BATON ROUGE — LSU hosted a Memorial Day Ceremony at the flagpole on LSU's Parade Ground, where three additional names of alumni killed during World War II were added to the LSU War Memorial.

Those alumni were Willie Stokes Heard Jr., Robert B. Todd and Charles J. Shaeffer. All three served in the U.S. military as students and alumni, with their names joining the memorial's wall alongside 645 other LSU students and alumni who served our country. 

Heard earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1933 before going on to continue his education at LSU Law School. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Heard was captured in battle and held as a prisoner of war on a Japanese ship that was unfortunately sunk by an American submarine, leading to his death. 

Todd graduated from LSU in 1928 before serving as a gunner in England. While on a mission, Todd's fighter plane collided with a German aircraft over Marx, Germany, causing him to be killed in combat. 

Shaeffer attended LSU from 1925 to 1928 before joining the U.S. Marine Corps about 15 years later. During his time serving in World War II, Shaeffer was stationed in the Southwest Pacific for 18 months before being killed in an aviation crash in 1944.

“With their addition, members of the community can attend and leave the museum with a larger understanding of the immense scope of LSU's reach in the military and its history of service through the university,” James P. Gregory Jr., the director of the William A. Brookshire LSU Military Museum, said.