From Bob Fuerst
Remembering Alabama WWII Fallen
June 6, 2024 will mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, which was a major turning point in the war against Nazi Germany. One local Autauga County resident made the ultimate sacrifice for his country on D-Day.
Leon D. Hampton grew up on a farm in the community of Big Springs in Autauga County, where he attended local schools. He graduated from Billingsley High School in May 1940, where he was active in athletics and made the All-County basketball second team in the spring of 1939, and was named “Friendliest,” “Wittiest,” and “Most Popular” in his senior class. After high school he was employed as a truck driver and as a logger.
Leon was drafted into the US Army in November 1942. After completing basic training, he served as a Private First Class in Company G, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, which was known as “The Big Red One.” He joined the division in England in February 1944, where it underwent extensive training in preparation for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Western Europe.
On June 6, 1944, PFC Hampton and the rest of the 16th Infantry Regiment were in the first waves to go ashore at bloody Omaha Beach. As their landing craft dropped their ramps, men were killed and wounded by German gunfire as they attempted to get out of the boats. Others were hit as they struggled through the surf or tried to run across the sand while weighed down with water-logged equipment. Many were shot down, but others made it to the base of the bluff where they found the area mined and crisscrossed with concertina wire. Eventually, the enemy wire was breached, and through vicious fighting, some hand-to-hand, the soldiers of the 1st ID made their way up the bluff and inland. PFC Hampton was wounded in action at some point and died of his wounds later that day.
PFC Leon D. Hampton was interred at Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Normandy, France and is also memorialized on the First Infantry Division monument at Omaha Beach and at the Alabama Veterans Memorial Park in Birmingham, Alabama.
The story of PFC Hampton was researched and written as part of the Stories Behind the Stars project, a nationwide non-profit founded in 2020. The project endeavors to ensure that each and every one of the over 421,000 American service men and women who paid the ultimate price to preserve our freedoms in World War II are remembered as more than just a statistic in a book or a grave marker in a local cemetery. The project is named after the gold star banner that families of an American service member lost in WWII displayed in their window.
Bob Fuerst, a NASA engineer in Huntsville, serves as the Alabama State Director for the Stories Behind the Stars project, and leads a small team of volunteers from across the state who have so far researched and written stories of more than 5,000 of the over 6,300 Alabamians who lost their lives during WWII. All stories written for the project are being saved to a common online database so they can be easily viewed by anyone. The stories are also being shared on a daily basis via a Facebook page named Remembering Alabama WWII Fallen.
Bob is just one of hundreds of Stories Behind the Stars volunteers, from all 50 states and a dozen other countries, researching and writing stories of American WWII fallen. The volunteers come from all ages and backgrounds; some are as young as junior high school students while others are retired. While some are amateur genealogists or seasoned researchers with years of experience, most are not. Stories Behind the Stars provides online training in how to research and write the stories, as well as free access to key online research sites that would otherwise require a paid subscription. The project also has a Facebook group where volunteers interact to help each other with research and answer questions.
“Basically, if you can write an obituary, you can research and write one of these stories in as little as a couple of hours,” said project founder Don Milne of Louisville, Kentucky. “Be forewarned. This is a very addictive and enriching experience. Quite a few individuals have already written hundreds of stories”.
So far, the project volunteers have completed almost 50,000 stories of American WWII fallen, including all who died at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941; all who died in Normandy on D-Day; and all buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Many more volunteers are needed to complete this historic project. Anyone interested in learning more about the project or to register as a volunteer can do so at www.storiesbehindthestars.org
Please contact Bob Fuerst at bob.al@storiesbehindthestars.org for more information or if you are interested in joining the cause.
