Carrol Erwin Harkey was born on February 3, 1924, in Oak Hill, McCurtain County, Oklahoma. He was the son of Marvin Leo Harkey and Emma B. Beggs Harkey. He was married to Wanda Myrl Billingsley Flaherty. He entered military service in July 1944 and had been overseas since January 1945. Pvt Harkey served in the United States Army with the 740th Tank Battalion in World War II. Known as the “Daredevil Tankers”, the 740th was a separate battalion that fought from Utah Beach all the way to the Baltic Sea in support of various divisions of the US war effort.

During the battle near Modrath, Germany, on March 2, 1945, Pvt Harkey was serving as the driver of a tank when it was struck by an 88mm shell fired from an enemy tank. He and another crew member were killed instantly. His name is memorialized in the Tablets of the Missing in the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial, Margraten, Eijsden-Margraten Municipality, Limburg, Netherlands.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, weremember.abmc.gov