Born: July 6, 1926
Died: October 15, 2008
Campaigns Served: Iwo Jima (wounded)
Highest Rank Attained: Private
Decorations:
Purple Heart
Ken Cassel was born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, in 1926. He enlisted in the Marines in 1944, and was assigned to Headquarters Company, First Battalion, 24th Marines as a rifleman. He likely served with the battalion's assault and demolitions platoon, specializing in destroying Japanese bunkers.
Cassel made the landing on Iwo Jima, and was fighting there when he was narrowly missed by an incoming shell. The explosion temporarily deafened him, but Cassel remained on the lines for days until seeking medical help during a lull in the action. Iwo Jima would be his last combat.
After the war, Cassel returned to northern Pennsylvania. He married Doroty Rossi in 1953, and the couple raised two daughters. Ken Cassel worked as a carpenter, taking on assignments in Philadelphia or South New Jersey; his quiet ability to assess problems and fix them earned him the affectionate nickname "the Phantom."
In 1997, following Dorothy's death, Kenneth Cassel married D. Barbara Julius. The two spent eight years touring the country in a mobile home, visiting all fifty states as well as most of Canada. They returned to Pennsylvania, where Cassel was diagnosed with cancer.
While looking through his documents in 2008, Cassel's family learned to their surprise that he had been entitled to a Purple Heart. Somehow, Cassel had never received his medal. Please click here for an article and video about the successful efforts to get Kenneth Cassel's Purple Heart delivered.
Kenneth Cassel succumbed to cancer in October, 2008. He is buried in Whitemarsh Memorial Park, Prospectville, PA.
NOTE: the Battalion muster rolls list Private Kenneth R. Cassel as "19, wounded and evacuated, 20-28, sick whereabouts unknown." The notation of "wherabouts unknown" indicates that this may be an error or incomplete record; therefore the date of Cassel's wounding and treatment cannot be definitively noted without further research.