SOLDIER RITES AT MANCHESTER
Lt. M. T. Kratzer Killed in Action in Italy
Manchester, Ia.—Services will be held at the Shelly funeral home here at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday for Second Lt. Merle Thomas Kratzner, 22, son of Mrs. Anna E. Kratzer, of Manchester, who was killed in action in Italy Feb. 9, 1945. Burial will be in Oakland cemetery here, with military honors. The Rev. Walter Schiel, of Manchester, will be in charge.
Merle Thomas, son of the late Jay Harris Kratzer, and Mrs. Anna Elizabeth Henderson Kratzer of this city, was born Aug. 12, 1922, at Central City. He came to Manchester when six years old, attended the local schools and graduated from Manchester High school in 1940. He later attended Iowa State Teachers college at Cedar Falls and Iowa State College at Ames for two years.
Lt. Kratzer was a fighter pilot in the United States army air corps. He was a member of the local Presbyterian Church.
Survivors are his mother, of this city; two brothers, Darrell J. Kratzer, a student at Iowa State College at Ames, and Paul F. Kratzer, a student at the University of Iowa at Iowa City; one sister, Miss Betty Anne Kratzer, of Cedar Rapids; and several aunts and uncles and other relatives.
Lt. Kratzer’s father died in 1928.
Source: Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, November 22, 1948
Merle Thomas Kratzer was born Aug. 12, 1922 to Jay H. and Anna Elizabeth Henderson Kratzer. He died July 9, 1945 and is buried in Oakland Cemetery, Manchester, IA.
Lt. Kratzer served in World War II with the U.S. Army Air Corps and was KIA over Italy. He was a P-51 Fighter Pilot.
Source: ancestry.com
