LEON PHILLIP KALLINA

Some twelve World War II dead are remembered by burial or memorial stones in the cemeteries of Eagle Lake. They are Weldon Davis, William R. Cook, Maurice Parker, Gerald P. Shirley, and John B. Westmoreland in the Masonic; and William David Austin, Glenn E. Eggers, Richard L. Eggers, Arthur Hodde, Johnnie David Hutchins, William Lee Stapleton and J. Dick Woolridge in the Lakeside. The military stones are a wealth of information. Read them. They will tell you a man's name, the state he enlisted from, what his rank and the unit that he served in; besides dates of birth and death.

Many of us have parents, uncles and other relatives who fought and served our country valiantly in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and too many other conflicts around the globe. My personal passion is for those who died in the wars. For while Colorado County lost some 51 men in World War II, I am aware of only three who left children behind. For those other 48, who will remember?

This year marks 60 years since the first full year of American involvement in World War II (1942). Therefore it has been 60 years since our fallen heroes of World War II made the ultimate sacrifice of their lives for the freedoms which we today hold so dear. Which we have all been so painfully reminded of this last few months.

Sixty years ago all of the newspapers in the county gave front page coverage to the death of Colorado County's first combat casualty of the war. It was Second Lieutenant Leon Phillip Kallina of Garwood. Kallina was killed May 28, 1942. He had been born August 23, 1918 to Frank and Millie Frnka Kallina. Graduating from Eagle Lake High School in 1935 and the University of Texas at Austin in 1940 he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps (the predecessor of the Air Force).

Kallina was a navigator on a four engine bomber (B-17 or B-24) and was killed in the heavy fighting that continued around New Guinea and the Solomon Islands between the Battle of Coral Sea and the invasion of Guadalcanal. Reports were that a Japanese Zero fighter plane strafed Kallina's bomber while it was on a mission over the Coral Sea. The wing of the bomber was set on fire, and when Kallina stood to inform the pilot, was hit with a bullet in the chest. He survived until his plane returned to base, but died in the hospital there. Kallina's death certificate says that the place of death was Lae/Port Moresby, New Guinea.

Lt. Kallina's body was returned from New Guinea for burial in St. Mary's Catholic Church in Nada in 1948. Kallina was survived by his mother, two three brothers: Joe, Frank and Fred and a sister, Mrs. Seth Henderson.

Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg, "It is for us to be here dedicated to the task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."