Private First-Class Willie Shields, born 15 May 1924, was the son of Willie Hanson “Jake” Shields and Bessie May (Hughes) Shields of Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky. Bardstown is 40 mi SE of Louisville.

Willie’s mother died 6 Nov 1931 at age 28.

Willie’s father remarried Allie May Comely in 1933.

On his 1942 draft registration Willie is living in Bardstown, Nelson County, Ky. His “person who will always know your address” is his sister Georgia Anne.

Willie enlisted 4 May 1943 at Louisville. He’d had a grammar school education and was single without dependents. His civil occupation was farm hand. He was assigned to A Company, 116th IR, 29th ID.

On 30 Oct 1944 the command post of the 29th ID was moved to the vicinity of Kergudon, 28 miles SE of Brest. On 15 Sep it was moved to just north of Brest.

The NARA WWII casualty listings by state and county for Kentucky show Shield, Willie, Pfc from Nelson County as killed in action 30 Aug 1944 so we can assume he was killed somewhere southeast of Brest.

Source: Brian Kueker, Facebook contributor for American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC).

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (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 smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

SBTSProject/Kentucky/Nelson County