mountain trails. “On 1 July, the Search Party finally reached the site of the wreckage, situated below the tree line at an elevation of 9,500 feet.”
The team was able to recover human remains from at least seven men and some personal effects, including identification tags for Captain Randall M. Dorton, Jr. (1920–1944) and a plate from a flight jacket belonging to 1st Lieutenant Robert J. Arndt (1921–1944). Individual identification proved impossible and in 1960 the remains, which the Army declared were from all 10 men, were given a group burial at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, Missouri.
1st Lieutenant Atwell’s name is honored at the Manila American Cemetery and Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware.
Why on hold: Gathering unit records
Sergeant John J. Paisley (1920–1944)
Early Life & Family
John Joseph Paisley was born at 1340 Claymont Street in Wilmington, Delaware, on February 25, 1920. He was the son of Elizabeth May Paisley (also known as Elizabeth Needham, later Denn, and eventually Murphy, 1905–1987). His mother, only 14 at the time, was the victim of rape. She declined to name the father when she applied for a birth certificate for him in 1939. Paisley may have been raised to believe that his mother was his sister, since he described her that way when he registered for the draft.
Paisley was recorded on the census in April 1940 living at 929 East 17th Street with his mother and stepfather, John Murphy. He was described as a truck driver working on a C.C.C. drainage project. Journal-Every Evening reported that Paisley “attended the George Gray School and St. Patrick’s Parochial School.”
Paisley’s enlistment data card described him as a carpenter with a grammar school education.
When Paisley registered for the draft on July 1, 1941, he was still living at 929 East 17th Street with his mother and stepfather, but was now working as a joiner for the Pullman Company in Wilmington. Journal-Every Evening stated that Paisley worked for the company for over a year prior to entering the military. The registrar described him as standing five feet, 10 inches tall and weighing 153 lbs., with brown hair and hazel eyes.
Military Career
After he was drafted, Paisley joined the U.S. Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on January 28, 1942. Another Delawarean, Harold T. Hitchens (1915–1944), was drafted in the same cohort as Private Paisley. On April 9, 1942, both men joined Company “B,” 104th Infantry Regiment, 26th Infantry Division, at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts, transferring from the Branch Immaterial Replacement Center, Fort McClellan, Alabama.
The 104th Infantry was originally part of the Massachusetts National Guard. Company “B” had been federalized in Springfield, Massachusetts, on January 16, 1941. The company was understrength at the time, with only 48 enlisted men on the rolls. Draftees flowed into the unit beginning with local conscripts and then, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, those from further afield like Hitchens and Paisley.
During the spring of 1942, the 104th Infantry was scattered across the southeastern United States, patrolling the coastline from Florida to North Carolina. Despite the paranoia that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Germans lacked the amphibious capacity to successfully cross the English Channel, much less the Atlantic Ocean. At most, German submarines could land spies or saboteurs, which happened only a handful of times.
As of May 31, 1942, Private Paisley’s duty and military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) codes were both listed as 521, basic. That indicated he was still in training or not yet qualified for an M.O.S. The last known Company “B” roster to list duty and M.O.S. codes was September 1942. Private Paisley was still listed as a 521.
A 104th Infantry history book published at the end of the war, History of a Combat Regiment 1639–1945, “In January, 1943, the regiment was withdrawn from patrol duty and reassembled on the 27th of the month at Camp Blanding, Florida, for conditioning and amphibious training.” Similarly, Company “B” morning reports state that on January 24, 1943, Paisley and his comrades moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, where they boarded a train, arriving at Camp Blanding early the following morning.
Paisley was promoted to private 1st class on April 1, 1943. On the night of April 17–18, 1943, Company “B” boarded a train and headed back north around midnight. Following a brief stop in Macon, Georgia, Paisley and the others arrived at Camp Gordon, Georgia, that afternoon. At Camp Gordon, the 26th Infantry Division was finally reassembled and continued its training.
Paisley and Hitchens were among a group of enlisted men who went on furlough on June 21, 1943. After returning to Delaware, on the afternoon of June 27, 1943, Paisley married Mary Christine Lentelle (1924–1974) in Wilmington. Paisley was due back by at Camp Gordon by midnight on the night of July 1–2, 1943. Four men including Paisley and Hitchens did not make it back in time and were declared absent without leave (A.W.O.L.). Presumably, their return journey took longer than anticipated and they did not attempt to contact their commanding officer to request an extension, could not get through, or their requests were denied. It may also have complicated matters that on July 2, Company “B” moved a short distance to a bivouac area outside Camp Gordon. There is no indication that the two Delawareans were traveling together since Private 1st Class Paisley returned to duty at 1000 hours on July 3, while Hitchens returned the following day at 1500 hours.
Going A.W.O.L. for any length of time could be extremely damaging to a soldier’s career, with demotions to private and fines common. In Paisley’s case, neither occurred—perhaps his company commander took pity on his newly married soldier—though perhaps not coincidentally, he was selected for a special duty assignment pulling guard duty at the post stockade later that month.
On September 2, 1943, Company “B” departed Camp Gordon by road. After stopovers in Fairmount, Georgia, and Fayetteville, Tennessee, the unit arrived at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, on September 10.
Paisley went on furlough on November 17, 1943. He was promoted to corporal effective November 19, 1943, and returned to duty on November 27. He presumably became an assistant squad leader at that point.
Paisley was promoted to sergeant on January 1, 1944, apparently in anticipation changes to the rifle company table of organization that was officially released the following month, with rifle squad leaders becoming staff sergeants rather than sergeants and assistant squad leaders becoming sergeants rather than corporals. Later that month, on January 22, 1944, the 104th Infantry departed Camp Campbell for the Tennessee Maneuver area near Lebanon.
For the next two months, the 104th Infantry was in the field. Sergeant Paisley and the men of Company “B” were constantly on the move by truck or on foot, participating in various exercises and bivouacking while waiting for the next. History of a Combat Regiment 1639–1945, stated:
Tennessee Maneuvers were “rough.” The problems, with the accompanying rain, snow, and mud, were executed so realistically that men of the 104th later agreed that the only difference between maneuvers and combat was that there was no “hot lead” flying around. The combat battalions marched through a blacked-out countryside, forded small streams, ate K-rations, and slept in the mud. Always it seemed to rain. Support and supply units followed up and performed their duties much the same as in combat. Armies were designated by red or blue helmet and arm bands. Each week a different type of tactical problem of from three to five days was “fought,” with umpires armed with special signal flags and score sheets ruling on the success or failure of local actions and ultimately determining the “victors” in each week’s campaign.
On week-ends, a limited number of men when into troop-crowded Lebanon, Nashville or surrounding towns for showers and a good meal.
Company “B” crossed the Cumberland River during at least two exercises, including one on March 16, 1944. Viewed from above, the meanders of the river north of Lebanon resemble a series of horseshoes lined up from west to east. The land on the interiors of the horseshoes, surrounded by the river on three sides, are known as bends: Cairo Bend, Belotes Bend, Hunters Point Bend, etc.
On the night of March 22–23, 1944, the 104th Infantry Regiment began its last exercise of the Tennessee Maneuvers at Averitts Ferry on the east side of Beasleys Bend. The mission to cross over the river to Puryears Bend must have seemed simple enough. In that area, the Cumberland River is about 400 to 500 feet wide. What they saw that night, however, must have given them pause: swollen by days of rain, the river was a raging torrent.
