Clofus Ray Bunch was born on 4 May 1914, the son of Preston Bunch and Sadie S. Brock. He married Beatrice Acuff in 1937 and in 1943 with Elsie Neff. He attended Central High Schooland was a member of John Sevier Church. His younger brother, Preston L. Bunch, died in the Pacific on October 30, 1944.
T/5 Bunch entered the Army on January 6, 1942 and went overseas in the fall of 1944. He was killed in France. He was survived by his widow, a child by a former marriage, three sisters and a brother.
He was repatriated after the war and was buried at Clapps Cemetery on February 18, 1948.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel, 15 February 1948
Double funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. for two brothers who gave their lives in the service of their country. The body of one, Clofus R. Bunch, who died on the Normandy beachhead, will arrive here tomorrow afternoon. The other, Preston L. Bunch, was killed at sea in the Pacific and the body was never recovered. Cpl. Clofus Bunch, 30, a member of the 12th Field Artillery Battalion, was killed five days after D Day. He had been in the Army since 1942 and had taken training at Fort Sill and Fort Sam Houston. Before the war he worked at Volunteer Portland Cement Co. He was a graduate of Central High School.
Preston Bunch, who was 22 at the time of his death, was an aviation ordnanceman on Aircraft Carrier Belleau wood. He volunteered in 1942 and trained at San Diego and several other bases here before going to the Pacific. He was graduated from Young High School, where he was center on the 1941 football team. Clofus Bunch leaves a son, Johnny Ray, 10. The other survivors are two sister, Mrs. Herman Smith and Miss Imogene Bunch, both of Tazewell Pike.
- Rank: Technician 5th Class
- Date of birth: 4 May 1914
- Date of death: 11 June 1944
- County: Knox
- Hometown: Knoxville
- Service Branch: Army/Army Air Forces
- Division/Assignment: 12th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division
- Theater: Europe
- Conflict: World War II
- Battles: Normandy Campaign
- Awards: Purple Heart
- Burial/Memorial Location: Clapp Cemetery, Grainger County, TN
- Location In Memorial: Pillar VIII, Top Panel
- Contact us to sponsor Clofus R. Bunch
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