Cpl. Thomas F. O’Brien (#31233198) of the United States Army is pictured during the Battle of the Bulge campaign in January 1945.
He was a technician fifth grade with C Company of the 101st Infantry, Yankee Division, and was seen sitting on a snowbank eating a meal from his mess kit.
The story line with the picture reads “Blanketed in all the clothing he could commandeer to try to keep out the penetrating cold, Infantryman Thomas O’Brien, Middleboro, Mass., squats in the snow on the Western front to eat a cold ration in a momentary lull in the fighting of his regiment, the 101st Infantry.
Born on June 10, 1921, at Providence, R.I. and raised in Woonsocket, O’Brien resided at 45 West Street in Middleboro, where his widowed mother had moved the family in June of 1941.
O’Brien, called “Red” by the family for his bright red hair, entered the service on Nov. 28, 1942.
Following training at Camp Maxey and Camp Swift in Texas, O’Brien was shipped to England for assignment. He saw action in France and Belgium during the first years of the War.
this picture taken on Jan. 12, 1945 in the village of Meecher-Dundkrodt.
Arthur Hertz, a US Army Signal Corps member of the 166th combat photographers unit, took the picture for the military newspaper “Stars and Stripes.”
Only 13 days after the picture was taken, O’Brien was killed by sniper fire, while guarding a crossroads in the village of Chervaux near the German border.
Cpl. O’Brien’s body wasn’t returned to the United States. He is buried in an American military cemetery at Henri-Chapelle Plot F Row 13 Grave 4,, Belgium.
The cemetery covers 57 acres and contains 7,989 graves of US servicemen.
Historic photo restored in color, decided to become the sentinel of memory by adopting his tomb.
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