Answer: Tom Crunk was a Kennett native who was involved in one of the most strangely coincidental happenings of World War II.

Those of us old enough to have such recollections, remember newsreels showing doddering old men, dressed in blue or gray. They were men in their late eighties, or nineties, enacting some feeble mock charge at Gettysburg, or gathered at some banquet to be feted. These men were the last surviving combat veterans of Union and Confederate soldiers who fought in the American Civil War. And then they were gone.

Now World War II soldiers are dying by the thousands, with many more soon to join the "innumerable caravan." Tom Crunk was one of the World War II veterans who has passed away.

Tom Crunk is considered one of the finest athletes Kennett High School has ever produced. He was an all-round sports star. He began his young life as a railroad switchman, and returned to Kennett after the war to become collector and treasurer.

There is no way of telling in any man's life what he considers the most important. But perhaps the most definitive moment in Tom's life was when he was a Marine corporal on the Japanese held island of Okinawa. Barely a third the size of Rhode Island, Okinawa is located only 350 miles from the Japanese homeland island of Kyushu. The fighting there turned out to be the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war.

Tom Crunk's position in Okinawa was on a scrub hill the Marines called Sugar Loaf Hill. The hill wasn't high, but it was festering Japanese who popped out of "spider holes," firing automatic weapons and throwing grenades.

During a heated battle, Tom Crunk ran across a badly injured Marine who was still conscious. As Tom carried the man to medical help, the Marine pleaded, "When we get to the rear, don't let them give me morphine, I can't take morphine." Tom Crunk talked the corpsman out of giving the Marine morphine.

Years later, when Tom Crunk was collector and treasurer in Kennett, an Air Force man walked in the office, and mentions in the conversation that he had just returned from an assignment in Okinawa. Tom said that he had been in Okinawa, and asked the man if he had ever heard of Sugar Loaf Hill. The airman said he had, and added that a former employer of his had been shot through the spleen on Sugar Loaf Hill, and that his life was saved by a fellow Marine who wouldn't allow the medics to administer morphine.

Some years after that -- in a personal interview with Tom Crunk -- Tom said this was one of the most rewarding experiences of his life.

There is a book at the Kennett Public Library entitled "The Battle for Sugar Loaf Hill." In the book, author, James H. Hallas, relates the horrors in the battle for Okinawa. He also tells of the Tom Crunk incident.

The Answer Man will appear on occasion in the Daily Dunklin Democrat, and will provide answers to various and sundry questions about local people, etc. Readers are invited to submit their queries to The Answer Man by e-mailing them to bhunt@dddnews.com.