As spring turned to summer in 1942, residents of Gloucester and Mathews were braced for the fateful telegrams and phone calls that illustrated in black letters that World War II was hitting home.

Turning the pages of Gazette-Journal issues from that year makes the same point to readers eight decades later.

Many, many issues of the paper reported the death of a resident at war. Many of them, as spring turned to a heartbreaking summer, were merchant mariners from Mathews County. But no branch of the service, no neighborhood was immune, for all four years of the war.

Before the immediate memories of those early months of war fade completely, we present, this Memorial Day, a listing of casualties from World War II that we can find, including those who died in accidents, in training before the war, and keeping the peace in the immediate aftermath. They include individuals who may have moved from the counties but maintained connections here. One more note: The United States Air For...