That night, 23 men, all but one of them from the 104th Infantry, clambered into an assault boat. 17 of the men were from Company “B.” Aside from Sergeant Paisley, the occupants included 1st Lieutenant John N. Dunski (1918 – 1944), the regimental S-1 (personnel officer); 1st Lieutenant Walford T. Nilsson (1915–1985), the Company “B” executive officer; 2nd Lieutenant Richard P. Grosvenor (1919–1944), who had been attached to Company “B” from the 76th Infantry Division on February 11; 1st Sergeant Bernard J. Jackimczyk (1915–1944); and Private Leroy C. Strand (1921–1944), a combat veteran who was wounded during the Battle of Attu in the Aleutians.
Out in the Cumberland River, the boat overturned, throwing the soldiers into the swift-flowing water. Sergeant Paisley and 20 other men drowned. There were only two survivors: 1st Lieutenant Nilsson and Private 1st Class Simon Neurick (1912–2004) from Medical Detachment, 104th Infantry. The Nashville Tennessean reported on March 25, 1944, that the two men were “rescued by another boat after they had struggled to the point of exhaustion in the heavy waters[.]” The article added that “Private Neurick reported that he touched shore on at least three occasions, but could find no foothold that would enable him to crawl ashore.”
Accounts are contradictory about whether the tragedy occurred before or after midnight on March 23, 1944, though officially the men went missing on the 22nd. Recovery efforts continued for weeks afterward. Sergeant Paisley’s wife was notified on March 25, 1944, that her husband was missing. Paisley’s body was recovered on April 5, 1944.
After funeral services at his mother’s home on April 11, 1944, and requiem mass at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, Paisley was buried at Cathedral Cemetery.
Paisley’s widow remarried on June 10, 1946, to James Robert North (1926–1995), with whom she raised two daughters.
Paisley’s name is honored at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware, and on a plaque at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, commemorating the accident.
Staff Sergeant Charles E. Banning (1921–1944)
Early Life & Family
Charles Edward Banning was born in the Bronx, New York, on October 21, 1921. He was the son of Charles Edward Banning (1892–1950?) and Anna Sabina Banning (née Mark, c. 1891–1951). His father was born in England, immigrated to the United States, became a naturalized citizen, and worked as a bricklayer. He had an older sister, Muriel Barbara Banning (later Fennimore, c. 1917–1997?)
Banning graduated from Pierre S. duPont High School in 1939. He told the Army that the only sport he participated in was boxing.
Little is clear about Banning’s early life. He was not recorded on any known census records from 1930, though it appears that his parents were separated or divorced by then. Banning’s mother was described as a widow on the 1940 census—though this was a common deception at the time due to the shame of divorce—and when consenting to her son’s enlistment later that year, she told the U.S. Army that her husband was deceased.
According to his enlistment paperwork, Banning had worked as a truck driver for five months prior to entering the military, earning $18 per week. On his qualification card, he also stated he had worked for one year of experience as a carpenter apprentice for the Boyce Construction Company in Wilmington, earning $15 per week until he left that job on September 1, 1940. The job included setting floor joists, laying hardwood floors, and installing window sashes.
As of November 5, 1940, when he was examined in Wilmington prior to enlistment, Banning was described as standing five feet, 7½ inches tall and weighing 139 lbs., with brown hair and eyes.
Military Career
Soon after he turned 19, Banning volunteered for the Regular Army in Wilmington, Delaware, on or about November 4, 1940. Since the age of majority at the time was 21, his mother consented to his enlistment. By volunteering, he was able to pick his branch and duty station, something that would be inconceivable soon after when draftees swelled the ranks of the Army. On November 9, 1940, Private Banning enlisted in Wilmington for a three-year term in the Hawaiian Department in the Medical Department.
According to his personnel file, Banning was attached to 3rd Recruit Company from November 12, 1940, until January 4, 1941. After basic training, Private Banning shipped out from Fort McDowell, California, on January 24, 1941, arriving in Honolulu, Hawaii, six days later.
On January 30, 1941, Private Banning was attached to the Division Medical Detachment, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. For unknown reasons—possibly because he was still training—he did not become an assigned member of that unit until February 20, 1941. On March 14, 1941, Banning transferred to the (4th?) Service Company, 11th Medical Regiment, also stationed at Schofield Barracks. On an unknown date, he was transferred to the 44the Pursuit Squadron at Wheeler Field. He was attached to that unit around September 8, 1942, until October 17, 1942, possibly before a transfer. He joined the 333rd Fighter Squadron at Wheeler Field on August 23, 1942. He was attached to Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, 18th Fighter Group, from October 17, 1942, through January 21, 1943.
On May 1, 1941, Private Banning was rated as a specialist 6th class. At the time, specialist ratings indicated that a private or private 1st class possessed a special skill. His personnel file gave the reason for the rating as Banning being qualified as a clerk. However, he was derated on July 1, 1941.
Banning was promoted to private 1st class on October 2, 1941, and to corporal on an unknown date. The first military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) listed in Banning’s personnel file was 055, general clerk, as of December 1941.
On or about March 10, 1942, Corporal Banning was accused of being drunk and disorderly in Honolulu. He was placed under arrest in his quarters at Wheeler Field, demoted to private, and referred for trial by summary court-martial. On March 23, Banning pled guilty. He was restricted to the base for one month and forfeited $20 in pay. However, he was promoted back to corporal on May 1, 1942. He was promoted to sergeant on July 21, 1942.
He was attached to the 73rd Fighter Squadron from February 18, 1943, through April 15, 1943.
On April 18, 1943, Banning departed Honolulu by sea, arriving at San Francisco, California, on April 27. Around April 28 he joined the 4th Air Force Replacement Depot, Hammer Field, California. On May 23, 1943, he joined the 337th Fighter Squadron at Glendale, California. On May 25, 1943, his M.O.S. was reclassified as 747, airplane and engine mechanic. On July 5, 1943, Sergeant Banning was examined at Sawtelle, California, to determine if he was physically qualified to attend aerial gunnery training. Physicians determined that he did meet the qualifications. Sergeant Banning graduated from Aerial Gunnery and Fire Control School at Wendover Field, Utah, on an unknown date. On September 18, 1943, Sergeant Banning was rated as 748, airplane mechanic-gunner. On December 24, 1943, Sergeant Banning qualified at the expert level with the .45 pistol.
Although he had previously passed on purchasing National Service Life Insurance, on January 6, 1944, Sergeant Banning applied for a $10,000 policy effective February 1, with his mother as beneficiary.
In February 1944, Sergeant Banning went overseas via the southern route. Flying to Europe via the Caribbean Sea, South America, and Africa took significantly longer time than flying over the North Atlantic Ocean, but had generally less hazardous weather and shorter overwater segments.
Banning’s crew departed from West Palm Beach, Florida, on February 1, 1944, arriving at Borinquin, Puerto Rico. They flew to Atkinson Field, British Guiana, on February 2; to Belém, Brazil, on February 6; to Natal, Brazil, on February 7; across the Atlantic to Dakar, Senegal on February 11; and to Marrakesh, Morocco, on February 12. The final segment on February 17, 1944, was the longest, an 11-hour flight to Prestwick, Scotland, bypassing neutral Portugal, Spain, and Ireland, as well as German-occupied France.
Banning was with Squadron “A,” 14th Replacement Control Depot until he was transferred to the 44th Bombardment Group (Heavy) on February 28, 1944. The same day, his crew was assigned to the 68th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) per Special Orders No. 59, Headquarters 44th Bombardment Group (Heavy), and joined the squadron the following day.
Why on hold: He has the largest and most comprehensive B-file that I have ever seen. This a good thing, but it also means a lot of material to go through and incorporate.
