On April 26, 1919, students at North Texas State Normal School (present-day University of North Texas) gathered in the basketball gymnasium they affectionately called the “Snake Pit.” The purpose of the gathering was to honor students who served in World War I and to remember students who gave their lives in the war.
After J.W. “Dad” Pender greeted the group, Lillian Purrell sang “When Pershing’s Men Go Marching into Picardy.” College President W.H. Bruce gave the main address, and professor E.D. Criddle memorialized the 11 students who died: T.H. Aiken, J.A. Cagle, J.G. Carruth, D.B. Cunningham, Isham Daniel, J.O. Duke, Fred Hirschi, Theodore Howell, J.H. McClendon, George Splawn and J.P. Walker.
Nineteen more students would die in World War II.
Isham Daniel was killed in action on Nov. 5, 1918, six days before the armistice that ended WWI.
Capt. Julian Duke, 24, died five days after Daniel. Duke attended the Normal School between 1915 and 1917. His cause of death was listed as peritonitis, but it may have been the “Spanish flu” brought to the European theater by American soldiers. Spanish flu was given that name because the Spanish press was the only free press that reported on the pandemic. The disease rocketed through trenches, killing more soldiers than those who were killed by bullets.
W. Claude Castleberry Jr. was one of the first students killed in action in WWII. He is entombed in the U.S.S Arizona that sank in the battle of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Castleberry has a cenotaph (empty grave) in Denton’s I.O.O.F. Cemetery.
W. Claude Castleberry Jr.
Courtesy photo
Lt. Robert Blaine, 26, was killed in France in 1943 after his bomber was assigned to the squadron’s “coffin corner.” Blaine’s body was never recovered. He’s listed on a French memory wall; his memorial in Dallas’ Restland Cemetery is a cenotaph.
Sgt. William Clyde Couch, 25, from Sanger, saw action in Africa, the Middle East, and Naples and Salerno, Italy. He died on Salerno beach on Sept. 14, 1943. His cenotaph is at Laurel Land Cemetery in Dallas.
Calvin Atwood, 22, was a Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) flight instructor at Avenger Field in Sweetwater. He died in a crash on Aug. 30, 1943, after the engine fell off his aircraft. Atwood has a memorial at Avenger Field.
Calvin Atwood
Courtesy photo
James Frederick Rayzor Jr., 29, was killed in action in the Philippines on April 16, 1944. He’s buried in the Philippines with a cenotaph at Denton’s I.O.O.F Cemetery.
A cenotaph for James Frederick Rayzor Jr. at I.O.O.F. Cemetery in Denton.
Courtesy photo
Pfc. Clifton Wilson died fighting in Iwo Jima on Feb. 22, 1945. He’s buried at sea.
On Feb. 27, 1950, Mrs. E.S. Buck, who lived at 910 Bolivar St., received a telephone call stating that the body of her son, Capt. Donald Buck, was en route to the U.S. for reburial with three other crewmates.
He was a pilot in the 450th Bombardment Group squadron shot down over Austria on April 2, 1944. Buck left his wife and daughter behind. His family had moved to Denton when he was 5 years old, and Buck graduated from Denton High School, then completed two years of college before he enlisted.
On April 2, 1945, Calvin Floyd Ballard went down with his ship, the U.S.S. Dickerson, after a kamikaze fighter pilot hit it near Okinawa. He’s listed in the tablets of the missing in Honolulu, with a cenotaph in Denton’s I.O.O.F. Cemetery.
Capt. William Paul Simpson was a pilot lost at sea after his plane was shot down over the South China Sea on April 3, 1945. He also has a cenotaph at I.O.O.F. Cemetery.
According to the UNT Student Veteran Services office, UNT students have died in every U.S. war since WWI.
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ANNETTA RAMSAY, Ph.D., has lived and worked in Denton for many years.
