Hundreds of thousands of telegrams with similar introductions were delivered to homes across the nation between 1941 and 1945.

Over 400,000 U.S. military personnel were killed during those tumultuous years, including over 100 from Warren County alone.

And while families could find solace that they were not alone in their grief — that other families in the community could understand what they were going through.

But there were two Warren County families — Jacob and Elizabeth Shepard and Louise and Katherin Peroski — that sustained an even greater loss.

Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton Jasper Shephard’s brother, Clark, went missing in Italy in 1944 and was declared dead in 1945. His remains were never recovered but a memorial stone sits next to his brother’s grave in Oakland Cemetery.

Two sons in each of those families went off to war and did not return alive.

For the Shepard family, the news of their son Clark came first.

Findagrave records indicate that 1st Lt. Clark M. Shepard, Company A, 191st Tank Battalion, was officially listed as missing in Italy on May 24, 1944 in the breakthrough on the Anzio beachhead.

The 29 year-old had enlisted in 1942. He was declared dead one year and one day after he went missing.

The family quite likely did not learn of their older son Jasper’s death until after the war ended — he was killed in action on April 29, 1945, just a week before the end of hostilities.

Jasper was a private first class in the 127th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Gun Battalion, Coast Artillery Corps in the U.S. Army and enlisted in May 1943.

In the years after the war, the effort was undertaken to offer families the option to have the remains of their loved ones either returned to the states or left in military cemeteries in the region in which they died.

An undated newspaper clipping on Findagrave indicates that the family chose to bring Jasper home and that a joint memorial service would be held for the brothers.

After the funeral held at the First Methodist Church, Shepard was laid to rest at Oakland Cemetery in the Veterans Section.

Clark’s remains were never recovered. He is memorialized with a cenotaph at Oakland Cemetery as well as on the Tablets of the Missing at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery.

The experience of the Peroski family would have been quite different, and arguably more traumatic.

Pfc. Mike Peroski was killed on Dec. 7, 1944.

His brother, Pfc. Nicholas Peroski was killed exactly two weeks later on the other side of the world.

Mike was also the older brother, born in 1923 and serving in the 114th Infantry Regiment in France while Nicholas, nearly two years younger was serving in the 31st Infantry Regiment in the Philippines.

Their parents elected to allow their sons to remain in overseas military cemeteries — Mike is buried at the Lorraine American Cemetery while Nicholas was laid to rest at the Manilla American Cemetery.

The Warren Times-Mirror of March 8, 1945 details the correspondence received by the family regarding their older son.

Under the headline ‘Sheffield Boy Buried With Religious Rights,’ the report stated the following: “Mr. and Mrs. Louis Peroski, of Sheffield, who have lost two sons in action in the present world conflict, have received the following communication from Thomas L. Hagerty, commanding officer of the 114th Infantry in France: ‘I desire to express my sincere regret to you upon the loss of your son. Private First Class Mike Peroski, 33433305, who was killed in action on December 7, 1944, while serving his country in France. Your son, Mike, has been buried in Eastern France with appropriate religious services by a Catholic Chaplain of the United States Army. His loss is most keenly felt by all the officers and men of his organization with whom he served so gallantly. Again, we extend to you our deepest sympathy and our most sincere regrets, and we assure you that his sacrifice shall not have been in vain.”