The Coast Guard keeps it records before 1950 on index cards. Here is the Clyde Ballenger story.
In 1940, Clyde Ballenger, 18, was living with his parents in New Bern, North Carolina. He had left school after 9th grade.
Clyde Edward Ballenger, service number 220-823, was born in Sumter, SC, October 26, 1921 and enlisted in the Coast Guard as an apprentice seaman. It is known that he married Emily Elizabeth Ballenger, but no records of her can be found after 1944.
Mr. Ballenger's mother, Nora, died in 1949 and his father Clyde died in 1955.
William "Bill" Ballenger, 84, still lives in New Bern, a cousin of Ballenger's on his father's side. He remembers a little about Clyde, but says he is the last of his family. He said that Clyde's wife, a young widow, remarried and moved away.
There is still a question as to how the renters came to have the Purple Heart.
One of History's Little Questions. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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