2nd Lieutenant Charles D. Campbell (1911–1944)
Early Life & Family
Charles Denard Campbell was born in Selbyville, Delaware, on September 13, 1911. He was the second child of George Campbell (a sawyer in a sawmill) and Elizabeth Hubbard Campbell.
Military Career
Campbell was drafted a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His enlistment data card described him as a manufacturing foreman with one year of college. He was inducted back into the U.S. Army on March 21, 1942, at Fort Dix, New Jersey. That same day, he was attached to Company “G,” 1229th Reception Center at Fort Dix. He left Fort Dix by train for an unknown destination on March 25, 1942. According to his mother’s statement, Campbell was quickly promoted back to sergeant and stationed at Camp Jackson, South Carolina. She added that he moved to Fort Benning, Georgia—probably for Officer Candidate School—and was subsequently stationed at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas, and Fort George G. Meade, Maryland.
It appears 2nd Lieutenant Campbell was on detached service at the B.F. Goodrich Army Training School, Akron, Ohio, when the 533rd Armored Infantry Battalion was disbanded on August 31, 1943. He was attached unassigned to Headquarters 534th Armored Infantry Battalion, joining that unit on September 13, 1943, at Camp Chaffee after completing his assignment in Akron. He was transferred from the 12th Tank Group to go overseas as a replacement officer. On October 3, 1943, he was detached from the 534th Armored Infantry Battalion and dispatched to Army Ground Forces Replacement Depot No. 1, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. On October 5, 1943, he was attached unassigned and joined Headquarters Detachment, 4th Replacement Regiment there. He was assigned the duty of pool officer.
On November 13, 1943, Campbell was transferred to a replacement shipment, GI-633-A., which also included Private Ralph G. Henretty (1925–1944), a fellow Delawarean also destined to lose his life in the Mediterranean Theater. Campbell most likely shipped out from the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation and arrived in Casablanca, Morocco. On December 4, 1943, he was attached unassigned to Company “B,” 32nd Replacement Battalion (Separate), at Camp Don B. Passage, near Casablanca, Morocco.
Campbell’s movements for the next few months are unclear, but he was with the 2nd Replacement Depot by the summer of 1944. He was attached unassigned to the 405th Replacement Company, 18th Replacement Battalion, 8th Replacement Depot effective July 23, 1944.
Why on hold: Awaiting release of 1945 morning reports and still hoping to get photo from family.
Private James J. Giletti (1906–1945)
Early Life & Family
James Joseph Giletti was born Vincenzo Giletti in Wilmington, Delaware, on December 18, 1906. He was the son of John Giletti (c. 1871–1949) and Sabina Giletti (née Colalillo or similar, 1881–1920), Italian immigrants. His father was a stonemason. He had at least five sisters.
A document listing “Infant Baptisms at Italian Mission,” West Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, listed Giletti and one of his younger sisters being baptized on July 16, 1909.
In April 1910, the family was recorded living at 1814 West 7th Street.
The family was at 1916 West 8th Street in January 1920 when recorded on the census. Giletti was recorded as Vicent. It appears that his mother died of complications from childbirth that same year.
In April 1940, Giletti was recorded as Vincent Giletti living with his father and older sister at 406 North Union Street.
When Giletti registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, he was unemployed and living with his father at 406 North Union Street. The registrar described him as standing five feet, 5½ inches tall and weighing 145 lbs., with black hair and brown eyes and a mole on his left cheek. He worked as a roofer before entering the service.
Although he was already 35 years old, Giletti was examined at the direction of Local Board No. 3, Wilmington, and found to be suitable for military service.
Though he served under the name James Joseph Giletti, and it is the most common spelling in other records, his headstone gives his name as James Joseph Gilletti. However, his mother’s headstone uses the spelling Giletti. Another variant seen in some directories is James J. Gillette.
Military Career
After he was drafted, Giletti was inducted into the U.S. Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on May 12, 1942. That same day, he went on active duty and was attached unassigned to Company “D,” 1229th Reception Center there. On or about May 16, 1942, Private Giletti left Fort Dix to begin his training. On May 26, 1942, Giletti was assigned to Company “C,” 142nd Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division, at Camp Blanding, Florida. He was placed on special duty with the 36th Division Reception Center, presumably for basic training. On July 8, 1942, he went on detached service with the 36th Division Rear Detachment, Camp Blanding, Florida.
On August 22, 1942, he transferred to Medical Detachment, 142nd Infantry.
The Wilmington Morning News reported on November 21, 1942: “Announcement has been made by Mr. Frank Colonna of the engagement of his daughter, Miss Frances Clonna, to Mr. James Giletti, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Giletti.”
Giletti’s personnel file was among those lost in the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire, but a few documents pertaining to his service survived, including morning reports, a surgical record from June 14, 1944, his last pay voucher, and a set of special orders pertaining to his transport to a Veterans Administration facility and discharge from the U.S. Army. A June 1944 morning report recorded his military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) code as 657. In the context of a regimental medical detachment, 657s were litter bearers.
On September 2, 1943, Private Giletti and 22 other enlisted personnel from the regimental medical attachment were attached for duty and rations to Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 142nd Infantry Regiment. Although members of the regimental medical detachments worked closely with them, as Medical Department personnel they could not be organic to any infantry unit, only attached. Based on this morning report, Private Giletti most likely served as a litter bearer evacuating 1st Battalion casualties for at least five months.
On March 10, 1944, he went to a rest camp, returning to duty on March 14. On May 10, 1944, Giletti and 33 other medical personnel attached to 1st Battalion were detached from that battalion.
Giletti was severely injured in a jeep accident around 2330 hours on June 10, 1944. He was rushed to the 1st Battalion Aid Station in about 10 minutes. From there, he transferred by Company “B,” 111th Medical Battalion to the care of the 52nd Medical Battalion (?). He arrived at the 38th Evacuation Hospital before 0900 on June 11. His case was handled by Neurosurgical Team No. 1 (N.S. 1) led by Major Charles Edward Dowman (1910–1987) and Captain Warren W. Greene (probably 1912–2003) from the 2nd Auxiliary Surgical Group on detached service at the 38th Evac. The neurosurgical teams consisted of a neurosurgeon, an assistant neurosurgeon, a nurse anesthetist, a surgical nurse, and two technicians, though it appears the team may have been without the nurse anesthetist at the time.
His physicians later wrote:
Seen first on 11 June at which time patient was still groggy from [anesthetic] but was moving his legs slightly, particularly flexio[n] of knees. KJ [knee jerk] & AJ [ankle jerk] were slightly hyperactive, with positive plantar response.
Although his condition was unchanged on June 12, it deteriorated drastically the following day, with the knee jerk and ankle jerk reflexes absent and his legs rendered largely insensitive. Doctors later determined that Giletti suffered a fracture to his T11 vertebrae and traumatic myelitis, inflammation of the spinal cord. At 0815 hours on the morning of June 14, 1944, surgeons spent three hours and 15 minutes performing a laminectomy to try relieve pressure on his spinal cord, but Giletti did not regain the use of his legs and remained paraplegic. Since the injury also paralyzed his bladder, doctors performed a suprapubic cystostomy on June 21, 1944.
It is unclear how long Giletti remained at the 38th Evacuation Hospital since evacuation hospitals often did not maintain morning reports documenting their patients. At some point between June 14, 1944, and June 25, 1944, he was treated at the 59th Evacuation Hospital.
On June 25, 1944, Giletti was admitted to the 32nd Station Hospital in Caserta, Italy, after being transferred from the 59th Evacuation Hospital. At 0800 hours on the morning of June 27, he was transferred to the 64th General Hospital at Maddaloni, Italy. He was admitted there the same day.
