While most everyone knows Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, few people remember that in the hours after that attack other British and American bases in the Pacific also faced Japanese aggression. One of these was the U.S. island base of Midway, where Ensign Donald John Kraker perished on the first day of the war.

Donald John Kraker’s headstone application shows that he was born in Minnesota on March 14, 1914. In addition to him, his parents John and Mary Agnes Babich Kraker had seven daughters and two additional sons. The Krakers were Catholic, and lived in Gilbert, Minnesota at the times that the 1920 and 1930 U.S. Censuses were recorded. The future naval officer attended Gilbert High School and played in the school band.

After four years of college, Donald Kraker became an officer in the U.S. Navy, enlisting in September 1937. At the time of the 1940 Census, Kraker was stationed in a Navy barracks in Coco Solo, Cristobal, Panama. In September that year the San Pedro, California News-Pilot newspaper reported he had been ordered to NAS Pensacola, Florida before a Norfolk, Virginia newspaper reported he was being assigned to Patrol Squadron 11 in Hawaii in November. Fatefully the young ensign was reassigned again, to VP-21 then deployed to the U.S. base at Midway, where they were assigned to patrol their part of the Pacific.

When the men stationed on Midway received news of the Japanese attack in Hawaii, they immediately sent out patrols to look for Japanese ships. Despite being detected by the patrolling aircraft, two Japanese destroyers shelled the island and its defenders within hours of the Hawaiian attack. Ensign Kraker was aboard PBY BuNo 0853, which attempted to takeoff from the water but crashed into a buoy, resulting in fatal “injuries multiple extreme” according to an entry in the Dec. 10 CINCPAC War Diary with lesser injuries to another five sailors on the plane.

Kraker married Dora Cale of Key West, Florida in Arizona during September 1940. At the time of her husband’s death, she was pregnant with their only child and in Hawaii when the Navy mistakenly sent word to her Key West address to inform her of the news. The mistake meant her family had to contact her to relay the awful news. Kraker’s body was temporarily buried at Midway. In 1947 Kraker’s casket containing his remains were exhumed from their temporary site and were part of the first shipment of remains sent back to the U.S. from the Pacific. Kraker was finally laid to rest in Gilbert, Minnesota on November 17, 1947. Dora never remarried and raised their son, Donald Lawrence Kraker, before passing away in 2010.

Sources:

1920 US Census

1930 US Census

1940 US Census

CINCPAC War Diary 12/1/41-12/31/41, https://www.fold3.com/image/267924922/war-diary-121-3141-page-43-us-world-war-ii-war-diaries-1941-1945

Findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/197142588/donald_john-kraker

Key West Citizen newspaper, Dec. 19, 1941, via newspapers.com

Marriage certificate via ancestry.com

Miami Herald newspaper, May 5, 1942 via newspapers.com

Miami News newspaper, October 10, 1947 via newspapers.com

Norfolk Ledger Dispatch, Oct. 2, 1940 via newspapers.com

San Pedro News-Pilot newspaper, Sept. 23, 1940 via newspapers.com

US Headstone Applications 1925-1963, https://www.fold3.com/image/321120400/kraker-donald-j-page-1-us-headstone-applications-1925-1963

U.S. Rosters of World War II Dead, https://www.fold3.com/image/712944894/us-rosters-of-world-war-ii-dead-1939-1945-page-7980-us-rosters-of-world-war-ii-dead-1939-1945

Donald J Kraker