This Military Service Page was created/owned by
CWO2 Philip E. Montroy
to remember
Marine Capt Walter Taylor, Jr..
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Contact Info
Home Town Chicago
Last Address Rockaway Beach, OR
Date of Passing Apr 14, 1997
Location of Interment Santa Fe National Cemetery (VA) - Santa Fe, New Mexico
Following his WWII service in the OSS, Capt. Taylor moved to Santa Fe, NM, then to Mexico and then joined the faculty of Southern Illinois University where he developed the Department of Anthropolog in1958. He also taught occasionally in Texas, Washington, Mexico City College and the La Escuela Nacional de Antropologia e Historia in Mexico. In addition, Dr. Taylor conducted archaelogical fieldwork in Arizona, New Mexico, Georgia, Mexico and Spain. He retired in 1974 and moved to Oregon.
Dr. Taylor published many papers on anthropology and archaeology. His most important work, "A Study of Archeology", is now in it's seventh printing and will remain a monument to his life.
Capt. Taylor resigned from the USMCR in 1955 and was buried with full-military honors at the Santa Fe National Cemetery in 1997. He will be remembered as one of the less than dozen Marines who were assigned to HQMC, detached to the OSS and served in the European Theatre of Operations during WWII.
Other Comments:
Prior to his enlisting in the USMC in 1942, Dr. Taylor had received his AB degree in Geology from Yale University in 1935. This was followed by three years of field work in archaelogy working for first for the the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. and then for the University of New Mexico field school in Chaco Canyon where he served as archaeoligical field foreman.
In 1938 he enrolled in the anthropology doctoral program at Harvard University. In 1940 he undertook fieldwork in Coahuila, Mexico until 1942.
World War II/European-African-Middle Eastern Theater
From Month/Year
June / 1942
To Month/Year
May / 1945
Description The European-Mediterranean-Middle East Theater was a major theater of operations during the Second World War (between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946). The vast size of Europe, Mediterranean and Middle East theatre saw interconnected naval, land, and air campaigns fought for control of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. The fighting in this theatre lasted from 10 June 1940, when Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, until 2 May 1945 when all Axis forces in Italy surrendered. However, fighting would continue in Greece – where British troops had been dispatched to aid the Greek government – during the early stages of the Greek Civil War.
The British referred to this theatre as the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre (so called due to the location of the fighting and the name of the headquarters that controlled the initial fighting: Middle East Command) while the Americans called the theatre of operations the Mediterranean Theatre of War. The German official history of the fighting is dubbed 'The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa 1939–1942'. Regardless of the size of the theatre, the various campaigns were not seen as neatly separated areas of operations but part of one vast theatre of war.
Fascist Italy aimed to carve out a new Roman Empire, while British forces aimed initially to retain the status quo. Italy launched various attacks around the Mediterranean, which were largely unsuccessful. With the introduction of German forces, Yugoslavia and Greece were overrun. Allied and Axis forces engaged in back and forth fighting across North Africa, with Axis interference in the Middle East causing fighting to spread there. With confidence high from early gains, German forces planned elaborate attacks to be launched to capture the Middle East and then to possibly attack the southern border of the Soviet Union. However, following three years of fighting, Axis forces were defeated in North Africa and their interference in the Middle East was halted. Allied forces then commenced an invasion of Southern Europe, resulting in the Italians switching sides and deposing Mussolini. A prolonged battle for Italy took place, and as the strategic situation changed in southeast Europe, British troops returned to Greece.
The theatre of war, the longest during the Second World War, resulted in the destruction of the Italian Empire and altered the strategic position of Germany resulting in numerous German divisions being deployed to Africa and Italy and total losses (including those captured upon final surrender) being over half a million. Italian losses, in the theatre, amount to around to 177,000 men with a further several hundred thousand captured during the process of the various campaigns. British losses amount to over 300,000 men killed, wounded, or captured, and total American losses in the region amounted to 130,000.
