D. E. Cavanagh, Voorhies, Killed
Goes Down with Lansdale in Mediterranean.
Voorhies, Ia. – Coxswain Daniel Emmett Cavanaugh, 29, lost his life Apr. 20, 1944, when the U. S. S. Lansdale, on which he was serving, was attacked by enemy planes, torpedoed, and sunk in the Mediterranean sea, a navy department telegram informed his parents, Mr. and Mrs. C. T. Cavanaugh, of Voorhies, Ia., Saturday.
Coxswain Cavanaugh entered service in April, 1942, received his boot training at Great Lakes, Ill., and then was assigned to duty aboard the destroyer Lansdale. Before his enlistment he was employed by the Walnut Dairy here.
Born Aug. 31, 1914, near Hudson, Ia., the son of Christy and Mae Molloy Cavanaugh, he moved to Vorrhies with his parents in 1940.
He is survived by his parents, two brothers, Merle R. Cavanaugh, Dinsdale, Ia., and Tech. 5th Gr. John C. Cavanaugh, serving with an ordnance company in France, and seven sisters, Mrs. M. J. Jensen, Voorhies, Mrs. Lender Mask, Hudson, Mrs. John E. Lamar, Presbyterian hospital, Waterloo, Mrs. John J. Moran, Chicago, Mrs. Kenneth Schultz, 215 Independence, Miss Margaret Cavanaugh Chicago, and Patricia Ann Cavanaugh, 16, Voorhies.
Memorial services will be conducted at 9:30 a. m. Monday at the Immaculate Conception Catholic church at Blessing, Ia. He was the first member of the parish to lose his life in World war II.
Source: Waterloo Daily Courier, Waterloo, Iowa, Sunday, May 05, 1945 (photo included)
Notes About N. E. Iowans in the Service
Voorhies – Mr. and Mrs. C. T. Cavanaugh have received the Purple Heart awarded posthumously to their son, Daniel Emmett Cavanaugh, seaman first class, USNR, for military service and wounds which caused his death Apr. 20, 1944 when the destroyer Lansdale was torpedoed and sunk by Nazi planes in the Meditteranean.
Source: Waterloo Daily Courier, Waterloo, Iowa, Sunday, July 22, 1945, Page 22
NOTE: Destroyer USS Lansdale (DD-426) was escorting a convoy when she was struck by a German aerial torpedo on the night of April 20, 1944, approximately 15 miles northeast of Algiers. ~ home.roadrunner.com/~cwales/Lansdale.html
Coxswain Daniel Emmett Cavanaugh has a cenotaph in Reinbeck Cemetery, Reinbeck, IA and is memorialized at the Tablets of the Missing, Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial, Nettuno, Italy. He was awarded the Purple Heart.
Sources: abmc.gov; ancestry.com
