The tragedy of Joseph C. Hornbach's death

U.S. Army Tec. 5 Joseph C. Hornbach, 28, was another of those young men who gave up their lives while in service to their country during World War II --- but in a way that must have seemed especially tragic (and perhaps shameful) to his family: suicide.

Joseph had no connection to Lucas County --- except for the fact his death occurred aboard an east-bound Burlington Northern passenger train as it approached Chariton on July 8,1944.

Here's the text of the story reporting his death, published in The Chariton Leader of July 11:

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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, has 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 he 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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Born March 16, 1916, near Yorkville in Dearborn County, Indiana, Joseph was among the six children of John F. and Helen Hornbach and at the time of his enlistment during November of 1941 at Louisville, Kentucky, was employed by the Seagram Distilling Co.

Assigned to Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 147th Infantry, at the time of his death, he would indeed have been in the "thick of the fighting" in the Pacific Theater of operations. 

Joseph's remains were returned to his family in Indiana and a funeral Mass was held at St. Martin's Church in Yorkville on July 17 --- followed by burial in the church cemetery.

Neither then nor now do we know why the young soldier decided to take his own life. We do know more about PTSD and other hazards of war that in the past have been dismissed, however, and that suicide, too, can be a fatal wound of war.