World War II Honoree

Harold Walter Bauer

Branch of Service

U.S. Navy

Hometown

Wichita, Kansas

Honored By

Orville L. Kline

Rank: Radioman Third Class. He was inducted into the United States Navy November 13, 1940 at Indianapolis, Indiana, with recruit training at the U.S. Naval Training Station Great Lakes, Illinois. Upon his graduation from boot camp and Radio Schooling, he was transferred to the USS Arizona Battleship, BB-39 for duty as a Radio Technician, and based at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. On Sunday Morning, December 7, 1941 the Emperor of Japan’s Naval Aviators launched a devastating, surprise attack on the U.S. Naval Base, and other military installations on Oahu. The Arizona moored on Ford Island along with her shipmates came under attack, and she was mortally wounded by an armor piercing bomb that ignited the ship’s forward ammunition magazine. The Battle of Pearl Harbor took his life on the day of the attack. In remembrance of the brave, his name is permanently inscribed in the tablets of the missing, memorialized at the Honolulu National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, ‘Punchbowl’ Hawaii. In his Memory and Honor, a cenotaph memorial has been placed at the Grant Cemetery in Marion, Kansas. This American Patriot was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously, for his ultimate sacrifice in defense of his country.