among those listed killed in action. No one knows what happened to Ball, who like Grover Brines, Jr., was last seen flying his ship in search of enemy planes.

There are a number of interesting "firsts" in World War II. First El Paso men to fight were Everett Roberts and Dale Patterson. Roberts, now a Secor farmer and past commander of El Paso Post of the American Legion, grabbed a machine gun and did his futile bit in trying to repel that famous 8:55 A. M. attack on Hickam Field on Oahu, December 7, 1941. Dale Patterson was aboard his big battleship, the Pennsylvania, in dry dock at Pearl Harbor that same morning. All hands manned battle stations immediately; the dock was filled, and the crippled first line ship took to the sea as soon as she could.

First to land in Africa was Col. V. C. Gordon and perhaps several others who made the invasion of February 8, 1942. First into an enemy held port with his ship was Leslie Eft, on the Wilkes, destroyer 441, when she went through the narrow channel into Casablanca harbor in the early dawn of February 9, 1943. First foot soldier to land on Hitler's fortress Europe was Marvin Bowman of Company L, 143rd Infantry Regiment of the famed 36th Division. Not only was Marvin first into Europe in that assault opposite Paestum, Italy on the morning of September 9, 1943, he also was the first El Pasoan to be captured by the enemy when his unit was cut off in the Salerno beach fighting while attacking the mountain town of Altavilla in the first serious setback of the invasion. His unit withdrew, leaving Marvin among the rear guard, and all of these men were captured September 16, 1943. Merlyn D. Kingdon landed on Salerno beach the day Bowman was captured, to become the second El Pasoan into Europe and he was followed that same day by his cousin, previously mentioned. Merlyn was also second man to be captured, this occurring in the Anzio invasion the following winter when his unit was overrun February 29. He was a member of Company C, 180th Infantry, 45th Division.

The sad distinction of being the first local man to be killed in action belongs to Leonard L. Schrader who was killed on April 27, 1943 in the fighting in Tunisia while a member of Company M of the 60th Infantry Regiment. First honors for taking an enforced swim in the ocean goes to Dale Patterson. The Pacific sailor was this time on the Chevalier, and the Japanese shot it out from under him in the middle of that big ocean. Fortunately for Dale, the ship which picked him out of the water was flying the flag he wanted to see, and although very wet and cold, he was at that moment a happy sailor.

The three enemy capital cities of Rome, Berlin and Tokyo fell in that order as the war went on. First El Pasoan into an enemy capital city was Edward Heiken, who, with the crack 1st U. S. Armored Div. rode his iron steed into one of the gates of Rome on June 2, 1944, ran it around a couple of blocks, and right out that same gate again and back to the American lines. This was two days before the Eternal City finally fell, and on the day Ed first saw it, it was still full of

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