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Surviving Ozark Infantrymen enjoy luxury accommodations in Germany after the war. Doctors in England told Smith (far right) that a fraction of an inch any way on the path of the bullet through his head and he would be dead. Brooks (pumping) with a crease across the back of his neck from a snipers bullet claimed his mother-in-law kept telling Hitler where he was at. Bob Lally is squatting. Red Reynolds took the picture. |
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Author Bob Lally back in Holland in early December1944 to prepare for a special Roer River mission. Befriended by Dutch children, Jo & Franz Leersen, who arranged for this professional photo, a haircut, and warm beds with white sheets and down comforters in their home. |
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Top - Old Family photograph (1943) of bloody, Mertz Creek, wooded battlefield area showing bridge and raised road vividly remembered by attacking troops, but questioned by locals.
Below—Bridge destroyed by floods as it looks today. Area is now a wild nature preserve. |
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Nearby Hubertus Cross battlefield memorial and roadside shrine proudly displays the Ozark Infantry Division emblem, as does the Peace Window Memorial in the Rhineland town of Linnich.
With great effort, Fred Oettel, standing to left in photo, found the old photograph and remnants of the bridge. Gratefully, he also donated financially to the memorials, to restoring bells in his home village of Werdau, to its liberators: the Sixth Cavalry and 89th Infantry Division Associations, and to the to the DAV (Disabled American Veterans Organization). Eight year old Fred, after witnessing the capture of his home village by impressive American troops, escaped to the West, emigrated to the United States after finishing school, lived the American dream, and became a proud U.S. citizen. |
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And the Medal of Honor
Comrades Bob Lally and S/Sgt Richard G. Smith celebrating VE Day, 1945, in a village on Elbe River, near Berlin. Note bullet-hole scar just under left eye of Smith, and Bob’s crippled left hand. The magnum of fine cognac was from a barge load of captured liquor. There is a God! |
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Ozark Infantry Valor by: Bob Lally
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© 2007 Military Magazine © 2007 R. W. Lally (Bob). |

