WW2 Normandy Fallen - Silver Star hero Otto Short, 759th Tank Battalion

Sgt. Otto Short earned the Silver Star while serving with the 759th Tank Battalion in Normandy.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/64462786/otto-l_-short
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/538672805404198696/ 

Otto L. Short never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

If you have enjoyed reading the stories of the WW2 fallen, Can you help write some stories? It's a big project. The more help, the better.  Announcing "The Stories Behind the Stars", see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org. This crowd-sourced national project has the goal of compiling stories of all 400,000+ of the US World War 2 fallen in one free-to-access central database.  Anyone visiting a war memorial or gravesite will be able to scan the name of the fallen with a smartphone and his story will appear on the phone.

Otto was born on April 6, 1920 in Oklahoma. His parents Ellis and Elsie were born in California and Kansas, respectively. His father worked as a zinc mine miner and later as a roadwork timekeeper. Otto had one older sister, one younger sister, and one younger brother.

Otto first enlisted in 1937 and reenlisted in 1940. He became a sergeant in Company C, 759th Tank Battalion. The 759th TB was first equipped with M3/M5 Stuarts and sent as a garrisoning force in Iceland in 1942. It landed in Normandy ten days after D-Day and was attached to the 2nd Infantry Division. M5 tanks only had a 37mm gun so they were not effective against most enemy tanks. However, they had been been equipped with hedgerow busters to make them useful for accompanying infantry to attack through the hedgerows.

In early August the 2nd ID was advancing toward Vire. Although battalion instructions were that tank companies were to work closely with infantry to prevent enemy flank attacks to disable tanks with panzerfaust weapons, Company C acted independently at a high cost - it lost 12 tanks in just a few days and one of the soldiers killed in action on August 2, 1944 was Sgt. Short.

Sgt. Short's actions on that day were recognized by a posthumous Silver Star. Unfortunately, I was not able to locate the citation.

His grave is at Friends Cemetery in Purcell, Missouri.

Thank you Sgt. Short for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Otto.

Last year on this date I profiled Peleliu fallen Elmer Sutphin, 1st Marine Division. You can read about Elmer here.

On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!

I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.

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WW2 Fallen 100 is supported by

The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation

“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”

http://www.tggf.org