Military Involvement
| Servicemen * Sa - surnames |
Orville Wesley Linden Sales was born Dec. 2, 1919 to Austin and Sarah Martha “Martha” Wagner Sales. He died July 13, 1943 and is memorialized at the Walls of the Missing, Manila American Cemetery, Taguig City, Philippines.
Petty Officer Sales served in World War II with the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Gwin (DD-433) and was MIA/FOD/KIA when that vessel was torpedoed and sunk in the vicinity of the Kula Gulf. He was awarded the Purple Heart.
Source: ancestry.com
Francis Leon Sampson was born Feb. 29, 1912 to Harvey and Lumena Ryan Sampson. He died Jan. 28, 1996 and is buried in Saint Catherine Cemetery, Luverne, MN.
Maj. Gen. Sampson served with the U.S. Army 90th Infantry Division and 101st Airborne Division, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, Headquarters Company. He became the regimental chaplain for the 501st and jumped on Utah Beach Area on D-Day. During the Normandy campaign, he learned that two of an Army sergeant’s brothers had been killed on D-Day, and a third brother was reported missing in the Pacific. He initiated the paperwork to remove the sergeant from the fighting as a surviving son. He then escorted the man back to Utah beach for evacuation. It was upon this event that the 1998 film ‘Saving Private Ryan’ was loosely based. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions during the campaign. He was then part of the force at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, during which he was captured and confined to Stalag II A.
He became regimental chaplain of the 5505th Parachute Regiment of the 82nd Airborne and served as regimental chaplain for the 187th Airborne Infantry from 1947-1951 and accompanied them when they parachuted into Sunchon, Korea in an attempt to rescue POWs .He then served as an instructor at the U.S. Army Chaplain School before taking up a post as chaplain for the 11th Airborne Division from 1955-1958. He published a memoir, “Look Out Below! A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre”. He served at the 7th Army Chaplain from 1962-1965.The following year he was appointed Deputy Chief of Chaplains of the U.S. Army. He was promoted to Maj. Gen. and Chief of Chaplains in 1967 and served until 1971. He was also awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He retired after a 30 year career serving in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
Source: ancestry.com; americandday.org
ServiceMen Research done by WWII Researcher, Pat Holt Juon, Mar 2019; updated Jun 2019