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b. 06/11/1922 Neche, North Dakota.  d. 09/11/1943 Bougainville, Solomon Islands.


DATE OF MOH ACTION: 09/11/1943 Bougainville, Solomon Islands.


Henry Gurke was born in Neche, North Dakota on November 6, 1922 to immigrant parents, Julius Gurke (1884-1968), a German-speaking carpenter from Dubno, a city on the Ikva River in the Rivne Oblast (province) of western Ukraine and his wife, Hulda Fischer Gurke (1890-1970). His parents had first immigrated to Canada from the Ukraine and then to the United States from Winnipeg, Manitoba in July 1912. The fifth of eight children, he was baptized in the Lutheran Church, and attended the local schools around Neche, a small town in the northwest corner of North Dakota, one mile from the Canadian bordertown of Gretna, Manitoba. After graduation from high school in 1940, he entered the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in July and was stationed in Larimore, North Dakota. He stayed in the CCC until October 1941 and rose to the position of Assistant Leader, then returned to Neche where he drove a two–ton truck until his enlistment in the United States Marine Corps on April 15, 1942.










Henry Gurke

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