HUNT, DALTON April 8, 1945 age 23 KIA Okinawa

DALTON LEE HUNT b. Mar 3, 1922 Montgomery Co., Tenn d. April 8, 1945 Killed in Action Okinawa

Sgt 36539612 Army 381^st Inf Reg 96^th Inf Div Co. F

Buried: National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu; buried with wife Mary

Parents: Clyde b. & Laverla Mary (Crawford) 1905-1987

Siblings: James Edward, Clyde, Thelma, Norman, Helen, David, Doris J.

The family is part of the migration pattern seen in Detroit throughout the 1920-30s – Tennessee north. Both parents were born in Tennessee spent time in Kentucky then went to Detroit. In 1920 Laverla lived on Dog Hollow Rd, Montgomery Co. with her widowed father and 4 sisters, probably not as picturesque as it sounds. Her father’s work was ‘odd jobs’. Clyde ha a ‘delayed birth record’ issued Nov 30, 1940 in  Detroit by Tenn; two witnesses, living in Detroit, verify having been present at the Tenn birth on Nov 13, 1898.

Father Clyde first had work in a greenhouse then became an assembly work at an auto factory, the employment ladder that defined Detroit.



15748 Lenore, Redford Twp.

They moved into the Chatham house 8 days after the 1930 census, but were counted with a footnote. Located in Brightmoor it was part of a cheap housing development built to accommodate the influx of southerners. In 1935 they were back on Chatham street a block north. When the developer, B.E. Taylor, was criticized for building shoddy houses his defense was that it’s better than what they had in Appalachia. Taylor meanwhile lived in Grosse Pointe and travelled often to Europe. As many of the Brightmoor houses, those of the Hunts are long gone. In 1940 they lived in a modest, similar house in Redford Twp.

Dalton enlisted 30 June 1942 when he was employed by Hay Con Tile Co; he was a tall, lanky fellow, unlike his father who was medium height in 1918 – 6’3”, 168 lbs, brown eyes brown hair. He married Mary E. Dean in 1943 in Redford Twp.; she worked as a wire lapper, suspect it was war work.

Regiment Landing on Okinawa

96th Infantry Division was an Army reserve formation reactivated on 15 August 1942 at Camp Adair, Oregon and after an extended period of training that included amphibious training with the Marines, it participated in the assault on Leyte in October 1944. Then it prepared for the assault on Okinawa: Operation Iceberg. Its units included 381st, 382nd and 383rd Infantry Regiments. Army companies were given a letter in sequence throughout the regiment, so the first battalion had companies A to D, the second battalion had E to H, the third battalion had I to M (no J) with D, H and M being heavy weapons.

The division left the Philippines 27 March 1945 for Okinawa, making an assault landing on the island on 1 April. The landing was unopposed and a beachhead was established between 1 to 3 April 1945.

Buried now in Honolulu, he was reinterred from Okinawa 96 Cemetery, Ryukyu Retto March 1,  1949.

Dalton received a Bronze Star w/ Oak Leaf Cluster and Purple Heart