Collin Co. Organization Honors 6 Young Military Men Who Died In Service
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MCKINNEY (CBSDFW.COM) —The Hall of Heroes at Collin County Courthouse is adding portraits of six young men who died in military service.
The Collin County Fallen Warrior Portrait Project will host its fifth installment ceremony on Nov. 9 at 11:30 a.m. The privately funded project aims to put faces to the 365 names engraved on the Wall of Honor at Collin County Veterans Memorial Park in McKinney. The six new portraits will bring the total to 27, according to the press release.
The portraits of the men — created by Colin Kimball, a McKinney artist and United States Air Force veteran — will be displayed at the courthouse permanently. The men all died before the age of 25.
Woodrow H. Allen, aviation machinist mate first class in the U.S. Navy, survived five major battles at sea — including the sinking of the USS Hornet, which killed 140 sailors — before he was killed in action. The 24-year-old McKinney resident died on Sept. 4, 1943.
Russell A. Steindam, a 23-year-old first lieutenant in the U.S. Army, was killed in action in Vietnam on Feb. 1, 1970. Russell dove onto a hand grenade when his squad was ambushed during a nighttime jungle patrol. The Plano resident was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Francis R. Luscombe of Anna was an ensign in the U.S. Navy and the pilot of a Hellcat fighter based on the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier in the South Pacific. The 22-year-old went down with his plane in open water on Feb. 16, 1945. His name also appears on the Tablets of the Missing at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
James T. Caraway was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps and a B-24 pilot. The 22-year-old was flying missions between India and China when his plane went down on Aug. 11, 1944, killing the McKinney man and his crew.
Thomas B. Holdbrooks of McKinney, a private first class rifleman in the second battalion of the third Marine regiment, was killed in a battle with heavy machine-gun fire in a battle in South Vietnam. The 19-year-old died on Dec. 28, 1967.
Royce G. Scoggins, 18, was killed in action on March 5, 1966. Scoggins was a private first class machine gunner in the third battalion of the first Marine regiment. The McKinney resident was the first Collin County man killed in Vietnam, as well as one of the youngest.
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