Loren Avis Smith was born on 27 February 1922 I Parkville, Platte county, Missouri to Samuel Jackson and Lourena (Thomas) Smith; he was the youngest of five children; dad worked for the railroad. Loren registered for the draft on 30 June 1942 standing 5’8” tall, weighing 148 pounds with blue eyes and brown hair; he was working for the Kansas Flour Mills. He enlisted on 1 September 1942.

Private Loren Avis Smith (service number 426680) served with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Division as they served during the Battle of Tarawa, Gilbert Islands beginning 20 November 1943. They were to secure the airstrip to prevent Japanese forces from getting closer to the US and was crucial for the US offensive across the central Pacific. The initial landing was hampered by low tides forcing US troops to leave landing craft and wade ashore. Unfortunately for the Marines, the beach was shaped in such a way that it created a crossfire by the Japanese on shore. For those who survived the landing, they faced a network of obstacles manned by determined defenders with fighting close in and savage. Pvt. Loren Smith may have been with the second wave that landed on 21 November 1943; he is listed on the Courts of the Missing, Honolulu, Hawaii.

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 saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

SOURCES: Find-a-Grave; FamilySearch.org; Ancestry.com; Wikipedia