Walter Green Becraft
Sex: M
Individual Information
Birth: 5 Mar 1922 - Frenchburg, Menifee Co, KY 1
Christening:
Death: 30 Nov 1944
Burial: in Henri-Chapelle American (ABMC) Cemetery and Memorial, Liege, Belgium 2
Cause of Death: killed in action, World War II
AFN :
Events
• Biography
Walter G. Becraft• Military 3, 413th Regiment, 104th Division, 30 Nov 1944 in Europe
1922-1944
Class of 1939
Walter was born March 5, 1922 and graduated at age 17, in 1939
Killed in Action, WWII
104th Infantry, US Army
Belgium, Nov. 30,1944
__________
Walter Becraft was born and grew up in Frenchburg. He attended Frenchburg School for 12 years, graduating with the class of 1939. He was a very good student and active in sports. He was a member in 1938 of the starting five for the only Frenchburg basketball team ever to reach the Kentucky State Tournament. They finished fourth in that tournament.
After graduation Walter attended Morehead State for one year. Then being of draft age and uncertain of when he would be called up he took a job at the Army's Wright Field (now Wright Patterson AFB) in Dayton until he reported to the army.
He went through basic training in Missouri, and was assigned to the Army Specialized Training Program. This program was established to train soldiers in languages, medicine or engineering. He was sent to Grinnell College in Iowa to study German to be used in translation, intelligence, etc in the European theater. Part-way through the program it was cancelled to provide more troops to build up for the D-Day invasion and for replacements after the landing.
He was sent to join and train with the 104th Infantry Division that eventually landed in France about one month after the invasion and fought across northern France, through southern Belgium, and was near Aachen, Germany when he was killed in action on November 30, 1944. Shortly afterwards the German Army made its last gasp push towards Antwerp, stalled out around Bastogne, and was then pushed back into Germany and the war was practically over. Many of 104th lost their lives in this two month period.
Walter and many of his buddies who died in this fighting are buried in the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium. Walter's family made the difficult decision not to have him brought home for re-burial and to avoid re-visiting the the emotional trauma of his death that was so especially hard on his parents.
And so he rests in this beautiful cemetery on a hill looking west into lovely Belgium farm country and east across the border into the German country-side near the city of Aachen. There are 7992 Americans buried there. Flowers and flags can be ordered at any time to be placed on the graves. Belgium school history classes are often bussed in to honor the fallen who helped liberate their country long ago.
What promised to be a happy and productive life for Walter was sadly cut so short. He is so very much missed by his family but yet they are proud of the small role he played in helping restore peace to the parents and grandparents of those children in Belgium who now come to lay flowers, and to so many others who needed liberation at that time.
Killed in action
Parents
Father: Green Irvin Becraft
Mother: Willie Cora Miles 4
Notes
Birth Notes:
Certificate # 193-91894. Mother Clora.Burial Notes:
Certificate # 21-10288. Mother Willie.
Same birth date on both.
Entered the service from Kentucky
Sources
1. www.familytreelegends.com.
2. (file for Thomas and Jemima Becraft (both Lemaster and Ringo lines)). .... Findagrave.com.
3. (file for Thomas and Jemima Becraft (both Lemaster and Ringo lines)).
4. Findagrave.com, Flora Becraft, wife of Irvine 1892-1967.