"There was rumor that we were going home but General Terry Allen made a speech. He said, 'You are a fine bunch of heros [sic]…but nevertheless you have been elected to carry the ball again.' So we invaded Sicily." (Memoir, page 6)

Monfrey H. Wilson

War: World War II, 1939-1946 Branch: Army Unit: Company A, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment Service Location: Algeria, French Moroccan Tunisia; Sicily; Normandy, France; Northern France; Rhineland; Aachen, Germany Rank: Sergeant Place of Birth: Cleveland, WV

In his memoir of his service in World War II Wilson Monfrey writes, "I was born fighting, for I had eight brother and six sisters." Monfrey grew up in West Virginia and Akron, Ohio, worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression, and was drafted in March 1941 at the age of 24. Assigned to the Army's First Infantry, nicknamed the Big Red One, he saw action in North Africa (where he narrowly avoided capture) and Sicily. On June 6, 1944, he was on the beach in Normandy for the D-Day Invasion. Wounded and psychologically shaken by a shell that hit his foxhole in the Hurtgen Forest, Monfrey pushed on. He was sent back to the States only after learning that both his parents had died back home and a brother was missing in action.