JAMES DOUGLAS McCRACKEN participated in the Golden Gloves boxing tournament.  He lived at the family home east of Bayard until he enlisted in the army on March 8, 1941.  He was stationed in the U.S. for several months, then went to the Aleutians and then to Hawaii and New Guinea. Before the army, he worked for the phone company.  In New Guinea, he contracted a tropical skin disease ("jungle rot") and died at an army hospital in Topeka, Kansas a few days after returning to the states.  He never married. His military rank was: Pvt. 1st Class- infantry.

 

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