WW2 Fallen - Howard Stark, LST 473 (not Ironman's dad)

MOMM2c Howard Stark served on the LST 473 in the Pacific.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/74279563/howard-prentiss-stark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_LST-473 

Howard Prentiss Stark, Sr. never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

If you have enjoyed reading the stories of the WW2 fallen, Can you help write some stories? It's a big project. The more help, the better.  Announcing "The Stories Behind the Stars", see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org. This crowd-sourced national project has the goal of compiling stories of all 400,000+ of the US World War 2 fallen in one free-to-access central database.  Anyone visiting a war memorial or gravesite will be able to scan the name of the fallen with a smartphone and his story will appear on the phone.

Howard was born on May 23, 1920 in Oregon. His parents Floyd and Elizabeth were both born in Iowa. His father worked as an office order clerk and later as an electric shop salesman. Howard had four older sisters and three older brothers. By 1940 Howard was married to the former Billie June Sieberts. They had one son. He had completed three years of high school and was employed as a WPA worker.

He volunteered for the US Navy in June 1942. He reached the rank of motor machinist mate second class on LST 473. This tank landing ship was commissioned in March 1943. It first saw action on September 4, 1943 when it carried Australian troops to make a landing at Lae.

The September 4, 1943 landing was unopposed on the beaches, but the Japanese sent planes to sink the landing craft. LST 473 was struck by two bombs and another two near misses, all dropped by Val bombers. Eight Americans and 37 Australians were killed and many others were wounded. Petty Officer Stark was one of those killed.

His grave is at Lincoln Memorial Park in Portland, Oregon. His widow remarried and died in 1992. I don't know what happened to his son. 

Of course if Howard had lived into the 2000s he would have noted that he shared a name with the fictional Howard Stark, father of the Marvel Comics' Ironman. The fictional Howard Stark has a 1917 birthday, not that far from the real Howard Stark's birth.

Thank you MOMM2 Stark for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Howard.

Last year on this date I profiled Thomas Psar, 101st Airborne Division. You can read about Thomas 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.

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WW2 Fallen 100 is supported by

The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation

“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”

http://www.tggf.org