KILLED  IN  ACTION

During World War II, numerous patriotic young men joined the Navy, many enlisting and many others being drafted.  A great number of these men unfortunately died while in the Navy and a substantial number have been identified in the Navy Memorial Log listing merely their name and the notation “Lost At Sea” without details concerning their death.  Albert Ollian Polston is one of these individuals about whom little historical information has been recorded. 

Historical records report that Polston was born on December 2, 1919 in the District of Columbia.  It is known that he graduated from McKinley Technical High School in 1940 and subsequently entered the Naval Reserve from the District of Columbia.  During 1943 he received pilot training.  On October 24, 1944, Ensign Polston was the pilot of the PB4Y-1 Liberator bomber, BuNo 32266 (ex-USAAF B-24J 42-109960) which departed Morotai Island, Netherlands East Indies, to attack Japanese forces in the Philippines.  There was a crew of nine men aboard the plane.  Following its departure nothing was ever heard again from the plane, it failed to return to its base, and on October 25, 1944 the nine men aboard the plane were declared “Killed In Action.”  Ensign Polston was survived by his wife who was living in Washington, D.C.  As the wreckage of BuNo 32266 has never been located and the body of Ensign Polston was not recovered, his name is engraved on the Tablets of the Missing at the American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila, Philippines.  In addition a memorial marker for Ensign Polston is located at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)