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EM2c Warren Wilbert Grosnickle
Orville John Langenwalter and Warren Wilbert Grosnickle enlisted in the Navy on the same day — Jan. 26, 1938.
They were from small-town Iowa — Mr. Langenwalter from Newell, population 854 in west-central Iowa, and Mr. Grosnickle from about 80 miles east-southeast in Boone, population 12,373. They became friends at the Great Lakes, Illinois, Naval Training Center and then were assigned to the U.S.S. Arizona.
Both men died on the battleship in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Mr. Langenwalter was a storekeeper and petty officer second class. Mr. Grosnickle was an electrician’s mate and petty officer second class.
Mr. Langenwalter, the older of the two, was born Oct. 31, 1917 in Marine, Illinois near St. Louis but moved to Iowa when he was a toddler. His father, John, was a farmer and his mother, Emma, a housewife.
At a memorial service for Mr. Langenwalter at St. Peters’ Lutheran Church in Newell in February 1942, “the church was filled to overflowing and a public address system was used for the benefit of those in the basement of the church,” The Newell Mirror reported.
A crowd similarly gathered for a memorial service in early 1942 for Mr. Grosnickle at Trinity Lutheran in Boone. He was born in Boone on Nov. 5, 1920. His father, John, was a farmer and his mother, Amy, a housewife.
Mr. Grosnickle married Edith Smith at Trinity Lutheran in June 1938. In addition to his widow, he was survived by a two-year-old daughter and a nearly year-old son.