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Those Who Died That Others Might Be Free

 

Whitey Loos

 

Date and Place of Birth: 1916 Crafton, Pennsylvania
Date and Place of Death: January 16, 1944 Dutch Guiana (now Suriname) South America
Baseball Experience: Minor League
Position: Shortstop
Rank: First Lieutenant
Military Unit: Air Transport Command USAAF
Area Served: United States

 

Walter J "Whitey" Loos Jr was born in Crafton Heights, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1916. He was a star athlete at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, playing baseball, basketball and football.

 

Loos signed with the Gloversville-Johnstown Glovers of the Canadian-American League in 1939 where he batted .243 and the young shortstop finished the season with the Batavia Clippers in the PONY League. With Batavia in 1940 he batted .290 with 49 RBIs and the Clippers sold Loos to the Cincinnati Reds' farm system in August. He reported to the Class B Durham Bulls of the Piedmont League and batted .400 in the closing weeks of the season. Loos played with Dayton of the Middle-Atlantic League and Columbia of the South Atlantic League before entering military service two weeks after Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

 

Loos trained as a pilot and served with the Air Transport Command, delivering airplanes to various military bases. On January 16, 1944, First Lieutenant Loos left Florida bound for Dutch Guiana. He never reached his destination and his body was later found in the wreckage of the airplane. He was survived by his wife, Alice.

 

At the Batavia Clippers home-opener on April 30, 1945, Whitey Loos was remembered in a flag-raising ceremony and moment of silent prayer.

 

Thanks to Davis O Barker for help with this biography.

 

Added September 23, 2006. Updated January 23, 2008.

 

Copyright © 2007 Gary Bedingfield (Baseball in Wartime). All Rights Reserved.