Technician 5th Grade William C. Griffin was born in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah on April 10, 1923. His mother was named Edith, and he also had a brother and two sisters.

William completed two years at East High School in Salt Lake City, then worked for the Utah Council of Defense, an organization which worked to advance the war effort through public education campaigns. On March 3, 1943, he joined the US Army at Salt Lake City.

William was assigned to the 279th Replacement Company and sent overseas to reinforce US forces that had suffered serious losses in the Leyte Gulf. On February 11, 1945, he was aboard LST 577, a transport vessel bound for Mindanao in the Philippines. The ship was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine RO 50. The torpedo blew the ship cleanly in half--the stern sank almost immediately, while the bow remained afloat a little longer. In total, 166 soldiers and sailors were killed. William was initially reported missing and was declared dead by the War Department in September 1945.

William’s remains were never recovered. He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. He also has a headstone in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. He was survived by his mother and siblings.

Thank you, TEC5 Griffin, for your courageous service and sacrifice.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see ++www.storiesbehindthestars.org++). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

The author would like to express appreciation for the following sources of information used in writing this story:

NewspaperArchive.com

Ancestry.com

FamilySearch.org

FindAGrave.com

Fold3.com

The Library of Congress

The United States Navy Memorial

William C Griffin