The tragedy of Sgt. Joseph C. Hornbach

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The Chariton Leader of July 11, 1944 --- 75 years ago now --- reported the combat-related deaths of two young men from Lucas County: Franklin W. McDonald, who had died of wounds sustained in the battle for Saipan, June 15-July 9, and Jefferson Osenbaugh, killed in action on June 11 in Normandy.

As mentioned yesterday in a post about Charles Percifield, hardly an issue of the bi-weekly Chariton newspapers during that long-ago summer was published without a story or stories about young Lucas Countyans who had died, been declared dead or reported missing in action in World War II.

But this also had been a week when a war-related tragedy occurred closer to home when the remains of a young Pacific Theater combat veteran named Joseph C. Hornbach, who had killed himself aboard a troop train between Creston and Chariton, were transported from the C.B.&Q. Depot to Beardsley Funeral Home to await return to his family. Here's the text of the July 11 story:

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"Joseph C. Hornbach, 28, home address unknown, took his life by hanging Saturday about 10 a.m. on an east-bound Burlington train. Coroner Brittell was called and removed the body to the Beardsley funeral home where it awaits orders from the government.

"According to train companions, Hornbach, a sergeant in the army, had been some 27 months in the Pacific area in the thick of the fighting. He had been sent back to the United States with a group of other soldiers being returned for rest. He boarded the train at Oakland, California, at 5 p.m. July 5 and was being shipped to a reconstruction camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana.

"He had, according to men on the train with whom he was riding, been rather despondent. His seat companion said Hornbach went to the wash room as the train left Creston and he was found hanging from a hook with his belt tied around his neck about the time the train came into Chariton. He had been dead, said Dr. Brittell, about 10 or 15 minutes when the train stopped at the station.

"His home address is not known and instructions are being awaited as to disposition of the body."

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As it turned out, Sgt. Hornbach's hometown was tiny Yorkville, Indiana, and he was a son of John F. and Helen Hornbach. Before the war, he had been living on the family farm in southeastern Indiana with his parents and five siblings.

According to a death notice in The Cincinnati (Ohio) Enquirer of July 16, his funeral Mass was held at St. Martin's Church, Yorkville, on July 17 with burial following in the parish cemetery.

We'll never know exactly what war-related devils drove Sgt. Hornbach to take his own life after surviving combat for so many months. But he, too, without a doubt, was a casualty of war.