SGT Paul Orville Neff

SGT Paul Orville Neff was born 7 Mar 1916 in Cootes Store, Virginia. He was the oldest son and 3rd of 6 children born to Paul and Myrtie Ann (Fansler) Neff. His father worked as a carpenter and later farmed in the Plains District of Rockingham County on a farm he owned. In 1940 the farm was valued at $800 about half of what it would have been valued in 1930. This was true of the neighboring farms as well. Paul or Orville as the family apparently called him, was working in a marl pit probably owned by M. C. Showalter and reported a 1939 income of $780.

Paul was drafted in May 1941. At that time he would have been sent to a local/regional post and assigned to a unit. It was then that he was likely assigned to G Company 116th Infantry. He would have trained with the unit at Fort Meade, Maryland and then at Camp Blanding, Florida before shipping out for England with the unit in September 1942. Once in England the unit trained for the planned amphibious assault that was to be part of the invasion of occupied Europe. That assault finally occured on 6 Jun 1944 and it was in that effort on that day that SGT Neff was killed in action. Originally reported as missing in action, his body was later recovered and he was officially reported as being killed in action on 6 Jun 1944.

SGT Neff was repatriated in 1948 and re-interred in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

Paul's  sister, Helen Virginia Neff, had married William Luther Crider who was also drafted and was serving in Italy in B Company 19th Infantry (the same unit as Audie Murphy) when he was killed by friendly fire on 26 May 1944. Thus the family had lost 2 men in the space of 11 days. Paul's brother, Linden Fansler Neff, served in the U. S. Marine Corps in Searchlight Battery, 5th AntiAircraft Artillery Battalion in the Pacific theater.