This photo of Admiral Ernest J. King laying the cornerstone of the Lakeview Park memorial to Lorain men and women of the armed forces appeared on the front of the Lorain Journal on the Monday, August 31, 1942 edition (shown in my previous blog entry.)
The caption of the photo read, "Solemnly declaring that many more names would be added to roll to be inscribed on the shaft, Admiral Ernest J. King lays the cornerstone of a war memorial dedicated to Lorain men and women in service during the last war and the present conflict. Predicting a long and costly war, the "Cominch" (commander-in-chief) said he could offer nothing but "blood and sweat, toil and tears," as he dedicated the shaft that will memorialize Lorain's sons and daughters who are serving their country."
During the ceremony, Admiral King noted, "Unfortunately, there will be many names inscribed on this shaft. For this will be a long war, a long war and a costly one."
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I'd forgotten all about this monument through the years, and decided to stop at Lakeview Park a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning and check it out. I was surprised to see that there were no names on the shaft. I guess the original intention was to honor the fallen soldiers with their names on the shaft, but I can imagine that it would have been a difficult task to coordinate.
Nevertheless, it is a wonderful memorial to Lorain's fighting men and women, as well as one of the few permanent landmarks honoring Admiral Ernest J. King in the city of Lorain. My recent photographs are below. (Click on each for a larger view.)
2 comments:
Were they really calling it "World War Two" already in 1942? Or were the comments added later? I can imagine that it would have been no easy thing to come up with a list of names of those lost from Lorain County. It wouldn't be an easy task to sort out the KIA from the missing even in the digital age.
Hi Ken,
I was surprised to see that it was indeed being referred to as World War II by 1942. (If you scroll down to my March 2nd post and click on the image of the "Lorain Says it with Men, Ships and Steel" newspaper, you can see it referred to as 'World War II' in the bottom left hand corner. Plus if you click on the photo of Admiral King laying the cornerstone and look at the larger image, you can kind of make out the smaller lines of type on the stone, although it is tough to tell since it is a scanned-in photocopy of a newspaper photo.
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