John Oliver Haggard was born on November 27, 1921 in Manchester, Coffee County, Tennessee to Jessie Haggard and Justice Cecil (Bennett) Haggard. Jessie and Justice were both natives of Tennessee but moved to Hale County, Alabama right after the birth of their oldest son Oliver. They had six more children after the move to Alabama and made their living by farming.

Oliver attended Greensboro High School before enlisting in the Army National Guard in Greensboro, Alabama on November 25, 1940. His unit was soon activated as Company B of the 167th Infantry Battalion, 31st Infantry Division, and he appears in a picture of the unit taken at Camp Blanding, Florida in 1941.

Private Haggard left the 167th Infantry Battalion to become a member of 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The parachute regiment first trained at Fort Benning, Georgia and then was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in February 1943. In April of that year, in preparation for the invasion of Sicily, the regiment was moved to North Africa where they completed six weeks of training. On July 10, the 505th Parachute Regiment made its first jump behind enemy lines into Sicily. There Pvt. Haggard lost a comrade, Pvt. Brady H. Wilson of Hale County, who had also left the 167th Infantry Battalion to become a paratrooper.

After the invasion of Sicily, the 505th Parachute Infantry went on to participate in the landing at Salerno and the invasion of Normandy. Pvt. Haggard was killed in action on June 25, 1944 in the aftermath of the D-Day invasion. An account of his death can be found in the book Four Stars of Valor: The Combat History of the 505th Parachute Infantry by Phil Nordyke. In it he is quoted as saying, after a sleepless night in a foxhole with shelling all around, that he had “repeated the Lord’s Prayer over and over all night long.” A few minutes later he was killed by an enemy explosion.

Private Haggard was awarded the Bronze Star posthumously in 1945. The commendation read “for heroic action on 6 June 1944 near (sic), France. Given a patrol mission of extreme urgency to contact the Commanding General of Seaborne Forces with vital information, Pvt. Haggard cheerfully accepted this dangerous mission despite extreme fatigue. Displaying superior scouting ability and aggressive initiative, Pvt. Haggard with his companions, traversed more than three miles of enemy-held territory to accomplish the mission. After participating with the Seaborne Forces in repelling a strong enemy penetration, he retraced his route to his own forces, completely disregarding his own safety, in the face of enemy fire. Pvt. Haggard’s conduct was in keeping with the highest traditions of the Airborne Forces.”

Private John O. Haggard is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Basse-Normandie, France. He was survived by his parents, two sisters and four brothers. At the time of his death his father, a veteran of WWI, was hospitalized in a veteran’s hospital in North Carolina. He died the following year.

Thank you, Private Haggard, for your service and your sacrifice. You will not be forgotten.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story. SBTSProject/Alabama/Hale.

If you noticed anything erroneous in this profile or have additional information to contribute to it, please contact me at dbsmail1315@charter.net.

Sources:

· 1930 United Stated Federal Census

· 1940 United States Federal Census

· U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946

· U.S. WWII Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954

· Alabama, WWII Military Dead and Wounded, 1944-1946

· U.S. Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945

· U.S. Headstone and Interment Records of U.S. Military Cemeteries on Foreign Soil, 1942-1949

· U.S. World War II and Korean Conflict Veterans Interred Overseas

· Newspapers.com, Greensboro Watchman, 27 Jul 1944, 17 Aug 1944, 2 Aug 1945

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56645216/john-o-haggard

John O Haggard