PFC CRANSTON
KILLED IN ACTION
IN BELGIUM JAN. 9
Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Cranston of Center street have received word from the war department that their son, Pfc Harold M. Cranston, paratrooper, was killed in action January 9.  The telegram stated that a letter would follow.
   Harold Cranston was one of the first three Fredonians* to be sent by the local selective service board for military training Nov. 25, 1940 over a year before Pearl Harbor.
   He went overseas in April 1944, after spending a short furlough in Fredonia.  He served in North Africa and Italy before being sent to Belgium.  He traind for the paratrooper service at Fort Benning, Ga. and was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington before going overseas.
   The other two who left Fredonia with that first contingent were Albert Woodcock, now a first lieutenant and George Horey, who was not accepted at the time but is now serving with the Seabees in the Pacific area.
   Harold Cranston was born in Forestville [NY] in 1917 but had resided in Fredonia since he was five years of age and was educated in the Fredonia schools, graduating from Fredonia High school.
   He leaves two brothers, Archie W. Cranston, Niagara Falls and Donald Cranston Dunkirk and a sister Mrs. Gene Straight, Fredonia.

*[i.e., from Fredonia, NY]

(photos courtesy Emmanuel Charles Fleurus, Belgium)

Headstone Inscription and Interment Record plus resulting grave marker for Pfc Harold M. Cranston at Plot H Row 8 Grave 63 in the Henri Chapelle American Cemetery, Belgium.

Pfc Cranston was killed in action on January 9, 1945 and was awarded the Purple Heart.