On July 2, 1944, Giletti was transferred to the 3rd General Hospital at San Leucio, Italy. The following month, Giletti was evacuated to the United States by air from Casablanca, Morocco. His plane arrived at Mitchel Field, New York, at 0930 hours on August 13, 1944. He was admitted to the Detachment of Patients, Army Air Forces Convalescent Center & Regional Station Hospital, Mitchel Field, New York. On August 18, 1944, a set of orders came down transferring him to Ashford General Hospital in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia.
Private Giletti transferred to the Veterans Administration Facility, Fort Howard, Maryland, and honorably discharged from the U.S. Army.
Around that same time, his injuries resulted in pyonephrosis, a kidney infection. Damage to his kidneys resulted in chronic uremia around January 1945. Giletti was pronounced dead at 1140 hours on April 5, 1945. Journal-Every Evening reported the following day that funeral services “will be held at 8:30 o’clock Tuesday morning” April 10, 1945, at his former home, “with solemn requiem mass at 9:30 o’clock at St. Anthony’s R. C. Church.” He was buried at Cathedral Cemetery. His father was also buried there after his death.
Even though his death was due to a wartime injury, since Private Giletti had been discharged prior to his death, his name was omitted from the official 1946 list of U.S. Army fatalities compiled for Delaware. However, due to the vigilance of the Public Archives Commission, he is honored at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle.
On May 18, 1944, Private Giletti and other members of Medical Detachment, 142nd Infantry Regiment were awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge (C.I.B.). This was subsequently revoked because medical personnel were not supposed to be eligible for that decoration. Giletti would have been eligible for a retroactive award of the Combat Medical Badge (C.M.B.) once it was created in 1945, but it is unclear if that ever occurred. That would also have made him eligible to be retroactively awarded the Bronze Star under a 1947 policy that determined any soldier who had earned the C.I.B. or C.M.B. during World War II had also met the criteria for the Bronze Star.
Why on hold: Genealogical mysteries and unit records
Private Raymond E. Garrett (1923–1943)
Early Life & Family
Raymond Edward Garrett was born in Seaford, Virginia, on February 8, 1923. Garrett married Edith Blanch Rainone (1926–1952) in Wilmington on June 7, 1942.
When he registered for the draft on June 30, 1942, Garrett was living with his wife’s family at 116 Brookside Avenue in the Brack Ex area west of Elsmere. The Brookside Avenue address was crossed out at some point and 619 West 4th Street, New Castle, Delaware, was written in. That address was also crossed out. 116 Brookside Avenue was written again at the top of the card, suggesting the couple may have returned to Brack Ex, but none of the alterations were dated. Garrett’s employer was recorded as the Pullman Shops in Wilmington. The registrar described him as standing five feet, five inches tall and weighing 120 lbs., with brown hair and blue eyes.
Military Career
After Garrett was drafted, he was inducted into the U.S. Army in Camden, New Jersey, on January 21, 1943. He attended basic training at Camp Croft, South Carolina, and volunteered for the airborne.
Private Garrett was attached from Casual Company, The Parachute School to the 515th Parachute Infantry Regiment for administration per Special Orders No. 161, Headquarters The Parachute School, dated July 8, 1943. He was placed on special duty as a range guard. The following day, July 9, 1943, he was attached for quarters, rations, and administration to Headquarters & Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 515th Parachute Infantry, while remaining as a range guard.
He was with the 515th Parachute Infantry Regiment until August 5, 1943, when he transferred to the 1st Academy Company, The Parachute School, Fort Benning, Georgia.
He went on furlough October 5–17, 1943.
On November 15, 1943, Private Garrett transferred to the 515th Parachute Infantry Regiment, also located at Fort Benning. He departed from the 1st Academic Company at 1600 hours. The following day he was assigned to and joined Company “A,” 515th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
According to a 515th Parachute Infantry history:
From 31 May 1941 till 1 December 1943 the regiment functioned as a replacement pool for The Parachute School. The original cadre of 184 non-commis[s]ioned officers were furnished by the 507 Parachute Infantry Regiment. The officers were drawn from the Parachute Loss and Replacement Pool. The Regiment was kept on cadre strength until it was relieved from duty as an administrative agency, effective date 1 December 1943.
At this time the 1st Battalion was composed of qualified parachutists and the 2nd and 3rd Battalions were composed of unqualified parachutists. Qualification of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions was commenced on 20 December 1943 and the 1st Battalion concurrently began a basic training program.
On December 30, 1943, Private Garrett was killed in a training accident. Journal-Every Evening reported that he died “when his parachute failed to open during a paratroop training jump[.]”
After funeral services at his in-laws’ home on January 4, 1944, Garrett was buried in Silverbook Cemetery in Wilmington.
Private 1st Class William H. Hall (1924–1945)
Early Life & Family
William Henry Hall was born in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the son of George Marshall Hall (1895–1967) and Sarah B. Hall (née Black, 1899–1940). He had two older sisters, an older brother, George Marshall Hall, Jr. (1921–2001), and a younger brother, John Black Hall (1926–1940).
When Hall was 15, his mother died at the family home, at 1303 Lancaster Avenue, on February 11, 1940. The rest of the family was recorded on the census on April 8, 1940, living there. Hall’s father was working as a telephone company lineman, while his oldest sister was a waitress.
Another tragedy struck the family later that year on November 5, 1940, when a teenager shot Hall’s younger brother, John B. Hall, at the Canby Park quarry. The Wilmington Morning News reported on November 19, 1940, that the shooting “was caused by the ‘deliberate recklessness and negligence’ of Robert Miller, 16, a coroner’s jury said last night.” The teenager claimed to have been shooting targets at the quarry and denied seeing hall see John B. Hall. Other witnesses testified that the fatal shooting occurred after two groups at the quarry had fired their weapons dangerously close to one another, though “There was no quarrel, the five boys testified.” During the same incident, another child was struck by an air rifle and another narrowly escaped injury when a round passed through his legs.
Journal-Every Evening reported that “Hall attended Brown Vocational High School[.]” Hall’s enlistment data card described him as having completed three years of high school and listed his occupation as “unskilled machine shop and related occupations.” When he registered for the draft on June 30, 1942, Hall was living at 805 Wilmington Avenue in Elsmere and working for the Pennsylvania Railroad in Wilmington. The registrar described him as standing about six feet tall and weighing 135 lbs., with brown hair and blue eyes.
His brother, George M. Hall, Jr., was also an infantryman in the U.S. Army during World War II but was medically discharged.
Military Career
Hall was drafted in early 1943. He was inducted into the U.S. Army in Camden, New Jersey, on February 18, 1943. A family statement for the State of Delaware Public Archives Commission suggested that he went on active duty on February 23, 1943. Most soldiers who entered the Army from Delaware began their careers attached to the 1229th Reception Center, Fort Dix, New Jersey. According to the family statement, Private Hall was assigned to the Cavalry at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he was stationed from late February 1943 through June 18, 1944.
Private Hall was most likely one of 84 enlisted men assigned on April 3, 1943, to Troop “I,” 29th Cavalry Regiment, at Fort Riley, Kansas. The 29th Cavalry had been activated there on January 23, 1943. Although the identities of those 84 men are not recorded in the troop morning reports, Hall first appeared on the troop payroll at the end of the month.
A portion of Private Hall’s official military personnel file survived the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire which destroyed the vast majority of U.S. Army personnel files from the World War II era. Surviving documentation includes stateside medical records, insurance paperwork, award paperwork, and correspondence from the War Department to Hall’s father.
