"Lt Leroy E Jacobson fought for a country that wasn't his first home. He stopped at nothing to do so. As a platoon leader, he encouraged his men to go on even though he knew he could not." These are words from a eulogy given by Taylor Walsh of Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma, Washington at Lt Jacobsons' grave site in Normandy. Taylor had been selected as a Normandy Scholar at her school in 2014. She said this was the most profound moment of her life.

Lt Jacobsen was born in Vancouver, Canada on March 25, 1910. His parents were Mr and Mrs Gunner Jacobson and he had 2 sisters. Leroy lived in Seattle with an aunt and uncle in the 1930's and graduated from Queen Anne High School and then attended the University of Washington until the depression. He once worked on the ship President McKinley as a sculleryman and mess boy and had been to Yokohama and Tokyo . After college he worked for RR Express Agency as an insurance clerk. He married Mary Isabella Uglum on October 23, 1938. He enlisted in the Army on the same date 4 years later, October 23, 1942. He was commissioned in August, 1943 and was a 2nd Lieutenant with the 1st Infantry Division, 16th Infantry Regiment, Company E, during WW2. He planned to live in Seattle after the war and make his home there.

Lt Jacobson and his Company landed on Omaha Beach at 631 am on June 6, 1944. They landed on the right side of beach Easy Red. The failure of Naval Rocket Craft, pre-arranged Naval and Air missions to hit assigned targets, along with failure of DD amphibious Sherman Tanks not functioning as planned, caused all battalions to land under the most adverse circumstances. Soldiers saw other soldiers drown , others watched as soldiers were killed by enemy and even friendly fire. Company E quickly built up a firing line along a pile of shale and discovered most of their weapons were jammed with sand. The soldiers cleaned their weapons and enemy gunfire was brought under some control by small arms fire. Even though enemy MG's and sniper fire cut down anyone trying to return to the water to drag out wounded soldiers, many men pulled casualties out of the water and were wounded. With most of the weapons still jammed and radio communications gone, an attempt was made to reorganize Company E for an attack on an enemy strong point which was in front of them. Only 10 men could be found so they tried the use of smoke to cover their attack but that failed. A lateral movement along the exposed beach was started, in an attempt to reorganize. Men were picked up to continue with Company E and were led to Company E's original scheduled landing point. We don't know what happened to 2nd Lt Jacobson , but what we do know is that he fought for a country that wasn't his. He is buried at Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colle-sur-Mer, France and his name is inscribed on the Omaha Beach Memorial. He left behind his parents and sisters, his wife ,who was so grief stricken that she destroyed all photos of her husband and never remarried. He was also survived by his infant son, Edward, who was born 3 weeks after Lt Jacobson died. Taylor Walsh stated at the end of her eulogy," Nothing I can do will be enough to honor Lt Jacobson in the way which he deserves. " I, one storyteller, agree with her. She had 2 dog tags, one she wears and one she left on his headstone. Lt Jacobson was awarded the Purple Heart.

Resources: 17441107.weekly.com/eulogy , 16thinfassn.com , ancestry.com , fold3.com , nhdsilentheros.org/leroy-edgar-jacobson

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.