Show lt parker ward home on months furlough lieutenant parker ward son of mr and mrs joseph E ward and husband of mrs lea ward all of this city arrived home early yesterday morning after spending the past thirty four months in new guinea and other islands of the south pacific his people received word from him last saturday morning saying he had landed on the pacific coast and his wife left immediately to meet in in salt lake city and come the rest of the way home with him h im I 1 lt ward was a member of the I 1 reserve corps or some such organization when the war came and went in in soon after it started after a few months in the states he went over seas with an american infantry division the same to which kent mitchell was attached this outfit fought through all of the new gul guinea campaign when things were the toughest parker says that at the time they were having such a haryl hard time to stop the japs at the peak of their power and expansion and when millions of men were striking in war plants in the U units of around 1000 men in his outfit were cut down to as low as men by sickness and disease in the fever ridden jungles of new guinea the biggest part of a small unit he was with all were hit with the disease at once and more than half I 1 of the sick ones died what with no medicine available and very few doctors for the many sick men parker was ill for a long time but finally rejoined his outfit to take part in several of the jumps up the coast of new guinea and on into the smaller islands of the southwest pacific the hardest of which was the assault of his unit on baak island he says when he last saw kent mitchell the latter was looking and feeling fine both have been in the pacific battle area for thirty four months |