Mike Blair was born on August 22, 1920, although he is sometimes also listed as being born on September 1, 1920 or 1919 to George E and Lizzie Wright Blair. Mike was the 9th of ten children, nine boys and one girl.

Mike married Ella Deloris Crowley on January 11, 1941.

Mike served in the Army 112th Engineer Combat Battalion as a medic. His service number was 6983832.

The 112th was “At Exit D-3, the Les Moulins draw between Dog Red and Easy Green, the 112th Engineer Combat Battalion commander was killed early on D-day, and the men were pinned down by enemy fire behind a seawall. Even with the assistance of a platoon of the 147th, which came in with most of its equipment during the day, the 112th Battalion was not able to open Exit D-3 until 2000.”

The responsibility of Tech-5 Mike Blair, was to stabilize and prepare the wounded for evacuation. “On D-Day, June 6, 1944, dozens of medics went into battle on the beaches of Normandy, usually without a weapon. The large red cross on their helmets was supposed to protect them, and Germans usually (but not universally) respected that convention. But even aside from the threat of direct enemy fire, being a combat medic was a dangerous assignment; shell fire and shrapnel drew no distinction between combatants and noncombatants. On D-Day, and especially on Omaha Beach, evacuation of wounded soldiers was a nearly impossible task. Not only did the number of wounded exceed expectations, but the means to evacuate them did not exist. The Normandy Invasion is one of the few battles in history where the wounded were moved forward, into fire, whether than back, away from the fighting.

Tech-5 Blair was one of the brave soldiers who was killed on Omaha Beach on D-day. For his brave service he was awarded a Purple Heart.

Historian Stephen Ambrose once noted that after the War, if he ever heard a veteran speak of another soldier as the “bravestan I ever met,” he was usually speaking of a medic. In the maelstrom of combat, they selflessly ran from wounded man to wounded man, bringing a chance at life in the midst of scenes where death reigned. For tens of thousands of wounded men, the combat medics of WWII literally made the difference between life and death

Tech-5 Blair was interred on August 13, 1949 in the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.

Sources:

HonorStates.org

US, Find A Grave Index

US, Veterans’ Gravesites, 1775-2019

US, Rosters of World War II Dead 1939-1945

US, National Cemetery Interment Control Forms, 1928-1962

Newspapers.com (Lexington Leader, Lexington, Kentucky) 11 September 1944

“WWII Army Casualties: Kentucky”, National Archives, archives.gov

Kentucky, US, Birth index, 1911-199

US, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940

Indiana, US, Marriages, 1810-2001

“Veterans’ written and oral accounts assure D-day won’t be forgotten,” timesreporter.com

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

T-5th Grade Mike Blair