The St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office documented a visit with Tolley Fletcher at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Home in Reserve. Fletcher was also recognized at a Denham Springs City Council meeting with a certificate of appreciation, according to the Livingston Parish News. He was described as 100 in 2025.
The Veterans Home in Reserve
According to the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs, the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Home is a 156-bed facility in Reserve. It serves honorably discharged Louisiana veterans who completed 90 days of active duty, as well as veterans’ spouses and Gold Star parents.
A Digital Record of His Experience
Fletcher is represented in “Voices from the Front,” an interactive exhibition at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. According to Smithsonian Magazine, visitors can converse with life-sized digital replicas built from participants’ prerecorded video responses. Fletcher is among the veterans featured in the exhibition.
What Fletcher Did on D-Day
The Military Times identified Fletcher as a U.S. Navy Gunner’s Mate assigned to the wooden submarine chaser USS SC-1301, part of the Navy’s “Splinter Fleet.” The report said the vessel escorted landing craft toward Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, and helped protect them against possible German submarine attacks.
Fletcher joined the Navy at 17 in late December 1941, according to the Livingston Parish News. After D-Day, he hunted German U-boats in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. A May 2023 post from the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office said he received an honorable discharge in 1945 as a Gunner’s Mate Third Class.
A Shrinking Number of WWII Veterans
Fletcher’s generation is becoming increasingly small. A 2024 Department of Veterans Affairs projection cited by the National WWII Museum estimated that about 66,000 of the 16.4 million Americans who served in World War II were still living. The estimate was down from more than 119,000 in the agency’s 2023 projection, while Louisiana was projected to have about 306 living World War II veterans.
