Kossuth Boy New Guinea
WALTER SMITH, JR. SENECA,
REPORTED KILLED IN ACTION
Was Member of Sniper’s Squad In New Guinea;
War Department Reports Death on August 21.
Seneca: Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Smith received official notice from Washington D. C. Friday that their son, Junior, lost his life while in action in New Guinea on Aug. 21. Memorial services were held at Mason City Sunday, where his wife and baby son, nine months of age, live. The father had never seen his son. The Smiths had received word from their son that he had been wounded and had been hospitalized, but they were not to worry about him. He expected to be sent out again in a sniper’s squad and it is presumed that he never returned from this mission.
Source: Algona Upper Des Moines, November 4, 1943
80 Kossuth Men Officially Listed As Casualties In War
FIRST RELEASE OF STATE HISTORICAL DEATH SUMMARIES
Eighty men from Kossuth county lost their lives while in the service of their country in World War II.
KOSSUTH WAR DEAD.
Smith, Walter Ralph Jr., Pfc.
Killed in action at Munda in Pacific 8-21-43.
Parents: Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Smith, Bancroft, Ia.
Wife: Mrs. Dorothy H. Smith 1716 Delaware St. S.E., Mason City, Ia.
Source: The Algona Upper DesMoines, Tuesday, January 22, 1946 – page 7.
Walter Ralph Smith, Jr. was born Mar. 7, 1919 to Walter Ralph (Sr.) and Eula Ann Miles Smith. He died Aug. 21, 1943 and is memorialized in Crown Hill Cemetery, Ruthven, IA,
Pvt. Smith served in World War II with the U.S. Army 169th Infantry, 43rd Division and was KIA in the Solomon Islands, South Pacific.
Sources: ancestry.com
