Kenneth Barrus served as a Radarman 3rd Class in the U.S. Navy Reserve in World War II. The ship he was serving on, the Frederick C. Davis, was participating in Operation Teardrop, a hunt for snorkel-equipped U-boats in the Western Atlantic, and was part of the 4th Escort Division, which screened the escort carrier USS Bogue (CVE 9) in the Southern Surface Barrier. On April, 24, 1945, the USS Frederick C. Davis was sunk by a submarine in the North Atlantic. The crew abandoned ship, and some members were picked up within three hours by other escort destroyers of the division. However, Radarman Barrus was never found, and his body never recovered. His name appears in the Tablets of the Missing East Coast Memorial in New York City, and he has a cenotaph memorial in the Tooele City Cemetery in Tooele, Utah.