PVT George Irvin Williams

courtesy of Bonnie English Busch

PVT George Irvin Williams was born in Cleveland, Ohio on 15 Sep 1916. He was the 2nd of the 4 children born to Irwin and Mary Elizabeth (Gase) Williams. Irvin had started work as a laborer then became a rail road engineer earning a reported 1939 income of $1700. George completed 3-years of high school and then entered the work force working in the Lindsay Wire Weaving Company factory earning $1400 in 1939 and marrying a woman named Ann in early 1940. The couple lived first at at 813 East 143rd Street in Cleveland and then at 875 East 149th Street. They would have a son in 1941 and a daughter in 1942.

George was drafted in September 1943. After his basic military training he was sent to England awaiting the invasion of Nazi occupied France. PVT Williams was transferred from the replacement depot to Headquarters and Headquarters Company 3rd Battalion 116th Infantry on 14 Jun 1944. 5-days later he was transferred to L Company 116th Infantry to serve as a rifleman. He suffered an unknown non-battle injury on 22 Jun 1944 and was evacuated to hospital. He returned to the unit from the replacement depot on 8 Aug 1944 while the unit was still in the area of Vire, France. He then fought with the unit in the attack up the Brittany peninsula to liberate Brest and was killed in action at Brest on 1 Sep 1944. 

PVT Williams was repatriated and re-interred in the Acacia Masonic Memorial Park Cemetery in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.

Great-grandfather, Anthony Gase, served as a PVT in H Company 57th Ohio Infantry (USA), was captured and interned at Andersonville and survived the war.