Korean War and Vietnam War
KOREAN WAR 1951-1957
This is the link to the National Archives Page that lists Military dead for the Korean War for Washington state. It does not give the rank or much detail and I have not extracted the Skagit County service men and women from the list
I was in the service between 1950-1954...attached to Comservrom 3 in Sasebo Japan. The tanker Asabula was tied up along side of us, ARH7 AJAX, for repairs and they were welding on the forward deck and I stood and watched them for a while and then I went inside to relieve the radio operator for late chow when there was an explosion. The communication watch officer asked me to check what antennas we had left as we were standing watch for 29 other ships in the harbor.
. I went out and saw what happened and reported back that the only antenna was the harbor warning circuit. The communications officer put me on the harbor warning circuit after reporting all other antennas down. So I told shore net that "I was taking over net control under emergency conditions." and requested all ships to "stay off the air and that I would contact what ships I wanted and for what supplies we wanted them to furnish us."
. The tanker had the deck forward of the superstructure opened up like a tin can lid. It was hanging out over the bow. We didn't know how many men had died. We lost several men of our repair crew and several of the tanker crew were missing. All bodies were recovered due to a Japanese boat operator having one picture left on his camera and he took a picture showing wreckage still in the air. by trangutaling the splashes...all bodies were recovered... under the pieces of the ship.
. I was eventually brought up before the captain of ship and others and given verbal commendation (not written...darn it) on the way I handled the harbor warning circuit... which was nice but not as nice as riding around in the Captain's gig... to go to the other ships to retreive the messages we had missed... and I hadn't missed but one.
. The tanker was towed to dry dock the same day as the explosion.
Don Walker, Navy Vet. Korean War 28 Apr 1999
VIET NAM
This is the link to the National Archives Page that lists Military dead for the Viet Nam War for Washington state It does not give the rank or much detail.
Washington State Vietnam War Casuality List .
Faces from the Wall honors the men who died from Skagit County
Skagit County - Faces from the Wall
The Washington State Website for Vietnam Memorial in Olympia. This list is different from NARA as more men are listed
Washington State Website
MILITARY RESEARCH AID
. Linda Haas Davenport has built a learning site with easy to understand instructions on military research and many many great links. I really recommend checking this site not only for the military information offered but for other great tips.
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~haas/learningcenter.html
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Darilee Bednar,
Skagit County GenWeb Coordinator
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