Sioux City Sailor on Boise in Heroic Battle
Relatives Here Receive Message from C.E. Wagner
Five year old Michael Stuart Wagner was a proud and happy lad today.
Just as proud and just as happy were his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. W.A. Wagner, 1620 Jackson Street, with whom he lives.
The reason for all the emotion in the Wagner home was a brief telegram from Philadelphia, sent by Michael’s father, Seaman Clyde E. Wagner, that he had arrived safely in the United States on the light cruiser Boise.
“What a story he will have to tell,” commented Mr. Wagner, the seaman’s father, as he read press dispatches on the heroic action of the Boise in the Solomon Islands naval battle.
Seaman Wagner, who played the piano in orchestras here before leaving for the navy last Easter day, was an antiaircraft gunner on the cruiser that is credited officially with sinking six Japanese ships in 27 minutes of furious action during the night on October 11-12.
Mr. Wagner, anxious for details of his son’s part in the action, this morning was figuring air mail schedules to find when he could expect the letter the seaman promised, in the telegram, to write.
Mr. Wagner, a railroad telegraph operator, said that if his son was unable to get a short leave to visit here while the Boise is being repaired, the family would go to Philadelphia to see him.
Young Michael has been living with his grandparents since the death of his mother shortly after his birth.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, November 20, 1942 (photo included)
