Seaman First Class Feltner Baker

The Tribune
Seymour, Indiana
Thursday, September 14, 1944
Page 1

Sailor From Brownstown Is Listed as Dead

Feltner Baker, S1/C, Reported Missing Year Ago After Ship Was Sunk

Feltner Baker, Seaman First Class, is now considered dead, his parents, Mr. and Mrs. M.P. Baker, of Brownstown, have been notified by the government. Seaman Baker previously was reported missing when his ship, the USS John Penn, was sunk off Guadalcanal on the night of August 13, 1943.

A serviceman is presumed dead a year from the time he is first reported missing, and the next of kin is officially informed at the expiration of the year's period.

Torpedoed By Plane.

The ship was sunk by an enemy plane which had torpedoed it as it was waiting off Guadalcanal ater unloading troops to pick up Jap prisoners. About 140 men were reported missing after the ship was sunck and forty bodies were buried on Guadalcanal when they floated ashore.

Seaman Baker was born December 2, 1916, near Manchester, Ky. He moved to this state about ten years ago. An employe at Charlelstown prior to entering the Navy on July 28, 1942, he took his basic training at the Great Lakes naval Training Center, after which he spent a nine-day furlough at his home in Brownstown.

survivors include the parents, the widow, Mrs. Gladys Baker, of Norfolk, Va., three brothers, Sergeant Hobert H. Baker, somewhere in England; Ted Baker, with the U.S. Navy at Great Lakes, and Lester Baker, at home and five sisters; Mrs. Ruth Hignite and Mrs. Ethel Johnson, of Crothersville; Mrs. Alabama Davidson and Mrs. Ortha Davidson, of Brownstown, and Miss May Baker, at home.