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By June 1945, the war in Europe had ended but fighting still was raging on the island of Okinawa and also in the Philippines.
Mr. and Mrs. John M. Coughlin, who farmed north of Laurel, received word that their son Pfc. John J. Coughlin, a member of the 1st Marine Division, had been wounded on Okinawa when a piece of shrapnel struck his lower jaw and came out through his mouth. Coughlin survived the war only to drown in a pond on his father‘s farm on July 7, 1957.
He was 38 years old and the father of six children, one of whom drowned in a similar accident in 1974.
Harold E. Carlson, son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward W. Carlson, was wounded on Okinawa while attempting to rescue a buddy who had been wounded by a Japanese sniper.
Carlson was a stretcher-bearer serving with the 6th Marine Division. “My buddy was hit pretty hard in the shoulder and began calling for help. I hurried out of my trench with a stretcher to get him but a sniper got me in the left hip before I could get to him.“ Carlson died in Colorado in 1966 at the age of 41.
Mr. and Mrs. Fritz Rath received a letter from their son Pfc. Kenneth Rath stating that he had been wounded in the leg and in the face while serving with the 86th Infantry Division on Okinawa. Rath died in 1996 and is buried in Norfolk.
Mr. and Mrs. B.H. Rumsey of Geneva, a former editor of the Belden Progress and a later employee of the Laurel Advocate, received word that their son had died in a German prison camp shortly before the camp was liberated. Judson Ramsey went into combat on December 10, 1944, and was taken prisoner on December 19. A letter to his parents from a buddy said Judson had died in a German hospital following a severe case of stomach trouble. “American prisoners were not mistreated, except for having unappetizing and scanty meals,“ he wrote.
Yvonne Erwin Engstedt, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Erwin of Dixon, was notified that her husband had been declared killed in action after having been reported missing for nearly a year. Sgt. Clarence G. Engstedt was a member of a crew of a Douglas C-47 transport plane that went down in the Atlantic due to weather conditions on August 21, 1944. His body was never recovered and Mrs. Engstedt never remarried. She died in 2015.
Pfc. Lloyd D. Johnson, son of Mrs. Ellen Johnson of Laurel, participated in a difficult and dangerous survey mission through 45 miles of dense swamps, shoulder high grass, and deep rivers on the island of Leyte in the Philippines.
During the Japanese occupation of Leyte all survey records were lost and all benchmarks were destroyed. An accurate survey was necessary to enable U.S. artillery to place accurate fire on Japanese positions near the port city of Baybay.
Johnson and his crew were sent out with two days rations and orders to survey the coast of Leyte as far north as they could. When they ran out of food they relied on bananas furnished by friendly natives.
On their first day out, they encountered the first of thirty rivers they had to wade across. Johnson said they waded through chin deep water holding their survey instruments, carbine rifles, and rations over their heads. They saw a Japanese destroyer not more than 500 yards offshore. Fortunately the Japanese did not see them.
In the course of the survey, Johnson and his crew were strafed and bombed by Japanese planes and machine gunned by Japanese infantry. Outside of getting soaked by the incessant rain and caked with mud, they suffered no serious injuries.
When the survey was completed, it was used by every infantry motor company and every artillery unit in the area. Johnson said he would rather not do it again. “I would rather survey our farm back in Laurel. Tall corn is easier to see through.“ After the war Johnson returned to the farm near Laurel but did not stay long. In 1947 he married a woman from Boone, Iowa. Two years later they moved to a farm near Boone where he died in 1952 at the age of 31. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson are buried in Boone. A sister, Mabel Johnson of Laurel, died in 2017 at the age of 101.
Mrs. William J. McCaw received a telegram from her son Elmer stating that he was back in the States and had received an honorable discharge. McCaw had been overseas since 1942 and had participated in several campaigns in Italy. Elmer R. McCaw (wrongly listed as Elmer F. McCaw on the Memorial Day program) was a veteran of both world wars. During World War I he was stationed in Hawaii with the coast artillery. In 1942 — at the age of 44 — he was drafted and served two more years in the army. McCaw died at the age of 52 in January 1950 and is buried in the Laurel Cemetery.
Marjorie Yost, wife of Merlin Yost a highway patrolman stationed in Laurel, received word that her brother Capt. Richard Howard Hamilton had been reported missing an action over Japan. It was later learned that the B-29 he was piloting was shot down over Osaka on May 8, 1945 (V-E Day). Hamilton, the only member of the crew to survive the crash, was taken prisoner by the Japanese and executed by firing squad on July 21, 1945. While Capt. Hamilton‘ s B-29 was on a photo reconnaissance mission not a bombing run, the Japanese people did not have warm feelings for American airmen shot down while unloading fire bombs on Japanese cities. More Japanese civilians were killed by fire bombs than by the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
Roger Tryon is a Laurel High School graduate and a former employee of the Laurel Advocate. He is now retired and living in Sioux City after a long teaching career. He has been writing a weekly history column for the Cedar County News and Laurel Advocate newspapers for over 30 years.
