Harry B. Kincaid Jr.: Osceola's man, on a Mishawaka enlistment

– 27 May 1945 · the inheritance, claimed with both citations

The banking, as this build received it: the Mishawaka pass banked this man for Osceola in two places, and both are cited here as the county order directed. In the Mishawaka death roll's boundary article: "Harry B. Kincaid Jr. stands among the county's 430 — the Army list's line is Kincaid, Harry B., technical sergeant, serial 35557270, died of wounds — and the county veterans index carries him at the same grade. The Army Air Corps Museum's extracts place a Harry Kincaid among the men who enlisted from Mishawaka; the county veterans index attributes Harry B. Kincaid Jr. to Penn–Osceola." And in that pass's banking note, the ruling this build executes (Audit Register AF-028): Kincaid "is banked as Osceola's on the veterans index's Penn–Osceola attribution, with the Army Air Corps Museum's Mishawaka-enlistment conflict stated; the queued Osceola pass should claim him with both records cited." The two citations are: (1) War Department, Honor List of Dead and Missing, State of Indiana (1946) — the Army list's line among the county's 430: Kincaid, Harry B., technical sergeant, serial 35557270, died of wounds; (2) the St. Joseph County veterans index — the same grade, attributed to Penn–Osceola. He is claimed here on the index's attribution, which is the record built from the county's own burials and obituaries, and the conflict stands in the open exactly as banked: the enlistment extracts say Mishawaka; the index says Penn–Osceola. Both records are printed; no silent choice has been made. A caution the roll itself teaches rides with him: the same extracts carry a second, separate man, "Kincaid, Jesse (Mishawaka)" — Jesse Kincaid is not Harry B. Kincaid Jr., and the two are not merged anywhere in this section.

The extension, from open sources: the American Battle Monuments Commission's burial record for Lorraine American Cemetery at St. Avold, France — matched on the serial number 35557270, which is what carries the identification, not the surname — reads: "KINCAID, Harry B., Technical Sergeant, 736th Bomber Squadron, 454th Bomber Group, Heavy, U.S. Army Air Forces, Service #35557270, State of Entry: Indiana, Death: 27-May-1945, Plot D, Row 43, Grave 9, Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, World War II." So the extension gives what the county record did not: his unit — the 736th Bombardment Squadron of the 454th Bombardment Group (Heavy), Army Air Forces; his grave — Plot D, Row 43, Grave 9, at Lorraine; his date of death — 27 May 1945; and his decoration — the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, carried in the heroes article below. The museum extracts' own link from their "Kincaid, Harry (Mishawaka)" entry runs to the 454th Bomb Group association's site, independently consistent with the Commission's unit line. What does not extend: no theater is stated in the Commission's line and none is asserted here; no Purple Heart is listed in that line and none has been added; and no newspaper item, memorial page, or Fold3-class record for him surfaced in open searches — that non-extension is printed as itself a finding. One tension stands whole: the Honor List says "died of wounds," and the Commission's date, 27 May 1945, falls after VE Day (8 May 1945); the two are consistent with a death of wounds received before the war in Europe ended, and that consistency is noted here, not asserted as a record.

Sources:

2. War Department, Honor List of Dead and Missing, State of Indiana (1946), and the St. Joseph County veterans index — as cited in the banking.
3. American Battle Monuments Commission burial record, Lorraine American Cemetery, as transcribed from the Commission's data (Interment.net surnames-K page) — read; the Commission's own database entry for serial 35557270 stands named in the closing register as the settler for this extension at first-hand strength.
4. Army Air Corps Museum, St. Joseph County extracts — the Mishawaka enlistment lines and the 454th Bomb Group link.