The Second World War and Korea: the rolls that are not compiled

1941 – 1953

The honest entry: for the Second World War and Korea, no compiled roll of this county's dead was reached in any source consulted, and no total is printed. Fort Wayne's record has its Coliseum roll; South Bend's equivalent, if one was ever compiled, did not surface. What exists is the federal record in its raw form. The War Department's World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing (1946) carries St. Joseph County's Army and Army Air Forces dead on pages 33–35 of its Indiana volume, name by name, with rank and type of casualty — but it does not state residence, and the Navy's companion state summary is arranged by name with the next-of-kin's address, from which a city count could be built only name by name. Counting those pages is the named route to the county's Second World War total; it is archival work, and this section leaves the count open rather than estimating it.

The university's own count, boundary-stated: Notre Dame counted its own as the war went on: the university's Religious Bulletin of 3 May 1945 reported 223 Notre Dame men dead in service to that date and 36 missing. That is the university's roll of its students and alumni from every state, not this city's roll, and it is printed here only because the university's memorial to those men — the Clarke Memorial Fountain — stands on this county's ground and is entered below.

The hometown record: through all three wars the South Bend Tribune ran its "Service Notes" column — the county's men and women drafted, promoted, wounded, decorated, and lost, reported as it happened from 1941 through 1979. The St. Joseph County Public Library's index to that column is the working key to this ground's Second World War, Korean, and Vietnam service record at the level of the individual name, and it is the source a future pass over these rolls will start from.

Sources:

1. National Archives: World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing Army and Army Air Forces Personnel from Indiana (War Department, 1946; NARA Identifier 305290) — St. Joseph County at pages 33–35; State Summary of War Casualties from World War II for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel from Indiana (1946; NARA Identifier 305199).
2. University of Notre Dame Archives, Religious Bulletin, 3 May 1945 — "Notre Dame Men Dead in Service: 223 reported to date," with 36 missing.
3. St. Joseph County Public Library, Military Service Notes Column Index — the Tribune's "Service Notes," 1941–1979.