There are still names missing from the war memorial in Pine Grove Park.
But 21 new ones will be added to the monument on Monday aspart of Port Huron’s Memorial Day program.
They’re the names of fallen soldiers from World War I, World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars whose deaths in service were only more recently confirmed by the St. Clair County Allied Veterans Council and Memorial Tablet Committee, according to the St. Clair County Veterans Affairs Department.
It’s the largest number of names to be added since the Vietnam War. It's21 more names “that haven’t been recognized” — in some cases for nearly a century,VA Outreach Coordinator Nancy Deising said.
“That’s what monuments are for."
Dan Crocker, a retired state director of veterans services, had been involved with the tablet committee since the 1980s but recently began researching the names already on it anddiscovered fallen soldiers whose names were not.
"It’s an honor to find them,” he said. “It’s very rewarding and an honor because, guess what, they’ve been forgotten, quite frankly, and nowthey won’t be.”
READ MORE:Banners would honor county's fallen heroes
The 21 include six names from WWI, seven each fromWWII and Koreaand one from Vietnam. Among them are individuals who few up in St. Clair County, some who moved away or those whose extended families remained.
Crocker’s research involved deep dives into Ancestry.com and Times Herald archives available onNewspapers.comyielded many of the discovered names.Ed Weichsler said some also arose as part of the ongoing Blue Water Area Fallen Heroes Community Banner Program. Both men areveterans.
Weichsler said the projects are linked.
“We’re trying to stimulate a conversation about this,” he said.The tablet will be unveiled with the added soldiers’ names following the Port Huron Memorial Day parade Monday.
Who were they?
Vietnam War
Clarence W. Howard went to school in the area earlyin his childhood before moving away,according to Crocker.
Old Times Herald clips note his involvement in local youth activities, such as the Boy Scouts, and he was once pictured among the students reading new library books with other youths at Lincoln School.
According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, he died in early 1966 in Quang Ngai while serving as a lance corporal in the Marine Corps.He was 21.
Korean War
Howard J. Ahles was from St. Clair. He was killed in actionin Korea on Feb. 24, 1951, six months after being recalled to active duty, according to to aTimes Herald story. He was 21.The newspaper reported he died of gunshot wounds, although some military honor registries list his cause of death as non-hostile.
He’d served with the 25th U.S. Army Division and previously enlisted to become a paratrooperwith the 11th Airborne Division in July 1948, receiving his training in Japan that year.
In January 1950, Ahles was given an honorable discharge, working at the St. Clair Rubber Company in Marysville after he returned to the area. He’d attended St. Clair High School. His mother’s obituary in February 1990 noted that hisnickname was“Butch.”
Frederick D. Ballantine was from Port Huron. Little information could be found on his death. An October 1950 clip noted he died in action at age 19. His parents lived in Canada, while his grandmother still lived in Port Huron at the time.
Bill E. Buck was reported to have been missing in action since August 1950 in a December 1951 report. By that January, the U.S. Department of Defense had added his name to the list of Blue Water District men who died in Korea.
Buck enlisted in the U.S. Army at 18 in the spring of 1950. Although born and schooled in Wisconsin, hereportedly arrived in Yale to live with his sister before enlisting.
Oliver B. Crain was killed in action in Korea on May 7, 1952, at age 23. He was born in Goodells. He was a member of the 1st Engineers Battalion of the 1st Marine Division, serving in the Marine Corps for four years. He was a sergeant.
William A. MacKean died in Korea at age 23 on May 28, 1951, as a sergeant. His family was native to Avoca, although he attended Peck High School, where he played baseball, and graduated from Pershing High School in Detroit in 1945.
He enlisted in the Army in September 1945, serving in occupation duty in Germany and Austria before being discharged in June 1947. He worked for Detroit Edison and Chrysler in Detroit before re-enlisting in the Army in October 1950.
William Poole died in action as a sergeant in the Fifth Calvary Division of the U.S. Army in February 1951. He was 18. Born in Detroit, he’d been raisedby a family in Emmett for eight years before enlisting in May 1949. He did not go overseas until September 1950.
Willie L. Thomas, a private, waskilled in action in October 1950. Although born in Birmingham, where his family lived, he attended school in Port Huron for five years as a child.
He served for three years in the U.S. Navy, enlisting in the Army in September 1948 and serving in the 24th Infantry Division in Korea.
World War II
Little to no information was found on the deaths of Fred Jones, Burton; William W.L. Mitchell, Port Huron; and Oswald A. Powers, Marine City.
Richard Regan died after serving roughly two decades in the U.S. Navy during WWII. His age was not immediately clear.
He was confirmed as a Japanese prisoner of war by the International Red Cross in 1943 but had been reported missing a year earlier. A former resident of the Yale and Melvin areas, his family had reportedly last heard from him in August 1942.
News of Regan’s death around Oct. 24, 1944 — the date the prison ship he was aboard sunk on its way to Manchuria — reached the U.S. months later and was reported in the Times Herald in June 1945. A letter had been sent to Regan’s widow by one of the ship’s six survivors.
Regan had been a squadron engineer and chief machinist on a patrol torpedoboat, a PT-35. He was decorated for gallantry in actionand was called “Fighting Finnegan” by other members of the crew.
Earlier in the war, the Times Herald published a letter he had written to his sister. In late 1941, Regan wrote a detailed account of an expected attack while in the Philippines, other activity he heard of in the Pacific, the heat and typhoons in the region, his position in a fast motor torpedo boat — “I had the thrill of maneuvering it in squadron formation at sea” — and “many more things” he told her were “secret until after the war.”
