News Service

11-06-09

Iowa State University ceremony honors fallen WWII soldier from Wakefield

AMES, Iowa -- A Veterans Day observance at Iowa State University will honor seven former students whose names have been added to the Gold Star Hall, the war memorial in the university's Memorial Union. One was a soldier from Wakefield, Kenneth Norman Okeson, who died in the World War II.

Former students are eligible for name-placement in Gold Star Hall if they graduated or attended Iowa State full time for one or more semesters, and died while in military service in a war zone. The university has recently identified several who had not been identified in previous searches. As names become known, they are added to the wall and the soldiers are remembered in the Gold Star Hall Ceremony on Veterans Day.

Okeson was born in Wakefield on Feb. 2, 1917, the last of four children. In 1929, his mother died and his father sent him to Omaha to live with his older brother. He graduated from Omaha Technical High School in 1935, and went on to Iowa State University, where he majored in civil engineering. He was active in Theta Xi fraternity, and continued in school through winter quarter 1939.

In November 1939, he married Lorene Lee, the niece of a family friend from Wakefield. He went to work as a civil engineer in Harrisburg, Ill. In 1942, Okeson entered the service. He served with the Army Air Forces as a second lieutenant. Okeson was based for five months in England as a navigator on a C-47 transport plane, serving in the 81st Squadron, 436th Troop Carrier Group.

Okeson was part of the monumental invasion of Normandy, as well as the invasion of northern France. He was promoted to first lieutenant and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with an oak cluster.

In September 1944, the Allies launched Operation Market Garden, the largest Allied airborne operation of the war. On the third day of the operation, when Okeson was flying a mission over Holland -- possibly dropping paratroopers -- his plane was shot down. He was reported missing and eventually declared killed in action.

For his service, Okeson will be remembered at Iowa State University, where his name is engraved on the wall of the Gold Star Hall in the Memorial Union.

-30-