Seaman 1st Class Blake Dearl Musselman
Mr. and Mrs. Royal Musselman welcomed their second son on January 25, 1920, in Emerald Township, Paulding, Ohio. Royal David and Hazel E. (Donley) Musselman had two other children at the time: Maynard, b. 1917 and Clela Etta (m. Garver), b. 1918. Later, in 1924, Rex would join the family. Blake attended both Paulding and Sherwood schools.
Blake volunteered for the Seabees on January 25, 1943, his twenty-third birthday, when they were first organizing as a construction unit of the U.S. Navy. Men were trained in sixty different trades, as well as military discipline and combat arts.
The U.S. had no other construction battalions, so the Seabees worked wherever they were needed.
Blake trained in Norfolk, Virginia, and Davisville, Rhode Island and sailed for the Pacific Islands from a California training camp. Assigned to the 87th Construction Battalion, he served in the Pacific Arena - New Caldonia, Guadacanal, and the Solomon Islands. He was killed in the Sterling Islands (part of the Solomon Islands), piloting a barge during an air raid on January 12, 1944.
By this time, his family lived on Harrison Street in Sherwood, Ohio. The Bryan Press reported on June 30, 1948, that his body would be sent home for reinterment.
Funeral services for S1c Blake Musselman were held in the Moats Funeral Home in Sherwood on Thursday, July 1, 1948, with Rev. E.E. Roberts, former pastor of the Sherwood Methodist Church officiating.
"The casketed remains of Seaman Musselman arrived in Hicksville Tuesday afternoon of this week from the Chicago Distribution Center of the American Graves Registration Center, and the body was brought to Moats Funeral Home, where friends may call." (The Chronicle, Sherwood, Ohio, Tues. June 29, 1948)
Mary Williams, Researcher
Blake’s grandfather was my wife’s great grandfather’s brother, making him her 1st cousin 3 times removed
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