WW2 Fallen - Otis Lagrone, 112th Cavalry Regiment

Pvt. Otis Lagrone served in the 112th Cavalry Regiment in New Britain.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36015086/otis-lagrone
https://photos.usni.org/content/9226649png 

Otis Lagrone 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.

Otis was born on March 30, 1920 in Louisiana. His parents Arthur and Julia were born in Arkansas and Louisiana, respectively. His father hauled ties for a saw mill and later worked as a fire warden. Otis may have had a younger brother. By 1940 Otis had completed six years of schooling. He was living with his maternal grandmother and was working as a farm laborer. At some point he married and he and his wife Norma had a child.

He was drafted into the army on November 27, 1941. He became a private in the HQ Troop, 112th Cavalry Regiment. As a cavalry unit, the 112th Cav was trained to use horses. It was deployed to the South Pacific and was equipped with Australian Waler horses until those in charge determined that the horses would not perform well on South Pacific islands. Despite the cavalry designation, it would fight as an infantry unit.

The 112th Cav was first deployed at an unopposed amphibious landing on Woodlark Island on June 30, 1943. On December 15, the 112th Cav was split up and made three separate amphibious landings in New Britain. These were not unopposed and the 112th Cav took casualties in all of the landings. Pvt. Lagrone was killed in action the next day, on December 16, 1943.

His grave is at Beauregard Cemetery in DeRidder, Louisiana. I don't know what happened to his widow, but a grandson left this message on Pvt. Lagrone's findagrave.com page: "It would have been fantastic to have met you and I am sure your son feels the same. Unfortunately, you paid the price being a soldier, and at such a young age. Rest In Peace, grandfather. From your grandson."

Thank you Pvt. Lagrone for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Otis.

Last year on this date I profiled Anzio fallen Clarence Peak, 45th Infantry Division. You can read about Clarence 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

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http://www.tggf.org