Private Carl Robert Baker & Corporal Forrest Pafenberg

The Tribune
Seymour, Indiana
Thursday, July 6, 1944
Page 1

TWO JACKSON COUNTY YOUTHS DIE IN ACTION

Pvt. Carl Robert Baker, Cpl. Forrest Pafenberg, Killed Following Invasion

Close upon news of the death of the first Owen township youth to be killed in action came word of the death of another, when Mrs. Andy Sears, of Norman, received a message from the War Department saying that her son, Private Carl Robert Baker, age twenty-one, had been killed in action June 9 in France. Mr. and Mrs. Guy Pafenberg, Norman R1, had received word that their son, Corporal Forrest Pafenberg, age twenty-one, was killed in action over England, June 6, only a few days earlier.

Mrs. Sears also received a letter from an Army chaplain stating that Pvt. Baker had attended devotional services in England on June 6, three days before he was killed in France.

Pvt. Baker was born January 25, 1923, in Lawrence county.Moving to Jackson county as a boy, he was graduated from the Clearspring High School in 1941, and was inducted through the local selective service board in December, 1942. He received his basic training at Fort Bragg, N.C., going overseas last September after spending a short furlough at home during the summer.

Was In Glider Group.

A member of a glider division of the Army Air Force, Pvt. Baker is believed to have been one of the first troops to land in France on D-Day.

Cpl. Pafenberg, who was a radioman and waist gunner on a Marauder, B-26, enlisted with the 150th Field Artillery in January, 1941, but was discharged because of defective teeth. In June, 1942, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, and took his basic training at Keeslelr Field, Miss., later receiving radio work at Scott Field, Ill., and gunnery schooling at Tyndall Field, Fla. He was also at Avon Park and MacDill Field, Fla., and Kellogg Field, Mich. Details concerning his death are not known.

Cpl. Pafenberg was born on December 19, 1922, the son of Guy and Cora Wray Pafenberg. He is survived by the parents; three brothers, Master Sergeant Roy E. Pafenberg, who has been serving in the South Pacific since 1942, Private First Class Dale Pafenberg, at Camp Shelby, Miss., and one sister, Miss Carolyn Pafenberg, at home.

The Tribune
Seymour, Indiana
Thursday, August 24, 1944
Page 1

Memorial Set For Pvt. Baker

Memorial services for Pvt. Carl Robert Baker, age twenty-one, who was killed in action in France June 9, three days after D-Day, in which he participated, will be conducted Sunday, it was announced today.

The services will be held at 2:30 o'clock Sunday afternoon at the Liberty Church in western Jackson county, with the Rev. Ivan Gwaltney, of Indianapolis pastor, in charge.

Pvt. Baker, a native of Lawrence county, moved to Jackson county with his mother, Mrs. Andy Sears, several years ago. He was graduated from the Clearspring High School with the class of 1941. A member of the glider airborne infantry after he entered the service, he had been in the army for about eighteen months.