Petty Officer 2nd Class Arnold "Ted" Finnegan died from wounds received following action at sea somewhere in the South Pacific during the late summer of 1942. Ted was 24 years old.
His mother, Mrs. Nellie Finnegan had received 2 letters from her son that summer. The first one was date June 18 in which he stated that he was doing well. She received another letter from him that was dated August 17, just a month before she received notice from the War Department, advising her of his death. He was the first known casualty of World War Two from the local area. His name was also added to the name of the VFW Post which is now known as the Fuhrman-Finnegan post.
Details surrounding his wounds were not provided with known resources about this event but it seems likely he was killed near the Solomon Islands. The Solomon Islands were the scene of the Pacific war's longest and most bitterly fought naval campaign. Guadacanal may be the best known land battle that took place but there were more than a dozen naval battles fought in these confined waters. Most of them were night surface battles where the weapons and tactics of the Japanese Navy were at their finest.
The Battle for the Eastern Solomons was the first naval battle that took place in these waters and that event lasted from August 23 to August 25, 1942 which takes place after Ted's last letter to his mother and before the notification from the War Department about his death. There were no other naval battles in the South Pacific at that time. A Japanese aircraft carrier, the Ryujo, was sunk and the famous Enterprise of the US Navy was badly damaged, requiring it to sail for Pearl Harbor for repairs.
Ted graduated from Reedsburg high school in 1938 and enlisted in the Navy in November of 1939. He had served with the local company of the Wisconsin National Guard prior to his enlistment in the Navy. The flag at the head of the boulevard was flown at half mast in tribute to Reedsburg's first war dead.
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