On May 1, 1943, Private Hall applied for a $5,000 National Service Lice Insurance policy payable to his father. Several months later, on August 4, 1943, Hall was on a wagon at a stable loading hay when he fell, fracturing his left wrist. He was treated at the Station Hospital, Fort Riley, Kansas, where a physician applied a plaster cast. After his injury healed, Hall was discharged from the hospital and returned to duty on October 15, 1943. He was promoted to private 1st class on October 28, 1943. Hall went on furlough during November 8–23, 1943, presumably returning to Delaware.
With the obsolescence of the horse cavalry, the U.S. Army Cavalry branch’s role had shrunken drastically. The 1st Cavalry Division had converted into an infantry unit and the 2nd Cavalry Division was disbanded. Some mechanized cavalry reconnaissance troops, squadrons, and groups remained active during the war. On May 1, 1944, Private 1st Class Hall transferred to Troop “C,” 128th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron (Mechanized), which had been activated that same day at Fort Riley. On June 13, 1944, Private Hall and 19 other men from his troop transferred to the 70th Infantry Division at Camp Adair, Oregon.
On June 22, 1944, the Wilmington Morning News reported that Private 1st Class Hall and Private 1st Class Donald C. Hammond (1923–1996) of Wilmington
have been transferred from the cavalry to the infantry at their own request, it was announced today by Col. Thomas W. Herren, commandant of the Cavalry School, Fort Riley, Kan. The infantrymen, who entered the service last February and trained with the 128th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, […] have been sent to Camp Adair, Ore., for their infantry training.
On June 20, 1944, Private 1st Class Hall joined Company “G,” 276th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division. His military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) code was recorded as 745, rifleman. An undated physical examination performed soon after described Hall as standing five feet, 9½ inches tall and weighing 140 lbs. It noted that he had a benign heart murmur, full dentures, and eyeglasses. On June 26, 1944, Hall began an 18-day furlough.
They later moved to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
In late November 1944, the 276th Infantry moved to Camp Myles Standish, Massachusetts. Private 1st Class Hall and his comrades moved to the Boston Port of Embarkation on December 6, 1944, shipping out that afternoon.
The 276th Infantry Regiment arrived in Marseille, France, on December 15, 1944. Just over a week later, the regiment began moving north by train and truck to Alsace. Hall and the rest of 2nd Battalion went into the line on December 29, 1944, along the Rhine near Soufflenheim, France. On December 31, 1944, the Germans tried to capitalize on their earlier failed offensive through the Ardennes with another offensive in Alsace and Lorraine: Operation Nordwind.
New Year’s Day 1945 found the 276th Infantry as the VI Corps reserve, and the regiment was temporarily attached to the 45th Infantry Division the following day. 1st Battalion was hit hard by a German attack on January 4, 1945, which captured Wingen-sur-Moder, France. While 1st and 3rd Battalions dealt with Wingen, Hall’s 2nd Battalion, which had been attached to the 313th Infantry Regiment of the 79th Infantry Division, captured nearby Lichtenberg, France.
Private 1st Class Hall was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge per General Orders No. 1, Headquarters 276th Infantry, dated January 24, 1945.
Hall was listed as missing in action on March 8, 1945. On April 13, 1945, the War Department changed his status to killed in action as of the date he went missing. According to his burial report, Hall suffered fatal shell fragment wounds. His personnel effects included a black Fitchhorn flute, a pair of eyeglasses with case, a money belt, a tobacco pouch, a Ronson cigarette lighter, a glass ash tray, a key, and two sewing kits.
Journal-Every Evening reported that Hall’s father received confirmation of his death on April 14, 1945. Hall was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.
Private 1st Class Hall was initially buried at an isolated grave outside Schœneck, France. After the war, his body was disinterred, identified from his dog tags, and reburied at nearby Saint-Avold cemetery on January 21, 1946.
After the war, Private 1st Class Hall’s father requested that his son’s body be interred at an overseas military cemetery. The numerous temporary overseas cemeteries were consolidated to a handful of permanent cemeteries. Even at those cemeteries earmarked to become permanent ones, significant reburials were necessary since many bodies originally buried there were repatriated to the United States. On March 30, 1949, Hall was reburied at Saint-Avold, now known as the Lorraine American Cemetery.
Private 1st Class Hall’s name is honored on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s World War II memorial at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station and at Veteran’s Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware.
Why on hold: Release of 1945 morning reports to the National Archives Catalog
Private William F. Lynn (1908–1945)
Early Life & Family
William Francis Lynn was born on July 14, 1908, at 209 West 6th Street in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the child of William Francis Lynn (1874–1934) and Mary Frances Lynn (née Duffy, 1878?–1961?). The Wilmington Morning News reported that the Lynn family undertaking business had been founded in Wilmington in 1835, and was one of the oldest continually operating businesses in the state by 1932. Lynn had an older sister, a younger sister, and a younger brother.
The Lynn family was recorded at 209 West 6th Street on the 1910 and 1920 censuses, which the Wilmington Morning News reported was also the location of the undertaking firm. On April 15, 1930, the Lynn family was recorded at 207 Linden Court. Lynn’s occupation was recorded as embalmer, presumably at his father’s business.
Lynn married Lucy F. Fucella (1909–1988) in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 11, 1930. The couple had one son, also named William Francis Lynn (1932–2005).
On June 27, 1934, Lynn was driving with his father and four aunts near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, when his father suffered a fatal heart attack.
He worked as an undertaker before entering the service.
Some fields in his enlistment data card may have been garbled when the document was digitized. He was described as having completed three years of high school. He was also listed as separated, without dependents, which may be supported by the fact that when he registered for the draft, Lynn listed his mother rather than his wife as a point of contact.
Lynn’s younger brother, John Patrick Lynn (1923–1968) served in Company “C,” 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division in the U.S. Army during World War II.
Military Career
After he was drafted, Lynn was inducted into the U.S. Army on December 22, 1942. His wife’s statement for the State of Delaware Public Archives Commission indicates that he went on active duty on December 29, 1942, at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Private Lynn was assigned to the Medical Department. His wife stated that her husband was stationed at Fort McClellan, Alabama, from January through April 1943. He then transferred to Fort Meade, Maryland, until September 1943, when he moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She wrote that he remained there until March 1944, when he moved to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. That suggests he went overseas from the New York Port of Embarkation in early 1944. The only unit she listed was the 45th Field Hospital, which was activated around September 1943 and arrived in England in March 1944. The hospital landed in France on June 10, 1944, four days after D-Day, and Belgium in September 1944.
Private Lynn went A.W.O.L. while assigned to the 238th Station Hospital at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. He was apprehended and confined at Fort DuPont, Delaware, where a guard was dispatched to retrieve him on June 11, 1943.
On July 27, 1943, a set of orders came down from Headquarters 3rd Service Command in Baltimore, Maryland, which transferred a large portion of the 238th Station Hospital’s complement to the 239th Station Hospital, also stationed at Fort George G. Meade. On August 1, 1943, Private Lynn and 172 other men joined the 239th from the 238th.
As of September 6, 1943, when he began a nine-day furlough, Private Lynn was a member of the 239th Station Hospital at Fort Bragg. On January 22, 1944, Private Lynn transferred to the 45th Field Hospital, also stationed at Fort Bragg.
A morning report established Private Lynn’s military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) as 861, surgical technician.
Aside from morning reports, very few textual records for the 45th Field Hospital survive in the National Archives. Private Lynn is not mentioned in the hospital’s extant general orders. The only other set of textual records is a 1945 report by Major Max W. Wolf pertaining to the 45th Field Hospital’s First Hospitalization Unit. The report does not reveal the movements of additional hospitalization units nor its members. Morning report indexes suggest the hospital split into two or three hospitalization units in December 1944.
Private Lynn was probably, but not definitely, a member of First Hospitalization Unit, as its location matches the location where he reportedly died. The unit began 1945 in Fallais, Belgium, but moved to Malmédy on January 17. From January 19, 1945, until February 26, 1945, they treated casualties resulting from the American counteroffensive against the German advance known as the Battle of the Bulge. After John P. Lynn was wounded in the head by artillery shell fragments in January 1945, Lynn was able to visit his brother.
First Hospitalization Unit of the 45th Field Hospital moved to Euskirchen, Germany on March 8, 1945, where its members treated casualties from the Battle of Remagen, in which American forces captured the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine. Three days later, the unit moved closer to the Remagen bridgehead, setting up at Bad Neunahr, Germany. The 102st Evacuation Hospital took over for the unit on March 14, 1945, and they staged at nearby Ahrweiler until crossing the Rhine to Niederbieber on March 26, 1945.
Major Wolf wrote in his report:
On March 26 this unit moved to Neider Beiber, where we set up in tents in support of the 2nd Infantry Division. We received no casualties and the following day moved to Montabaur. Here we took over a german [sic] hospital containing about 115 recovered Allied Prisoners of War. In addition, we also functioned as an evacuation hospital, supporting troops from V-Corps.
According to a March 29, 1945, 45th Field Hospital morning report, Private Lynn died at 0100 hours from a coronary occlusion. He was just 36 years old.
Lucy Lynn remarried on September 21, 1946, in Wilmington to Lloyd S. Malzer.
Why on hold: Incorporating newspaper articles from prewar, and waiting for 1945 morning reports
Private Claude B. Wiles (1916–1942)
Early Life & Family
Claude B. Wiles was born on February 5, 1916, in Rock Creek Township or nearby Roaring River, both in Wilkes County, North Carolina. He was the 10th child of farmers Ambrose Wiles, Sr. () and Alice Wiles (née Privette or Prevett). Three older siblings died very young prior to his birth.
Wiles was recorded on the census in January 1920 living with his parents and four older siblings on a farm in Cecil County, Maryland. Census records indicate that Wiles and his family moved to Representative District 8 in unincorporated New Castle County, Delaware, prior to April 1, 1935. When the Wiles family was recorded there in April 1940, Wiles was unemployed. When he registered for the draft—the card was undated but it was presumably on or about October 16, 1940—Wiles was living in Eastburn Heights, Marshallton, Delaware, and working for the Reading Railroad Marine Department.
Wiles was living in Eastburn Heights when he entered the service. According to his enlistment data card, he was a chauffeur or driver before he joined the military.
Military Career
Wiles volunteered for military service. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in Wilmington, Delaware, on January 27, 1942. Like many soldiers who entered the service in Delaware, Private Wiles was initially stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Many Delawareans spent about a week there before being transferred to other bases to attend basic training. He was not formally assigned to any unit but was attached to the 1229th Reception Center.
Wiles went absent without leave (A.W.O.L.) on February 9, 1942, and apparently made his way back to Delaware. On the afternoon of February 15, 1942, Private Wiles was discovered with a gunshot wound to his head. He was pronounced dead at Wilmington General Hospital. An autopsy concluded that he had died by suicide.
Journal-Every Evening reported that Wiles’s funeral “will take place [at] the Smith Funeral Home, Twenty-fifth and Market Streets, Thursday afternoon [February 19, 1942,] at 3 o’clock. Interment will be in St. James Cemetery, Stanton.”
Sergeant William L. Nelson (1918–1943)
Early Life & Family
William Lloyd Nelson was born on the evening of February 22, 1918, near Dover, Delaware. He was the eldest child of John Clarence Nelson (a farmer, 1892–1983) and Carrie Nelson (née Phillips, 1895–1965). He had a younger sister, Dorothy M. Nelson (later Dorothy Davis and eventually Dorothy Davis McCafferty, 1920–2003).
The Nelson family was recorded on the census in January 1920 living on a farm outside Dover. (The census record said they were on the Dover and Hazelville Road, but it was most likely the Dover-Hazlettville Road). Nelson was recorded as Lloyd Nelson on the next census in April 1930. The family was living on a farm along Chesapeake City Road in unincorporated New Castle County, Delaware, south of Glasgow.
On April 29, 1932, Nelson’s parents purchased a farm along Cedar Lane Road between Jamison Corner and Armstrong Corner, north of Middletown, Delaware. Nelson was recorded living with his parents there at the time of the 1940 census. Later that year, when he registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, Nelson was working for the Hercules Powder Company in Wilmington. The registrar described him as standing five feet, 10 inches tall and weighing 155 lbs., with brown hair and blue eyes. He was Protestant.
Journal-Every Evening stated that Nelson “graduated from the Middletown High School and Beacom Business College and when drafted January, 1941, was employed in the Order Department of the Hercules Powder Company, Wilmington.” On the other hand, the 1940 census and Nelson’s enlistment data card described him as a high school graduate, not a college graduate. Nelson’s wife’s statement for the State of Delaware Public Archives Commission described him as an accounting clerk.
Military Career
Nelson was drafted before the U.S. entered World War II. He was inducted in Trenton, New Jersey, on January 9, 1941. His wife stated that her future husband spent 10 days at Fort Dix, New Jersey, before he was dispatched to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Like many men joining the rapidly-expanding U.S. Army at that time, he was assigned directly to a unit for his initial training. In January 1941, he joined Company “H,” 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. The June 1941 roster, the earliest to include duty codes, listed Private Nelson’s as 521, basic.
During a furlough back home to Delaware, Nelson married Rebecca Pyle at the First United Presbyterian Church in Wilmington on the evening of September 8, 1941.
A January 1942 roster listed a change in Nelson’s duty and military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) codes to 607, mortar gunner or light mortar crewman. The following month, he was promoted to private 1st class. The May 1942 roster indicated that Nelson had been promoted to corporal and reflected a change in his duty and M.O.S. codes to 603, gunner. (This seems to have been a blanket reclassification since no 607s were listed in the company roster for the month.) The June 1942 roster recorded another duty and M.O.S. code change to 653, squad leader. The July 1942 roster listed Nelson’s M.O.S. as 653 but his duty code as 228 (instrument man, surveying). There were no further changes recorded through September 1942, the last month on which duty and M.O.S. were recorded in extant rosters.
Combat in the Mediterranean Theater
Nelson was promoted to sergeant on January 7, 1943. He must have become a section leader at that point.
Journal-Every Evening reported Sergeant Nelson’s death on May 18, 1943.
Sergeant Nelson’s personal effects included a Bible, two prayer books, an Elgin wristwatch, a pair of glasses, a pipe, a French-English dictionary, a swimsuit, and a four-leaf clover.
Sergeant Nelson was initially buried in the II Corps cemetery on August 13, 1943. In 1947, Sergeant Nelson’s widow requested that his body be repatriated to the United States. Nelson’s casket returned to the New York Port of Embarkation aboard the Barney Kirschbaum.
Rebecca Pyle Nelson remarried.
