died in Bastogne as a Private in the U.S. Army during the Germans’ Ardennes Counteroffensive in 1944. He was a true American hero and Paul would’ve only been in high school at the time so probably pretty devastating
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/53886772/coradon-george-lynde
Paul Lynde was seventeen in June of 1943, old enough to enlist nearly two years before the end of the war. In fact, with consent from both parents, he could've enlisted at sixteen. A lot of guys that age, including my dad, were in the military during the war.
shareIt’s an obscure fact today but in late 1942, President Roosevelt signed an executive order forbidding any further induction of volunteers into the U.S. military. He was concerned about the depletion of homefront manpower for U.S. industry. From then on, you could only be inducted via the draft (with a few exceptions) and those under 18 were ineligible for conscription. So, Paul Lynde actually could not have enlisted at 17 in June of 1943. And, if the selective service did not draft him after he turned 18, that was outside his control
Your family should take great pride in your dad’s service. It really is an incredible thing that he went and fought as a teenager. Today’s teenagers can’t even manage without their cell phones
That executive order was apparently not all-encompassing or strictly observed. In April of 1943, when both were seventeen years old, my dad and his best friend volunteered for and were accepted by the U.S. Navy. After boot camp in San Diego, California, my dad embarked in a Liberty Ship for Pearl Harbor, where he was assigned to the crew of the destroyer tender U.S.S. Dobbin (AD 3). In the summer of 1944 he applied for transfer to a destroyer, and was re-assigned to U.S.S. Hobby (DD 610) for the duration of the war. In the 1990s I acquired copies of all his military records from the National Archives, and they verify his voluntary enlistment, service, and honorable discharge in 1946. In 2005, he received a military funeral at the National Cemetery at Riverside, California.
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