Vernon K. Paulsen

Fire Controlman, First Class, U.S. Navy

Service # 3163726; United States Navy

Entered the service from: Nebraska

Died: 16-Oct-43

Missing in Action or Buried at Sea

Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery, Manila, Philippines

Awards: Purple Heart

Pilot Tribune 14 Dec 1942

Vernon K. Paulsen

Missing in Action

The navy reported Saturday that Vernon K. Paulsen, 27, of Bennington is missing as a result of naval action. Paulsen, son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry T. Paulsen of Bennington, was a fire control man first class aboard a destroyer, and was believed to have been serving in the Solomons.

No details were given, but the missing sailor’s father said the ship on which his son served was lost October 16.

Paulsen had been in the navy eight years. In the Atlantic when war was declared, he was transferred with his ship to the Pacific in April. In letters home he wrote he was working hard, but “the harder we work the sooner it’ll be over.” Mr. and Mrs. Paulsen have another son, Clarence, in the signal corps at Camp Murphy, Florida.

~~~ Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair Public Library at Blair, Nebraska.~~~