During his career, Sergeant Nelson earned the Medal of Honor, the Purple Heart, the Good Conduct Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with two bronze service stars for the Algeria-French Morocco and Tunisian campaigns. (Distinguished unit badge)
Aviation Cadet Leroy A. Wilkins (1921–1942)
Early Life & Family
Leroy Alvin Wilkins was born in Milford, Sussex County, Delaware, on the morning of August 3, 1921. He was the second child of Leroy Wilkins (a carpenter and later building manager at Milford High School, 1899–1993) and Nellie Wilkins (née Marvel, 1901–1965). He had an older sister, Doris Wilkins (later Greenly, 1919–2013). Wilkins was nicknamed Nehi, apparently after the soft drink.
Wilkins attended school with Charles D. Holzmueller, Jr. (1920–1942), destined to become Milford’s first serviceman lost during World War II when a U-boat sank his vessel on May 2, 1942. Journal-Every Evening reported:
Wilkins and Holzmueller graduated from Milford High School in 1939. Both were well known among sports fans in lower Delaware as members of a Milford school basketball team which was undefeated for two seasons. Wilkins was captain of the team in his senior year, and was also captain of the football team during that year. He was also a member of the town’s baseball team.
A June 13, 1939, Journal-Every Evening article stated:
At a meeting of the Milford High School Alumni Association held yesterday it was decided to present the scholarship fund to Leroy A. Wilkins of this year’s graduating class.
The association presents a sum of money to a member of the graduating class every year who is worthy and outstanding in school work to assist that scholar towards a higher education.
The paper later reported that “Wilkins attended the University of Delaware for a year where he also was active in athletics.” His enlistment data card stated that he had completed two years of college, and indeed, he would have needed two years of college to enlist as an aviation cadet at the time that he did.
The Wilkins family was recorded on the census in April 1930 living on East Front Street in Milford. On the next census in April 1940, the family was recorded living at 10 East 2nd Street in Milford.
Military Career
On December 18, 1941, just eight days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wilkins enlisted as an aviation cadet in the U.S. Army Air Forces in Wilmington, Delaware. Given the application process to become an aviation cadet, it is likely that he had already volunteered before the attack.
According to his sister’s statement for State of Delaware Public Archives Commission, Aviation Cadet Wilkins began his training at Maxwell Field, Alabama, where he remained until January 1942. He then moved to Ocala, Florida. In March 1942, he transferred to Greenville Army Flying School, Mississippi. She wrote that in May 1942, he transferred to Craig Field, near Selma, Alabama. On the other hand, The Selma Times-Journal reported that Wilkins had arrived at Craig Field on June 2, 1942. By July 9, 1942, he had accumulated 169 hours and 35 minutes of flight time, including 39 hours and 20 minutes in the North American AT-6A Texan trainer.
At Craig Field, Wilkins joined the Cadet Detachment, 382nd School Squadron.
The Wilmington Morning News reported on July 14, 1942, that the day before, “City stores were closed and the American flag in Plaza Square lowered to half-mast today during the funeral service for Leroy A. Wilkins, Jr.” The paper added:
The body arrived here yesterday [July 12, 1942], accompanied by Thomas Bennett, a classmate of Wilkins, who also is stationed at Craig Field. A military funeral was held previously at the Army base.
The Rev. Marion A. Hungerford, pastor of Calvary Methodist Church, conducted the service at the home of the youth’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Leroy A. Wilkins, Sr.
His sister’s posthumous brother-in-law was Orlando Greenly.
Wilkins is honored at the University of Delaware’s World War II memorial in Newark, and at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware.
Why on hold: Flight records and looking for photo.
Private (John) Willard Chandler (1917–1943)
Military Career
After he was drafted, Chandler was inducted into the U.S. Army on April 2, 1941. His enlistment data card was one of approximately 13% that could not be digitized. However, his mother told the State of Delaware Public Archives Commission that her son joined the Army at Trenton, New Jersey. Indeed, selectees typically had their initial induction at Trenton and after a delay of a few days to a few weeks, went on active duty at Fort Dix, New Jersey. After a brief time at the reception center there, many were dispatched to basic training facilities, mostly in the South. Especially in the early 1940s, however, they sometimes were assigned directly to a unit for training.
A unit roster indicates that in May 1942, Private Chandler joined Battery “B,” 169th Field Artillery Battalion, 43rd Infantry Division at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. The 169th Field Artillery Battalion was activated there on February 19, 1942, following the breakup of the 103rd Field Artillery Regiment. At the time, all the noncommissioned officers in the unit were federalized guardsmen, as were many of the rest of the enlisted men. However, as time went on, vacancies were mostly replaced by draftees. The battalion was equipped with 105-mm howitzers.
Monthly rosters from June through September 1942 describe Private Chandler’s military occupational specialty (M.O.S.) code as 745, rifleman, suggesting he qualified as one during earlier training. However, since Field Artillery units did not have any riflemen, his duty code during those months was listed as 351. The usual meaning of that code was bookkeeping machine operator. It is unclear what a 351 would have done in the context of a Field Artillery unit. There were men who performed fire control computations, but these were in the headquarters batteries, and at a grade higher than private. Eventually, he probably requalified with an M.O.S. specific to Field Artillery, possibly whatever 351 meant.
Combat in the Pacific Theater
In a historical report, Lieutenant Colonel Wilber E. Bradt wrote:
On the 11–12 September 1943 the Battalion (less Battery “A”) moved from the New Georgia mainland to Piru Plantation on Ondongo Island and took over positions occupied by Batteries of the 140th Field Artillery Battalion. The occupation of position was most unusual in that the exchange of Batteries was effected without interfering with the firing. This was accomplished by substituting the base piece of the 140th Field Artillery Battalion Battery and while the remainder of the Battery of the 140th Field Artillery Battalion continued to fire, the base piece of the Battery of this Battalion was registered on the base point. The registration completed, the remaining three howitzers of each Battery were exchanged and the firing taken up by this Battalion. This procedure was employed both on the 11th September 1943, when Battery “B” relieved Battery “A”, 140th Field Artillery Battalion and on the 12th September 1943 when Battery “C”, relieved Battery “C”, 140th Field Artillery Battalion.
Ondongo is actually a peninsula rather than an island.
Private Chandler was killed in action early on September 12, 1943. In an operations report, Lieutenant Colonel Wilber E. Bradt wrote:
At 0330, 12 September, Battery “B” while engaged in firing a night harassing mission had a premature burst from the #4 howitzer. The round burst about 50 feet from the muzzle, killed one man, wounded three, and damaged the #3 howitzer. Shell high explosive, fuze M54 set for percussion action was being fired at the time and it is believed that the round had not been accurately set on safe. The battery had arrived at the position late in the afternoon and the ammunition had been prepared after dark.
The wounded were three federalized guardsmen from New England: Sergeant Halsey W. Buehler (1921–1967), Sergeant George W. Decoteaux (1917–1976), and Private Anthony DeMaio (1918–1999).
Technician 5th Grade Hiram J. McRae (1918–1945)
Hiram Johnson McRae was born in Alabama on March 23, 1918.
His foster mother was Louise McRae (later Louise McRae Crittendon) of Columbus, Georgia, sister Essie Bostic (born Alabama c. 1909, spouse Erelzia Bostic, children Dorthy and Erelzia Jr.) of Newark, New Jersey. He was Protestant according to his dog tags.
He was living in New Castle County, Delaware, when he entered the service. After McRae was drafted, he joined the U.S. Army in Camden, New Jersey, on July 23, 1942. Many selectees were briefly transferred to the Enlisted Reserve Corps on inactive duty for a few weeks to wrap up matters in their civilian lives. Private McRae went on active duty on or about August 5, 1942, when he was attached to Receiving Company “E,” 1229th Reception Center, Fort Dix, New Jersey.
