Michael Ray Hayes, age 29, from Morgantown, Kentucky, Butler county.
Spouse: Melissa (fiance)
Children: Barkley
Service era: Iraq
Schools: Western Kentucky University
Military history: 617Th Military Police Company, Richmond, Kentucky
Date of death: Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Death details: Killed in Baghdad, Iraq during a rocket-propelled grenade attack
Source: Department of Defense, Military Times
Billie Lee Coleman, age 39, from Butler County Quality, Kentucky .
Children: Billy Joe, seventh grade; Randy, third grade
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Wednesday, October 20, 1971
Death details: He was living underground in a bunker surrounded by sand bags. A nearby tanker exploded, burning Coleman badly on Oct. 5, 1971. He was flown to Japan and later died at a burn center at Fort Sam Houston.
Source: National Archives, Russellville News Democrat and Leader (1999)
Otis E. H. Beliles from Kentucky, Butler county.
Service era: World War II
Date of death: Sunday, October 21, 1945
Death details: The Battle of the Hürtgen Forest, one of the bloodiest conflicts of World War II, was fought between Allied and German forces from September 1944 to February 1945. As U.S. forces advanced eastward into Germany, the defending Germans manned “Siegfried Line” positions opposite the Belgian border. The battle grew to involve approximately 200,000 troops, with tens of thousands of casualties on both sides. American forces initially entered the area seeking to block German reinforcements from moving north toward the fighting around Aachen, the westernmost city of Germany, near the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands. In the battle’s second phase and as part of the Allied’s larger offense toward the Rhine River, U.S. troops attempted to push through the forest to the banks of Roer River. Aided by bad weather and rough terrain, German forces in the Hürtgen Forest put up unexpectedly strong resistance due to a well-prepared defense. American forces were unable to break through to the Rur before the German Ardennes offensive struck in December 1944, known as the Battle of the Bulge, which halted the eastward Allied advance until February 1945. Private Otis E.H. Beliles, who joined the U.S. Army from Kentucky, served with Company B, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, which participated in the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest. On October 21, 1944, Company B was engaged in attacks on the town of Stolberg, Germany. Private Otis was serving as a scout and was lost at some point during this engagement. He was neither seen again nor reported as a prisoner of war. Search attempts following the battle were attempted but nearly impossible due to enemy presence in the area and Private Beliles’s remains were not recovered. Today, Private Beliles is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands.
Cemetery: Tablets of the Missing at Netherlands American
Source: National Archives, American Battle Monuments Commission, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Vernon M. Pendley from Kentucky, Butler county.
Service era: World War II
Date of death: Saturday, December 19, 1942
Death details: Following the Allied surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, the Japanese began the forcible transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war to various prison camps in central Luzon, at the northern end of the Philippines. The largest of these camps was the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp. At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war that were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Camp overcrowding worsened with the arrival of Allied prisoners who had surrendered from Corregidor on May 6, 1942. Conditions at the camp were poor, with food and water extremely limited, leading to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, approximately 2,800 Americans had died at Cabanatuan. Prisoners were forced to bury the dead in makeshift communal graves, often completed without records or markers. As a result, identifying and recovering remains interred at Cabanatuan was difficult in the years after the war. Private First Class Vernon M. Pendley entered the U.S. Army from Kentucky and with the 192nd Tank Battalion in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured in Bataan following the American surrender on April 9, 1942, and died of dysentery on December 19, 1942, at the Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Nueva Ecija Province. He was buried in a communal grave in the camp cemetery along with other deceased American POWs; however, his remains could not be associated with any remains recovered from Cabanatuan after the war. Today, Private First Class Pendley is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency