PFC Walter J. Reba’s story was one shared by many families in Peru, Illinois during the Second World War—a family of immigrants and laborers whose sons answered the call to serve during one of the most difficult periods in modern history. Yet within that larger story are the deeply personal details that defined Walter’s life: the coal miner’s son from Seventh Street, the brewery worker who left home before the war, and the soldier who died on Leyte during the opening days of the liberation of the Philippines.
Walter J. Ryba was born on 20 February 1916, in Peru, Illinois, to Joseph and Agnes (Skowronek) Ryba. He was the fourth child born to the couple and their first son. His father, Joseph, had immigrated to the United States from Radomyśl, Poland, around 1906 before marrying Agnes the following year. Together they built a large family in the Illinois Valley, eventually raising nine children.
Like many immigrant families in Peru during the early twentieth century, the Rybas relied on hard physical labor to make a living. In 1920 the family lived on Tenth Street in Peru where Joseph worked as a coal miner for the Union Coal Company. Mining communities throughout LaSalle County were filled with families much like theirs—Polish, Slovak, Lithuanian, and Italian immigrants who came seeking steady work in the mines and industries that powered the region.
By 1930 the family had moved to a home they owned at 2704 Seventh Street. Walter’s father was still employed as a coal miner, while Walter’s older sisters had also entered the workforce to help support the household. The Great Depression placed enormous pressure on working-class families, particularly large households with many children. Opportunities for education often gave way to the immediate necessity of employment, and Walter apparently did not continue on to high school.
By 1940 he was employed at the Star Union Brewery in Peru as a cellar man. Brewing work was physically demanding and required long hours maintaining the storage and processing areas where beer was aged and handled. That same year Walter appeared in the federal census while either visiting or living in the household of his sister Sophie on West Street in Peru.
On 16 October 1940 Walter registered for the draft. Around this time, he began using the spelling “Reba,” likely a more phonetic version of the family surname. His draft registration described him as 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing 175 pounds, with gray eyes and black hair.
The Ryba family would contribute heavily to the war effort. Walter’s older brother Louis enlisted in the U.S. Army in April 1941. Walter himself enlisted later that year on 25 September 1941, only weeks before the United States entered the war following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Walter trained in California at Camp Roberts, Camp San Luis Obispo, and Fort Ord. Eventually he was assigned to Headquarters and Service Company, 13th Engineer Combat Battalion, part of the 7th Infantry Division. Combat engineer battalions played a critical role in the Pacific War. Their responsibilities included constructing roads and bridges, clearing obstacles, repairing infrastructure, building defensive positions, and often working under enemy fire during amphibious assaults and frontline operations.
By early to mid-1944 Walter was stationed in Hawaii at Schofield Barracks. Later that year the 7th Division prepared for one of the major operations of General Douglas MacArthur’s campaign to return to the Philippines. Walter’s battalion sailed toward Leyte aboard LST-1006, one of the large landing ships used extensively throughout the Pacific. During the voyage the ship crossed the Equator on 1 October 1944. Like many sailors and soldiers crossing for the first time, the men participated in the long-standing naval initiation ceremony in which “pollywogs” became “shellbacks” after entering “Neptune’s realm.” The event provided a brief moment of humor and relief before the dangers ahead.
The invasion of Leyte began on 20 October 1944 and marked the opening of the campaign to liberate the Philippines from Japanese occupation. The fighting quickly became intense. Heavy rain, difficult terrain, and determined Japanese resistance complicated operations almost immediately.
During this assault, Walter’s company bivouacked on the east side of Dulag Church on Leyte, and the area came under light mortar fire during the night. On 21 October 1944, only one day after the initial landings, PFC Walter J. Reba received a wound to the neck and was killed in action. Also killed that day was his company commander, Captain Alan Dickson.
Walter was initially buried in a temporary cemetery on Leyte. After the war, at the request of his mother, his remains were left overseas and permanently interred at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, formerly known as Fort William McKinley Cemetery. He rests there today in Block N, Row 5, Grave 196 among thousands of Americans who died during the liberation of the Philippines and the Pacific War.
The war’s impact on the Ryba family extended far beyond Walter’s death. His brother Louis, serving with the 132nd Infantry Regiment, was wounded in March 1944 while in a foxhole on Hill 260 during the brutal fighting on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. He received the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster and returned home after his discharge on 1 February 1945.
Another brother, Leonard, registered for the draft the day after his 18th birthday in January 1943 while still attending high school. He joined the U.S. Navy later that year and served aboard the USS Oberon (AKA-14) before his discharge in December 1945. The youngest sibling, Joseph Jr., also served his country in the Merchant Marine before registering for the draft after the war in 1946.
Following Walter’s death, the Army returned his belongings to the family in stages. The packages contained ordinary items that together painted a quiet portrait of a soldier’s daily life: notebooks, pipes, campaign ribbons, playing cards, dice, ties, scissors, mirrors, keys, sea shells, a lighter, a Scout knife, Bibles, a billfold, and a Westclox wristwatch made in his hometown region. Many of the items had been damaged during the war, but they represented tangible reminders of a son and brother who never returned.
PFC Walter J. Reba was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds received in action. Today his story stands not only as the account of one fallen soldier, but also as the story of an entire family shaped by war—immigrant parents who raised sons during the Depression, brothers who served across the Pacific, and a community in Peru whose families sacrificed deeply during World War II.
This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project www.storiesbehindthestars.org This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? If you noticed anything missing in this profile, you may contact the author. Click on the author’s name located at the bottom of the story page next to the words “added by.”
- SBTSProject/Illinois/LaSalle
- SBTS Historian: Pam Broviak
Sources:
- 1920 U.S. Census, Joseph Ryba, Ancestry.
- 1930 U.S. Census, Joseph Rijba, Ancestry.
- 1940 U.S. Census, Joseph Meuser, Ancestry.
- 1940 U.S. Census, Joseph Ryba, Ancestry.
- “Illinois, County Marriages, 1810-1940”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q28Z-79PN : accessed 6 May 2026), Entry for Joseph Ryba and Agata Skowronek, 19 Nov 1907.
- “U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946,” Walter Ryba, Ancestry.
- “U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946,” Louis J Ryba, Ancestry.
- “U.S., World War II and Korean Conflict Veterans Interred Overseas, Walter J. Reba, Ancestry.
- “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947,” Walter J. Reba, Ancestry.
- “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947,” Louis John. Ryba, Ancestry.
- “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947,” Leonard Anthony James Ryba, Ancestry.
- “U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942,” Joseph Stanley Ryba, Ancestry.
- “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947,” Joseph Louis Ryba, Ancestry.
- “U.S., Headstone and Interment Records for U.S., Military Cemeteries on Foreign Soil, 1942-1949,” Walter J. Reba, Ancestry.
- “U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010,” Louis Ryba, Ancestry.
- Individual Deceased Personnel File, Walter Reba, NARA.
- Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration Series: Army General Orders, FICHE_1561, image 85 of 198, NARA.
- Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, Series: Morning Reports, Morning Reports for March 1944: Roll 601 (1 of 4), image 31 of 1000, NARA.
- Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration Series: Morning Reports,
- Morning Reports for January 1944: Roll 703 (3 of 4), image 250 of 1000, NARA.
- Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration Series: Morning Reports,
- Morning Reports for August 1944: Roll 664, image 994 of 3293, NARA.
- Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration Series: Morning Reports,
- Morning Reports for September 1944: Roll 796, image 431 of 3448, NARA.
- Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration Series: Morning Reports,
- Morning Reports for October 1944: Roll 562, image 447 of 3515, NARA.
- Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration Series: Morning Reports,
- Morning Reports for October 1944: Roll 562, image 468 of 3515, NARA.
- Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration Series: Morning Reports, Morning Reports for October 1944: Roll 562, image 468 of 3515, NARA.
- “US, World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949,” USS Oberon (AKA14), 14 July 1944, Leonard Stanley Ryba, Fold3.
- “US, Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010,” Leonard Ryba, Fold3.
- “Ryba Brothers Serve Overseas,” Daily Post Tribune, Stars and Stripes Honor Edition, 25 March 1944, p. 7, col. 2.
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/62863693/louis-j.-ryba
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56771346/walter-j.-reba