Around August 18, 1942, he was attached unassigned to Company “C,” 8th Engineer Training Battalion, Engineer Replacement Training Center, Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He went absent without leave (A.W.O.L.) from October 5–9, 1942.
On October 24 or 25, 1942, Private McRae was released from attachment to Company “C.”
Payroll records indicate that McRae was paid at Camp Stoneman, California—staging area for the San Francisco Port of Embarkation—on November 2, 1942; November 30, 1942; and December 31, 1942. He went overseas on January 23, 1943.
On February 14, 1943, McRae joined Company “B,” 811th Engineer Aviation Battalion, a segregated unit with black enlisted men and white officers. The 811th had been activated at Langley Field, Virginia, on December 1, 1941. Enlisted cadre transferred into the unit from the 94th Engineer Battalion (Separate), as well as from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The unit went overseas soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, shipping out on January 23, 1942. Their convoy arrived in Melbourne, Australia, on February 26, 1942. The following month, the battalion arrived at Nouméa, New Caledonia, which was under Free French control and would soon become one of the largest Allied bases in the South Pacific. The battalion primary built and maintained airfields. Occasionally they constructed roads and railroads, and transported crated aircraft from the port to assembly areas. Service in the South Pacific, at the end of very long supply lines, required a certain degree of improvisation, as a unit history observed at the conclusion of two years on New Caledonia:
Having fixed the roads, they drove their trucks over them for more than eleven million miles. The mechanics had their own opinion of those miles. It was their duty to keep in running order vehicles which had not been new when they were put aboard, and it was nothing unusual to see one trundling about with its third engine and its second speedometer. No one gave it a second thought, any more than they gave a second thought to using salvaged aircraft armor for patching material, or tailoring a truck motor to fit a grader when the grader’s own motor gave out.
McRae was promoted from private to technician 5th grade on April 8, 1943. Later that year, McRae was hospitalized at the 31st Station Hospital. His condition was severe enough that he was transferred to Detachment of Patients, 31st Station Hospital, effective November 29, 1943. After recovering, he was transferred back to his unit on December 31, 1943, rejoining Company “B” at 1300 hours that afternoon. On February 24, 1944, McRae was temporarily appointed to the grade of corporal. This was not a promotion per se, since both were the same pay grade, although by that time a corporal had the authority of a noncommissioned officer whereas a technician 5th grade did not.
On March 23, 1944, the 811th shipped out for Guadalcanal. A unit history stated that 72% of the unit “were charter members” who had been with the unit since 1941, meaning McRae was among the 28% of personnel who were replacements.
After arriving at Guadalcanal on April 1, 1944, the men of the 811th performed general construction work while assigned to the Thirteenth Air Force. Their projects included building a camp, a flagpole, quarters at a hospital, a bridge, runway maintenance, and a new tower at Carney Field. They also performed work improving the drainage at various installations. Perhaps tongue-in-cheek, the unit history for April 1944 recorded that “None of the projects were particularly noteworthy except one priority 1 AA – RUSH assignment which arrived at noon and instructed us to produce by four that afternoon, one volleyball court for the Commanding General.”
The battalion also built a tennis court and a baseball field, and a battalion garden for the unit’s men to supplement their rations by growing fresh produce for themselves. The unit history noted (A0246 pg. 193):
The battalion garden fulfilled its promise by providing sweet corn, watermelon, cantaloupe, egg plant and assorted greens to the mess tables. The corn was excellent, better in fact that much that is sold in markets at home, since this is fresh picked. The Battalion Surgeon found it expensive. A skeptic by instinct and training, he had bet five dollars that it would not come up to its name of “Sixty-Day Corn”, only to have a steaming ear set before him on the sixtieth day.
On June 18, 1944, men of the unit responded when a B-25 ditched near the Company “C” camp, helping to rescue the crewmembers half an hour before crash trucks and ambulances arrived.
A hospital admission card indicates McRae was briefly hospitalized for colic in July 1944.
The main body of the 811th shipped out for Honolulu, Hawaii, on September 21, 1944, aboard the U.S.A.T. Cape Meares, arriving there on October 4, 1944. The unit was briefly stationed at Hickam Field before moving to Bellows Field (apparently as a result of a false accusation that the men of the unit had been in involved in “a disturbance in the civilian workers barracks – half mile down the road from our location.”). The move was not reversed, though the unit did work all across Oahu at Kwaloa, Kipapa, Hickam, and Wheeler, as well as Bellows.
Company “B” began training at the Jungle Training Area (Jungle Unit Training Center?) beginning on December 10, 1944. This training included amphibious operations and the use of various weapons, including one just issued to the battalion: the M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage, a halftrack equipped with a quadruple .50 machine gun turret. The training, and extra firepower perhaps hinted that their next assignment would be more hazardous. (Unit records appear missing February – April 1945)
It appears that the unit shipped out from Hawaii on or about March 28, 1945, and arrived on Iwo Jima on April 20, 21, or 22, 1945, and was assigned to VII Fighter command. (A0246, pg. 217)
The unit history reported:
The announcement of peace was received here, as elsewhere on the Island, with a curious quiet. The first broadcast at 2200 woke the camp out of its slumbers and there was sporadic cheering as area after area got the news. Nobody slept much after that. Next day the radios were crowded with listeners. When the final announcement came through, most hearers heaved a deep sigh and walked off with a rather groggy expression. There was no work that day and very little the next. There were ball games, which were well attended, but for the most part everyone sat back and relaxed. Almost everyone complained of a hollow feeling inside, as though something important had vanished overnight.
Work continued, albeit “on a greatly curtailed schedule.”
Technician 5th Grade McRae suffered a skull fracture in a vehicle accident on Iwo Jima. He died on September 2, 1945, the same day Japanese representatives signed the instrument of surrender in Tokyo Bay. He was initially buried in the 4th Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima on September 3, 1945.
His personnel effects included his wallet, a Lucite pendant, a deck of playing cards, his unemployment compensation and draft registration cards, two rings, two New Zealand florins, three Bibles, 19 cowrie shells, $116.34, and 269 personal letters.
The Army attempted to reach Technician 5th Grade McRae’s sister, and then his foster mother through the American Red Cross. The Red Cross contacted Louise McRae to have her fill out the disposition paperwork. She wrote a notarized letter to the Office of the Quartermaster General dated May 13, 1948:
After careful consideration I have decided that I would not have my son’s remains returned to the States.
He was my foster-son, and now that he has been interred overseas, I am satisfied with the arrangements.
I do not care to complete forms.
Edna Mattox of the American Red Cross wrote the Office of the Quartermaster General Memorial Division on October 13, 1948:
Our Columbus, Georgia, chapter worker advises that Mrs. Louise McRae Crittenden states the serviceman was never legally adopted by her. The decedent was given to her by a brother who had obtained him from the boy’s mother. Efforts to locate the boy’s mother have been unsuccessful.
McRae was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii on November 23, 1949.
Although McRae entered the service from Wilmington, Delaware, the Adjutant General’s Office report of death listed his home address as “Wilmington, N. C.” The error may have originally been due to some paperwork using N. C. as an abbreviation for New Castle County, or because Wilmington, North Carolina, is a better known city than Wilmington, Delaware. Regardless, his headstone erroneously lists North Carolina as his state of residence.
Why on hold: Waiting for release of 1945 morning reports to the National Archives Catalog to complete reconstruction of his military history
If you have materials that may help me finish any of these articles, please contact me.
Last updated on May 12, 2026
Delaware's World War II Fallen 