Iowa Honor Roll
These Iowans, like those pictured here on previous Sundays, have given their lives for their country. They were fatally wounded in combat or died in prison camps. The fourth line under each name designates the war area in which the man last served.
Source: The Des Moines Register, Sunday, March 5, 1944 (photo included)
William Lester Kvidera was born July 12, 1919 to James and Helen Anna Kunch Kvidera. He died Dec. 7, 1941 and is memorialized at the Courts of the Missing, Court 3, Honolulu Memorial, Honolulu, Hawaii and at the USS Oklahoma Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He is buried in Saint Pauls Catholic Cemetery, Traer, IA.
Petty Officer Kvidera served with the U.S. Navy in World War II aboard the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) and lost his life in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Through the work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Carpenter’s Mate 3rd Class William L. Kvidera were accounted for in 2018. His name is permanently inscribed in the “Courts of the Missing” at the Honolulu Memorial. When an individual’s remains have been accounted for by the U.S. Department of Defense, a rosette is placed next to the name on the Wall/Tablet/Court of the Missing to mark that the person now rests in a known gravesite. He was awarded the Purple Heart.
Sources: ancestry.com; abmc.gov
