WWII News Clippings 03

“Wm. Gaston Bailey, EM 2nd Class of Cliffside, who has served with the Pacific Third Fleet for 15 months. He was in the invasion of Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa and was near the Japanese homeland at the time the Japs quit. Gaston writes that he was in the storm that struck the Pacific recently but came out safe and expects to be home soon. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. B. W. Bailey reside at Mooresboro. His wife and two children, one whom he has never seen, reside with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Godfrey of Spindale.”

 

Gaston is the father of Barry Bailey, Gail Bailey Toney and the late Linda Bailey Bostic, all of the Cliffside area. He served on LST-1029 (a Landing Ship Tank craft) in the Pacific. Gaston worked many years in the Cliffside Mills weave room as a weaver, loom fixer and second hand. Gaston died in 1968 and is buried in Cleveland Memorial Park near Boiling Springs. His widow, the former Virginia Godfrey, of Spindale, died in 2002.