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| Motor Machinist Mate Second Class Louis Ball served on the submarine USS Grampus. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56774644/louis-d-ball |
Louis Dixon Ball never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
Louis was born on June 22, 1920 in McCrory, Arkansas. His parents Howard and Martha were also both born in Arkansas. His father worked as a general store salesman and later a traveling salesman. Still later he became a restaurant proprietor. Louis had two older sisters, one older brother, two younger brothers, and four younger sisters. By 1940 Louis had completed three years of high school and was still living at home. His mother died in March 1942.
He volunteered for the US Navy in January 1941. He advanced to the rank of motor machinist mate second class and was eventually assigned to serve on the submarine USS Grampus. Grampus was launched in December 1940 and was commissioned the next March.
Grampus completed five patrols before leaving Brisbane, Australia on February 11, 1943 on what would be her final patrol. Louis served on four submarine patrols. After leaving port, Grampus was never heard from again. The crew of 60 was considered missing in action with a date of March 22, 1943. However, after the war, investigation determined that Grampus was most likely caught on the surface on March 5-6 by a Japanese destroyer and sunk by gunfire. The Japanese destroyer was sunk shortly thereafter so the sinking of Grampus went officially unreported.
Louis is remembered at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila, Philippines.
PAUL FREES
The name may not sound familiar to most, but Paul Frees had a great impact in his field --something denied to Louis Ball who was born on the exact same date. Paul was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He had a four octave range so he found work in radio.
His radio career was cut short by the war. Paul Frees joined the army and fought on D-Day. He was wounded in action and spent a year recovering from his wounds.
Frees resumed his radio career after the war. He became well know for his narration and voice talent and was known as "The Man of a Thousand Voices." Only Mel Blanc had a more stellar career in this specialized field.
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| https://insidethemagic.net/2018/03/many-voices-disney-legend-paul-frees/ |
This is one of the final 100 stories (73) to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.
Last year on this date I profiled B-17 navigator Flake Bowles. You can read about Flake 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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