A memorial service was held Wednesday for Colonel Carroll Peeke, a World War II veteran and newspaperman who died Saturday in San Francisco at the age of 91.

Colonel Peeke was a native of Seattle and a graduate of Oakland High School and the University of California at Berkeley.

He joined the San Francisco Call-Bulletin newspaper in 1922, and he later worked as city and diplomatic editor at the Times Herald in Washington, D.C.

In 1941, he turned from newspaperman man to soldier, entering the military service as managing editor of the War Department Bureau of Public Relations.

Later, he served on Army general staff duty in Washington, D.C., and with the U.S. Military Missions and the Fifth Army in Ecuador, Brazil, North Africa and Italy.

He earned the Order of the Palms and Croix de Guerre. In 1950, he was elected commander of the San Francisco chapter of the Military Order of World Wars.

In the 1970s, he became historian of the Episcopal Diocese of California and wrote extensively about his wife Mary's great grandfather, William Ingraham Kip, the first Episcopal bishop of California.

Colonel Peeke is survived by his wife.