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| Foster Towle was a ship fitter 3/c on the cruiser USS Savannah in the Mediterranean. References cited below. |
Foster Brown Towle never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
Foster was born on 9 August 1920 in Greensburg, the county seat of Kiowa County, Kansas, to Edward Foster Towle (1868-1961), who was originally from Missouri, and Carrie Blanche Steadman (1881-1957), who had been born in Wisconsin. The couple had married in Greensburg about 1903 when Edward was 35 and Carrie was 22. Foster was the seventh of their eight children. The family lived on Grove Street, Greensburg.
On 16 February 1942, Foster registered for the draft in Finney County, Kansas. At the time, he was living at 623 Garden City Avenue, Garden City, Kansas, about 100 miles from the family home. The twenty-one-year-old was six feet, two inches tall and weighed 170 pounds. He had brown eyes, brown hair, and a fair complexion. It was noted he had “two upper front teeth bridged in.”
Foster enlisted in the U.S. Navy (Service No. 6-285796) on 23 June 1942 and was assigned to the U.S.S. Savannah as a shipfitter, 3rd Class. He was paid approximately $78 a month.
On 7 December 1942, Foster married Julie Patricia Concannon in a Methodist ceremony in Alexandria, Virginia. His twenty-one-year-old bride, a secretary, recorded her home address as 319 10th Street, Garden City, Kansas.
By May 1943, Foster was aboard the cruiser U.S.S. Savannah, as it headed for the war in Europe. The Savannah left Norfolk, Virginia, with a troop convoy heading for the Mediterranean to take part in the invasion of Sicily. Over the next few months, the Savannah supported the troops fighting on land in Sicily, Palermo, and Salerno, Italy.
On 11 September 1943, while in the waters near the port of Salerno, the Savannah was hit by a German FX1400 radio-controlled bomb, which went straight through the Number 3 turret and exploded in the lower handling room. The bomb was estimated to weigh about 3,000 pounds. According to an article on www.historyofwar.org, “… a large hole was blown out of the bottom of the ship. Secondary explosions followed for the next 30 minutes.”
One hundred and ninety-seven men were killed in the attack on the Savannah that day. Among them, twenty-three-year-old Foster Brown Towle. He had been married for nine months.
Foster’s body was eventually interred at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy (Plot C, Row 15, Grave 41). He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart.
On 15 February 1962, Foster’s sister Rubye Jane (Towle) Prosch, who lived in Hutchinson, Kansas, applied to the U.S. government for a flat granite marker with a Latin Cross, to be placed at the Towle family plot in Fairview Cemetery, in Greensburg.
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This profile was written by Joanne Dillon. “I’m a writer, amateur genealogist, and history buff. Writing profiles of the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War II is a way I can use my skills to help ensure they are not forgotten. It’s truly an honor to participate in this project.”
This is one of the final 50 stories (35) 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 gunner Bernard Vermeer and a famous sportscaster. You can read about Bernard 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.
Follow on Twitter @ww2fallen100
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
WW2 Fallen 100 is supported by
The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation
“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”
SOURCES
www.ancestry.com. 1920, 1930, 1940 U.S. Federal Census; 1925 Kansas State Census; Draft Registration Card; Marriage Certificate for Foster Brown Towle and Julie Concannon; Application for Grave Marker; Headstone Inscription; and Interment Record for Grave in Italy.
http://www.cv6.org/company/muster/organization.htm. Salary Information for Naval Personnel in WWII.
www.findagrave.com. Photo of Foster Brown Towle; Photo of Cross on Foster Brown Towle’s Grave in Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, Italy; Information on Parents and Siblings. (Note, this list omits youngest child Wayne Towle.)
www.historyofwar.org. “USS Savannah CL-42.” General Information on USS Savannah.
www.navsource.org. Photo of U.S.S. Savannah Leaving NY Harbor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn-class_cruiser. Photo of USS Savannah Hit by Germans, 11 September 1943.
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