Regan also mentioned a $40 a month raise and signed the letter as Dick, her “salt-water sailor brother.”
Clarence Sanders, formerly of Port Huron, was killed in action in Germany at aged 25 while serving in a heavy artillery unit in January 1945. He still had extended family in the area at the time and was reportedly a frequent visitor. He had been overseas for a year and was once employed at Chrysler in Detroit.
Benjamin Scoggan, formerly of Port Huron,was a second lieutenant pursuit pilot who was killed in action in the Pacific theater in late December 1943. He had been inducted into the Army in April 1941 and was completed flight training at the Army Air Forces' advanced single-engine flying school.
William J. Woolley, of Goodells, died in March 1945. His age of death was not immediately clear, but he was a private, a gunner with the Seventh Army, and had gone overseas in December 1944.
World War I
John W. Ashford, Port Huron; Harris Christenson, Port Huron; Don M. Dickinson, Marine City; Floyd Pemberton, Algonac; William E. Regan, Marine City; and Grover G. Wegg, Port Huron will also be honored on the tablet in Pine Grove Park.
However, little to no information of their deaths could be immediately found. Most of their names were listed in retrievable lists from draft boards and service honor rolls in Times Herald archives.
Updating the banner program
Local organizers said they hope to find more details about the individuals behind the 21 names in promoting their addition to the tablet.
Crocker and Weichsler said they’re looking for photos, particularly, and other information.
The Times Herald was unable to reach any living family members.
“You’re in the same boat we are,” Weichsler said, "because in order to come up with photographs, we have to get in touch with families.”
Photos are needed as part of the banner program. The aim is to put up street banners of more than 500 service members from St. Clair County in their respective native communities the week before and after Memorial Day.
Deising said some banners displaying images of better-known fallen heroes, such as those who’ve had Veterans of Foreign Wars or American Legion posts named for them, have already been made and will be unveiled during Monday’s parade to spread awareness of the effort. She said one of the banners —for Richard Nemecek, who died serving in the Marines in WWII at age 22 — was also being unveiled to family members in Capac Thursday.
Weichsler spoke of dozens whose names and some photos they do have but added they don’t have enough money raised to complete the project. Regardless, he said, what they’ve found in the research process has inspired them to begin contemplating a part two.
They want to do a coffee table-sized book of photographs, scanned mementos and interviews related to local fallen soldiers, he said, although nothing’s been made official.
“So that when we’re all gone, when we’re doing the dirt dance, these people and their contributions and their lives will live on,” Weichsler said. “I don’t want you to think that any one death is any more or less important in war. It’s not. But we’ve had St. Clair county residents where history is made.”
He pointed to events like the Battle of the Bulge and Iwo Jima.
“Nobody knows this stuff,” Weichsler said. “Yet, they walked among us. They were one of us, and they died to preserve our futures.”
‘They’re out there’
Organizers also said they understand families may come forward with other names as a result of both the tablet and banner efforts.
Butthey want to caution them of the differing requirements.
The banner project, Deising said, requires primarily that the soldier died while in service. Criteria are steeper to have a name added to the tablet at Pine Grove.
Requirements include:
- Submitted names must be researched by the St. Clair County Allied Veterans Council’s tablet committee and approved by the council
- Each submission must be for someone who was born in, schooled in, a current or former resident of, or buried in St. Clair County
- They must have served with the U.S. Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, or Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy or Coast Guard Reserve, Michigan Army or Air National Guard
- They must have died while serving in a conflict area, combat theater, war zone or engaged with a hostile adversary, or later died of wounds sustained in those conflicts
Deising said those requirements did affect how many new names are going on the tablet Monday.
“We actually had more names presented to them, but they only accepted the 21 based on the criteria,” she said.
As part of his research, Crocker said he learned records for original names on the tablet had been sent out of the area. He said he was sure therewas still more to be discovered.
“We found 21, and I’m sure there’s more out there, but they have to fit in the parameters of eligibility requirements,” he said. “Evidence supports a connection. Most of these folks have (been) lost in the history of everything, and yet, they had family, they had friends. And I don’t know how we can contact them. But they’re out there.”
People who have a family member or who know of a friend or neighbor who was killed in action can contact Nancy Deising atndeising@stclaircounty.orgor call thebanner program hotline at (810) 985-2007 to arrange for an appointment to have a photo scanned. For more information, you can also visit www.stclairfoundation.org/.
Weichsler said he and Deising have had some pretty “emotional afternoons” sitting down with people who fear the sacrifice of their loved one's service will be lost with time.
He said he hopes both the tablet and the banner program — and maybe someday a book — will help keep it all in people’s consciousness.
“Because we’re compelled to bring the reality of these GIs who are no longer with us into a realm of understanding like, ‘My God, I didn’t’ know,’” Weichsler said. “When you see fragments of their existence and letters from the war department, this stuff is real. We can’t bring them back to life, but if we can bring their faces back to life in the streets they grew up on, it’ll bring some clarity.”
Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.
Memorial Day Parade
Line up for the Port Huron Memorial Day parade begins at 10 a.m. west of Huron Avenue downtown along Quay Street. The other side of Quay is closed amid construction.
The parade begins on Huron at 11 a.m., heading north to Pine Grove Park. Deising said it takes about an hour to conclude. A short Memorial Day program will follow.