San Antonio Does Its Part

All U.S. troops overseas are not Texans. But the frequency of Texas addresses in dispatches from the battlefronts does indicate a fact of which all Texans are proud: a lot of them are.*

Some figures compiled in San Antonio last Week indicated just how much one Texas city had contributed to the fighting of the war:

From a population (1940) of 319,010, the metropolitan area of San Antonio furnished the armed forces 51,000, including many sons-in-law. (San Antonio, longtime home of Kelly and Randolph Fields and Fort Sam Houston, is called "mother-in-law of the Army.")

About 1,400 San Antonians have been killed, wounded or are missing. Nearly half these were Latin Americans, chiefly Mexicans, who have proved among the best of U.S. combat troops. Six San Antonians were killed at Pearl Harbor, but Salerno was costliest. There the 36th (Texas) Division, including 1,000 San Antonians, spearheaded the beach attack.

Some 450 San Antonians have been decorated. Among them are two who wear the Congressional Medal of Honor's white-starred blue ribbon: Colonel Neel Kearby, who shot down five Jap planes in an air battle near Wewak, New Guinea; Lieut. Colonel Charles W. Davis, who led an infantry assault on Guadalcanal.

On Tarawa alone five Marines from San Antonio were killed: Lieut. Alexander Bonnyman Jr., Staff Sergeant William J. Bordelon Jr., Pfcs. Arthur Menger, Gene Seng, Charles Montague. Wounded were Sergeant Sam McAllister, Pfc. George Smith. Cited for heroism: Lieut. John Holmgreen, a schoolmate at Central Catholic High School of Seng, Montague and Bordelon.

* Actually, Texas leads all other states in percentage of volunteers (.826 against second-place Vermont's .650). Volunteers usually got overseas first.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.