There are about 110,000 veterans of World War II still alive in the United States, and at least one of them lives in Granville County, according to Mark Pace. He and Bill Harris discussed war military service veterans as part of the Around Old Granville segment of The Local Skinny! Thursday.
The average age of the WWII veteran is 93, Pace said. Several veterans have died in the past year, he said, along with a couple more in Vance County.
It’s sometimes difficult to determine exact numbers, Pace said, but his research has shown that there are 20 soldiers from the Old Granville area who died in the American Revolution. At least 450 (but probably more like 550) who died in the Civil War from the approximately 2,600 who fought for the Confederacy, down to 1 soldier who died in Iraq. He said 3 soldiers from Granville County and 7 from Vance County died in Korea, and 13 from Granville and 8 from Vance dying in Vietnam. One Granville County soldier died in Iraq.
By comparison, he found that 68 soldiers from Vance County died in WWII, along with 37 from Granville County.
Records are sometimes hard to come by, Pace acknowledged, and therefore having a truly accurate count is almost impossible.
Pace said a 1973 fire in St. Louis destroyed many records related to servicemen in WWI, making it far easier to locate records from the Civil War and WWII.
Even the Revolutionary War has records that remain, he said.
“There are some pretty good records from the Revolution,” he said. Many people had to sign an Oath of Allegiance against King George. Those signatures are pretty good indications of which side you were on, Pace said.
There’s still one world leader, however, who served her country in WWII and serves her country today, Pace said:
Ninety-six-year-old Queen Elizabeth II. When she was 19, she served in the transportation and ambulance service for England.
Click Play!