CORTEZ – One went down with his ship. One was executed by the Japanese. One died when a Japanese bomb hit the U.S.S. Yorktown. One was killed in a motorcycle accident on the way to camp. One perished in the trenches of France.

In all, five native sons of Cortez gave their lives in service to their country during World War I and World War II.

Movies were made memorializing the battles of two of them, but they are all unforgettable.

Warren A. Bell

Warren Aaron Bell was the oldest of the seven children of A. P. Bell and Jessie Fulford Bell.

A Cortez fisherman, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served as an apprentice seaman on board the Liberty Ship S.S. Arthur Middleton.

As it sailed in a convoy from New York to North Africa in December 1942, the Middleton carried 81 men and a cargo of explosives, U.S. Army trucks and 300 sacks of mail.

In his letters home, it was obvious how much Bell missed fishing, his sister-in-law Ellen Bell said. He asked about how many fish his brothers had caught and where they had caught them. If his last letter home was in one of those 300 sacks, his family never received it.

On New Year’s Day 1943, as the Middleton passed Casablanca, it split from the convoy with 10 other ships and headed toward Oran, Algeria. The ships began to form a single line to enter the harbor less than 10 miles out, according to U.S. Navy records.

But before they lined up, two torpedoes from the German submarine U-73 exploded in the Middleton’s bow, lifting it out of the water and sending flames 1,000 feet into the air.

The ship sank at 2:11 p.m., according to the report of seaman first class Quinten S. Lederman, who wrote that his watch crystal was broken in the explosions and the hands were frozen in time.

Three men survived; Bell was not one of them.

He was listed as missing in action for more than a year before his family was notified of his death.

James M. Campbell

James M. Campbell was born on the Fourth of July, Cortez historian Mary Fulford Green recalls, and patriotically joined the U.S. Navy in the early days of World War II.

He was serving as a crew member on the U.S.S. Yorktown in May 1942, when it engaged in the battle which was memorialized in the movie, The Battle of the Coral Sea.

On May 8, according to U.S. Navy records, a Japanese Navy dive bomber dropped a bomb on the Yorktown that “pierced the flight deck, making a hole about 14 inches in diameter… it went down through the ready room, the hanger deck and second deck on an angle towards the starboard side. It then hit a beam and stanchion and angled back to port, piercing the third deck.”

The report continues that amid fires, smoke and chaos, the captain was asked if the ship should slow. His answer was, “Hell no! We’ll make it!”

The ship made it to fight another day, but Campbell was lost.

He was awarded the Purple Heart.

Great-nephew Mark Coarsey has a letter dated Feb. 28, 1919, from Commander-in-Chief John J. Pershing, sent to Coarsey’s relatives, in which he praised his fellow soldiers: “Whether keeping lonely vigil in the tranches, or gallantly storming the enemy’s stronghold; whether enduring monotonous drudgery at the rear, or sustaining the fighting line at the front, each has bravely and efficiently played his part.”

William H. Posey

William H. “Sonny Boy” Posey grew up in Cortez.

After the Japanese attack on American naval and air bases in Pearl Harbor, which marked America’s entry into World War II, he got his aunt and uncle to sign for him to join the Navy, recalled his cousin, Lillian Posey Pooley.

He was 17.

Posey was assigned to PT-41, the PT boat that rescued Gen. Douglas MacArthur and his wife and son from Corregidor in 1942.

After MacArthur was evacuated to Australia, PT-41 was sent back to Corregidor. When the island fell, Posey and three others repaired a damaged PT boat and escaped to the Dutch Islands in the Philippines, hoping to get enough gas to make it to Australia.

Instead, the Dutch turned them in to the Japanese.

They were beheaded.

Posey was awarded the Silver Star.

A book about the PT boat and its crew was made into a movie starring John Wayne, "They Were Expendable."

Leroy R. Wilson

Leroy Robert Wilson was a good looking young man, according to his niece, Mary Fulford Green.

He joined the Signal Corps and was stationed at an Army camp in Tampa during World War II.

On Dec. 5, 1944, he said goodbye to his wife, Dorothy, a young son and two-month-old daughter in Cortez, started up his motorcycle and left for camp.

Cortez resident Richard Culbreath recalls that the front axle broke on the motorcycle, throwing Wilson from the bike.

He was found, still alive, on the road around 5 a.m. near the Manatee/Hillsborough county line.

At the base hospital, he underwent surgery, as his wife was driving to Tampa with Green’s mother, but he did not survive.

James C. Coarsey

Nearly a century ago, Private James C. Coarsey, U.S. Army 58th Infantry, was killed in action while serving in France in World War I.

His souvenirs include a cinema ticket from a French theater, a ticket from Versailles and a YMCA guide for the American Expeditionary Forces to the attractions in Aix-Les-Bains.

A letter to Private Daniel G. Coarsey informed him of the death of his brother on Aug. 6, 1918.