Joe Wallace (Pete) McCrary - Denton, TX
N 33° 12.507 W 097° 08.252
14S E 673585 N 3675941
A cenotaph to First Lieutenant Joe Wallace ("Pete") McCrary serves as a memorial in historic I.O.O.F. Cemetery, Denton, TX. He was killed in the fighting at Anzio, Italy in 1944.
Waymark Code: WM12DNX
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 05/06/2020
Views: 1
Lieutenant McCrary's cenotaph stands next to the final resting places of his parents and a sibling at the front of the cemetery. It is a government-issued marble slab with a cross in a circle between his birth and death dates, and it reads:
Joe Wallace (Pete) McCrary
1st Lt Army Infantry 406th
W W II
Anzio Beach Italy
July 30 1919 May 26 1944
Findagrave not only has a listing for this cenotaph (see below), but also for Lieutenant McCrary's final resting place at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial, which also includes a photo.
There doesn't appear to be much in the way of detail about McCrary's fate, but Wikipedia's article notes that he was among so many casualties over four days attributed to poor strategy and even General Mark Clark's own desire to take Rome, which allowed Axis forces to regroup and fight another day. Notable feet on the beach during this campaign included Audie Murphy, James Arness, Bill Mauldin, and Eric Fletcher Waters, whose son, Roger, would be a founding member of Pink Floyd.