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| Pvt. Percival Hankins served with the 25th Infantry Division in New Georgia as did the GI in this photo. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47677115/percival-montana-hankins https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_New_Georgia.jpg |
Percival Montana Hankins never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on May 5, 1918 in Montana. His parents Homer and Delilah were born in Nebraska and South Dakota, respectively. His father worked as a farm laborer and later as a farmer. Percival had two older brothers and two younger sisters. By 1940 Percival had completed eight years of schooling and was working on the family farm.
He was drafted into the army on February 21, 1942. He became a private in Company D, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. The 25th ID was stationed on Oahu when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Pvt. Hankins joined it later as a replacement. It was moved to Guadalcanal in November 1942 and helped complete the defeat of the Japanese defenders in January and February 1943.
Pvt. Hankins was with the unit when it was part of the New Georgia Campaign which began on June 30, 1943. I was not able to find any details about his unit in action, but he was killed on August 5, 1943.
His grave is at Fair View Cemetery in Rushville, Nebraska.
Last year on this date I profiled Delmar Davis, 9th Infantry Division, who left behind three children. You can read about Delmar here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
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