PFC George Henry Simmons

courtesy of Mike Brophy

PFC George Henry Simmons was born 27 Apr 1918 in Cockeysville, Maryland. He was the oldest of the 4 children of Charles Henry and Eleanor M. (Gartling) Simmons. His father supported his family through working on a dairy farm, laboring in mills or on a farm. George was driving a moving van in 1940 reporting 1939 earnings of $780 while his father reported an income of $520 for the same year. The family farmed as well.

George registered for the draft in 1940 and was drafted in March 1941. He was undoubtedly sent to Fort Meade, Maryland and there assigned to A Company 116th Infantry. PVT Simmons would then have trained with his unit at Fort Meade, near Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and at Camp Blanding, Florida before shipping out for England aboard the Queen Mary in September 1942. Once in England the unit then underwent intensive training for the planned amphibious assault in the effort to liberate occupied Europe. Promoted prior to June 1944, PFC Simmons was struck in the head and killed in action in that amphibious assault on 6 Jun 1944.

PFC Simmons was repatriated in 1947 and re-interred in the Baltimore National Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.