Lt. Wilbur Benjamin RIDOUT

RIDOUT, GEHRKE, KLEIN, COBB

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 3/27/2015 at 15:45:54

April 25, 1920 --- February 5, 1943

Lt. Wilbur Ridout Is Killed in Action

IOWA FALLS - Word was received Friday by Mr. and Mrs. Ord Ridout from the war department informing them that their son, Lt. Wilbur Ridout, had been killed in action somewhere in the South Pacific. He was a pilot on a bomber plane. Ridout received his first air training in the C. P. T course at Iowa Falls junior college, then trained at Randolph Field, Tex., and at Sarasota, Fla. He left this country last fall and had been in Australia. He was a graduate of the Iowa Falls high school and attended the junior college here. Besides his parents, three brothers and three sisters survive.

Mason City Globe-Gazette -- Mason City, Iowa
February 13, 1943

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REBURIAL RITES FOR WAR VICTIM
Iowa Falls Services to Be Held Thursday

Iowa Falls - The body of Lt. Wilbur B. Ridout has been returned to the United States and final rites will be held at the Wood funeral chapel in Iowa Falls Thursday at 2 p.m. with the Rev. Dewey Lamprecht of Eldora officiating. Burial will be made in the Berlin cemetery, southeast of Iowa Falls, with members of veteran's organizations of Eldora and Iowa Falls in charge of the graveside services. He was born near Popejoy in April, 1920, son of Ord and Bertha Gehrke Ridout. The following year the family moved to a farm in Hardin county. He was graduated from the Owasa high School and Ellsworth junior college. He enlisted in 1941 while a student at Coe college in Cedar Rapids. He was commissioned in the army air corps at Victoria, Tex., and left the United States for overseas duty in October, 1942. While serving as a pilot of a fighter plane he was killed in action in New Guinea Feb. 5, 1943. He was awarded a purple heart medal posthumously.

Besides his parents he is survived by 3 sisters, Mrs. Walter Klein of Alden, Mrs. Daryl Cobb of Eldora, and Loretta of Iowa Falls; 3 brothers, Harold of Eldora, Clayton of Martelle, and Ted, at home.

Mason City Globe-Gazette -- Mason City, Iowa
March 2, 1948