Navy Seaman Leonard MacDonald Dies From Injury At Norfolk, VA

REMEMBER THE FALLEN

Navy Seaman Leonard MacDonald Dies

From Head Injury While At Norfolk, VA

By Bob Lessard, Historian, Simeon L.

Nickerson Post 64 American Legion

(Periodically, the Gazette will publish biographical sketches of Middleboro war casualties. This is intended to remind our citizens about all veterans and especially those who gave their lives to our country. A slogan worth repeating states: “ALL GAVE SOME, SOME GAVE ALL.”)

A headline in the Middleboro Gazette of Friday, June 11, 1943 advised residents about the accidental death of Navy First Class Seaman Leonard Warren MacDonald, 18, under a headline which read, “MacDonald Town’s Second War Victim.”

 The Gazette article reported that his mother, Mrs. Bertha MacDonald Cromwell of 65 School Street learned of his death from information sent by the Navy Department.

 His mother was advised that young MacDonald had died of an injury to the left side of his brain caused by a foreign object at Norfolk, VA., while on an aircraft carrier on June 4, 1943, according to the newspaper.

 In addition, the article reported, “He is the second Middleboro boy to die while on duty with the armed forces as far as reported. The first was Lt. Thomas C. Archer, who was killed in a plane crash on December 25, 1942.”

 "Born in Carver on April 29, 1925, MacDonald attended Memorial High School, Photography was his hobby and many of his pictures were used in the high school paper the Sachem and in the Senior Yearbook. He had enlisted in the Navy last June.”

 Also, the Gazette stated, “He was a member of the First Unitarian Church and was the youngest member to enlist and the first to lose his life in the war. The young sailor’s body arrived on the train from Boston on Tuesday with a Navy escort. His body had been shipped from Norfolk on the Pennsylvania Railroad to Boston.”

 Residents were also informed by the newspaper, “Funeral Services were held on Jun 10 at the First Unitarian Church with Reverend Curtis Beach presiding. The Naval escort and a five man firing squad from the Fargo Barracks in Boston attended.”

 First Class Seaman Leonard W. MacDonald was buried in Center Cemetery in Carver. Full military honors were rendered.

 He is remembered here in Middleboro through the Memorial Bridge dedicated in his name on Route 18 over Route 495, which was named in his honor in 1962 through an act of the Massachusetts State Legislature. He is also remembered by his name engraved on the Central Casualty stone in the WW2 section of Middleboro’s Veterans Memorial Park. Mertie Romaine also recorded his name in her “History of the Town of Middleboro 1905-1965.”

 Residents are reminded that bricks are still available for placement in the Memorial Park. Applications may be obtained by contacting Paul Kreitzberg at 508-965-9545; at the brick locator box in the Memorial Park and the Town Hall Bank building lobby. (Published July 19, 2018)