Aviation Ordnanceman 3rd Class Luther Dean Stanford served in the US Navy from September, 1943 through July, 1944. His Tours of Duty: San Diego, CA, Norman, OK, Norfolk, VA, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was Killed in Action in a seaplane accident in Great Exuma, Bahama Islands, on July 1, 1944. He was posthumously awarded the following Medals: American Campaign Medal, European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, WWII Victory Medal.
Category: biography
Presley Bazelle Land
As we approach Memorial Day, we honor Presley Land of Alvord, Texas. United States Army Sergeant Presley Bazelle Land was killed on the island of Okinawa on June 17, 1945. He was the oldest son of Jessie Clarence and Sarah Isabelle Magers Land and was born in Alvord, Wise County, Texas on October 22, 1916. Jessie was a farmer and Isabelle was a housewife. Presley graduated from Alvord High School around 1933 and married the former Vera Katherine Richards on September 4, 1937. Presley had attended college for one year and was working as a clerk in Fort Worth for Convair, an aircraft manufacturer, at the time he enlisted in the service on May 24, 1943.
Jim Beck
Not much can be found in newspaper archives about recording engineer Jim Beck, perhaps due to his shortened career and untimely death, but his name is well known in the music and recording industry.
John J. Pershing
General John Joseph Pershing served in Texas immediately prior to the United States’ entry into World War I. His name might be familiar to some in Texas due to the raids into Mexico that were intended to catch the bandit Pancho Villa.
Marcelino Serna
The headline in the El Paso Herald-Post on Veterans Day, November 11, 1970 read “Hero of World War I Rides in Parade” and went on to tell the amazing story of Marcelino Serna. Private Serna was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Purple Heart and Victory Medal (United States decorations) along with the French Medaille Militaire and two Croix de Guerre and the Italian Merito de Guerra. The article added that Private Serna spent his first Armistice Day in a hospital recovering from his wounds that he received about a week earlier on November 7, 1918 while participating in the Meuse-Argonne offensive.
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