One of six Army Engineers killed during demining operations of the Nice Airport after the invasion of Southern France. Excerpt from “Battling Buzzards: The Odyssey of the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team” by Gerald Astor: Nevertheless the losses continued. One of the worst blows struck members of the 596th. A crew from Allan Goodman’s 3rd Platoon had been detailed to destroy concrete defense installations and remove German Teller mines at the Nice airport. According to Goodman, “the fuses from the Teller mines could not be safely removed. We used the mines as explosive for the demolition job, or blew them up in the ocean. We were living very well but apparently, handling thousands of mines lowered the respect of some for the danger. Six men went up in an explosion of several hundred mines on a truck. I hear later that two men were tossing mines to a catcher on the truck bed. I was several hundred yards away, working on the wall when the explosion occurred, yet I was splattered with debris. Some men just behind an adjacent concrete wall were deafened by the blast. Born 12 September 1923. Demining accident 18 September 1944. Died 12 October 1944. Remains repatriated to the US in 1948.