LISTED MISSING
First Lt. Darwyn E. Walker, 25, whose wife and daughter Suanne reside at 607 Casselman street, has been reported missing in action in France since January 23 by the War Department. A son of Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Walker, 519 Collins street, Lt. Walker was with the national guard group that training at Camp Claiborne, La., and that left for overseas in 1941.
In 1942, Lt. Walker returned to Fort Benning, Ga., for O. C. S. training and received a commission in the infantry in January, 1943. Stationed shortly at Fort McClellan, Ala., he was returned to Fort Benning for advanced officer’s training and then was sent to Camp Robinson, Ark., and later to Camp McCoy, Wis.
He embarked again for overseas, July, 1944. A former Journal-Tribune carrier boy, he wears the presidential citation, the infantry combat badge and a star for the European theater of war.
SIOUX CITYAN LEADS ATTACK ON GERMANS
Lt. Darwyn E. Walker of Sioux City was credited recently with helping lead the attack when Third division soldiers pulled of an intricately coordinated assault combining infantry and supporting arms on the snow-swept fringe of the Alsatian plain.
An account of the attack contained the following description in part:
“Everything was perfected. A platoon of 4.2 mortars laid down a smoke screen, which but the Kraut completely at the losing end of the score, and he never quite found it out. So effective were supporting fires by the artillery battalion that Lt. Walker followed one concentration directly to its objective while leading the attackers.
“You couldn’t slow them down,” the lieutenant said in praising his men. “They went from foxhole to foxhole dropping in grenades and jerking out the live Germans.”
Source: The Sioux City Journal, February 15, 1945 (photo included)
LTs, WALKER, HAKALA SAFE
Wives of 2 Sioux City Officers Receive Good News
Wives of two Sioux City officers have received word of their husbands, who were taken prisoner by the Germans. One learned for the first time her husband had been captured after having been listed previously as “missing,” and the other was informed her husband had been freed by Allied Armies.
Mrs. Darwyn E. Walker, 607 Casselman street, received a card from First Lt. Walker, who was reported missing January 23, that he was in a German prison camp. The card was mailed February 1.
It was the first news she had had of him since the official War Department notification that the officer was missing.
Mrs. Robert Hakala, 201 S. St. Aubin street, learned Tuesday through a story by a Chicago newspaper correspondent that Lt. Hakala, who was reported a German prisoner February 19, had been liberated from a Brunswick Germany officer’s prison camp.
Lt. Walker, son of Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Walker, 519 Collins street, was with the national guard group that trained at Camp Claiborne, La., and went overseas in 1941.
Lt. Hakala, a prominent Morningside football player, is the son of Mrs. Eli V. Hakala, Virginia, Minn.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, April 18, 1945
(under picture)
First Lt. Darwyn E. Walker, 607 Cassleman Street, Sioux City, receiving the Silver Star medal from Col. John P. Wheeler at Hot Springs, Ark.
Wins Silver Star for Gallantry
Sioux Cityan Honored for Heroic Exploit in France
For gallantry in action in France, First Lt. Darwyn E. Walker, husband of Mrs. Lois W. Walker, 607 Casselman Street, Sioux City, received the Silver Star medal in an award ceremony on the National Park lawn at Hot Springs, Ark. Col. John P. Wheeler, commanding officer of the army ground and service forces redistribution station, made the presentation.
Lt. Walker’s citation reads:
“Although bullets pierced his sleeve, he personally directed the liquidation of two enemy bunker positions equipped with machine-guns. After seizing the enemy’s first line of defenses, Lt. Walker led his men in an assault against a second line near the top of the hill as grenades burst within 10 yards of him. Under his direction, the company killed 25 Germans, wounded an undetermined number and captured 10 prisoners.
Lt Walker, who was captured in an action subsequent the one for which he was cited, also wears the purple heart with one cluster. He is at Hot Springs for reassignment.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, September 9, 1945 (photograph included)
