PVT Ray E. Brice
We honor and remember PVT Ray Everett Brice of How Company, 501st PIR, 101st Airborne Division. 🦅
Private Ray Everett Brice of How Company, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 101st Airborne Division, was born in Oklahoma City to Harry Everett Brice and Evaline C. (Cook) Brice on March 19, 1925.
His mother passed away the same day as Ray was born, so she may not have survived Ray’s birth. His father remarried in 1927 to Ethel Fay Dean. They had one son, Ray’s younger half-brother, Wilbur Leon, who was born in 1932.
Ray Brice graduated from Northeast High School in 1943. That school had quite recently opened its doors, and in September 1937, it was slated to be one of the city’s most beautiful public schools when completed, according to a newspaper article at the time.
He worked briefly for the Alexander Baking Company until he enlisted in the U.S. Army in July 1943. He received his basic and paratrooper training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and Camp Mackall, North Carolina, before going overseas in June 1944.
On July 25, 1944, he was assigned to How Company. PVT Brice would make his first combat jump on September 17 at the start of the Market Garden operation in the Netherlands. Just ten days later, he was killed in action.
At 16.30 hours, September 27, How Company received a German attack at their front line, coming from the northwest, one mile from Eerde. The company held off the attack but suffered heavy casualties that day. The morning report of How Company mentions that the enemy also suffered very heavily.
Besides PVT Brice, five other enlisted men were killed in action on September 27, 1944; one was Seriously Wounded in Action, and two others were Lightly Wounded in Action. One of these two men was SGT Odell K. Cassada, who had received a Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery during the battle at Hill 30, which lies to the southwest of Carentan, on June 12, 1944.
Another Screaming Eagle had soared to the ultimate height. 🦅
Private Ray E. Brice rests eternally at Plot O, Row 18, Grave 16, of the American War Cemetery at Margraten, the Netherlands. He is also remembered at the Kolb Cemetery in Spencer, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma.
Happy Birthday in Heaven, Ray.
Lest we forget! 🇺🇸
Resources
How Company Morning Reports of July and October, 1944
The Daily Oklahoman, Thursday, October 12, 1944.