Purple Heart: Circleville's Cole killed in WWII
Editor’s note: This is the sixth in a series of stories about past and present Jackson County residents who earned the Purple Heart Medal, which is awarded to military personnel wounded or killed in the line of duty.
The names of those profiled in these stories will be placed on a special monument for Purple Heart Medal recipients to be built later this year in Holton’s Linscott Park.
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Circleville native and U.S. Army Private First Class Wayne B. Cole made “the supreme sacrifice” in northern France during the latter months of World War II, posthumously earning a Purple Heart Medal for his bravery in the war’s European Theater.
Born Jan. 12, 1923, the son of Tim and Eva Cole of Circleville, Wayne attended schools in Circleville and graduated in 1939. But before he graduated from high school, he had already signed on for military duty with the National Guard as a member of Company E, 137th Infantry, from March of 1938 until his honorable discharge in October of 1940, it was reported.
Cole worked at the Sinclair station in Holton, the shipyards in Los Angeles, Calif., and Winters General Hospital in Topeka between his Guard discharge and his return to military duty in February of 1943. He trained at Fort Lewis in Washington before returning to Kansas in April of 1944, when he was stationed at Camp Phillips near Salina.
In September of that year, Cole left for Europe, serving as a member of the Anti-Tank Company, 71st Infantry, 44th Division in France. According to reports from family and other members of Cole’s unit, on Nov. 13, the unit was engaged in battle near the eastern French village of Embermenil when troops heard a mortar shell hit nearby.
Cole and his fellow troops laid down together to avoid being hit by shrapnel, but while the others in Cole’s unit survived, he was hit by shrapnel and killed. He was given a funeral service and buried near Embermenil, and after the war, his body was sent home to his father. He is buried in Circleville Cemetery.
