A Home Front “Soldier”—
Gives Sons: Works in War Plant: Buys Bonds
One Son a Jap Prisoner, Other in Air Force Officer Training
By Neil Miller
With one of her two sons a Japanese prisoner of war and the other in the army air corps, Mrs. Ella Masterson, 615 W. Fourth Street, has gone “all out” in the effort to win the war in a hurry and get her boys home safely.
Mrs. Masterson has been working in the inspection department at the Wincharger plant, helping turn out dynamotors for the army and the navy. Her work constitutes an important aid to the country’s war effort, but Mrs. Masterson goes still further by investing more than one-third of her total wages in war bonds.
“I’m thankful that I have the work and that I am able to turn some of my earnings back into the war effort,” she says. “I wouldn’t want my boys to think that I just sat around and waited for them to fight the war through alone.”
Father with A.E.F.
Mrs. Materson’s eldest son, Walter Rea McCuen, is 25 years old. He was born during the First World War while his father was with American forces in France. Carl Wayne McCuen, the other boy, is 21 years old. Both enlisted in 1939.
Walter joined the navy while Carl turned toward the army air corps. Walter’s first ship was the Henderson. Shortly before Pearl Harbor, he was transferred to a submarine tender. He was stationed in the Philippines when the Japanese made their first attack. His ship was so badly damaged that it had to be beached. However, it was used as a machine shop and it did a heroic job of repairing damaged equipment during the dark of Bataan and Corregidor.
When the fall of the fortress became inevitable, the ship was towed to deep water and sunk but the crew remained to fight the heroic battle through to its conclusion. Mrs. Masterson received a cable from Walter soon after Pearl Harbor and a letter came through before the fall of Corregidor. He had been reported missing after the Japs finally ended the heroic defense.
Recently, Mrs. Masterson was notified by the chief of navy personnel that Walter was taken prisoner when the fortress fell and that he now is being held as a prisoner of war. The notice came from the International Red Cross in Tokyo.
Carl, the younger son, now is at Ellington field, Texas, completing a course in officer training school. He expects to be a navigator when he is commissioned and returns to service.
And Mrs. Masterson is working for both branches of service by helping turn out dynamotors and turning a large portion of her wages into bonds.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, May 2, 1943 (photo included)
Walter Rea McCuen was born about 1905 to W. B. and Ella Marguerite Rea McCuen. He died Oct. 24, 1944 and is memorialized at the Walls of the Missing, Manila American Cemetery, Taguig City, Philippines.
Petty Officer McCuen served in World War II with the U.S. Navy and was MIA and became a POW and died while a POW in the sinking of the Arisan Maru. He was awarded the Purple Heart.
Source: ancestry.com
