Albert T. HAYES
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NUMBER OF SERVICE | |||||||
AGE | - yo | ||||||
DATE OF BIRTH | Day Month Year Country STATE | ||||||
ETAT | Country STATE | ||||||
FAMILY |
Parents: FirstName LASTNAME Siblings: FirstName LASTNAME | ||||||
RANK | Rank | ||||||
FONCTION | Fonction | ||||||
JOB BEFORE ENLISTEMENT | Job | ||||||
DATE of ENLISTEMENT | Day Month Year Country STATE | ||||||
COMPANY | Company | ||||||
BATTALION | Battalion | ||||||
REGIMENT | 262nd Infantry Regiment | ||||||
DIVISION | 66th Infantry Division | ||||||
DATE OF DEATH | 24 Décembre 1944 | ||||||
STATUS | MIA | ||||||
PLACE OF DEATH | Aboard in USS Léopoldville, In Manche(Channel), off Cherbourg | ||||||
CEMETERY | NORMANDY AMERICAN CEMETERY from Colleville Map Normandy American Cemetery | ||||||
GRAVE |
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DECORATION |
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STORY | |||||||
Woman lost dad she never knew when SS Leopoldville was sunk Dec. 24, 1944Joy Hayes Norton remembers her Father Albert Hayes who died in the torpedoing of the USS Leopoldville on Christmas eve 1944 when she was 2 years old. He was a U.S. soldier named Albert Hayes. He was from Allentown. He could play the piano by ear.
Albert Hayes visits with his daughter Joy Margaret in the days before his deployment to Europe in waning months of World War II. Hayes died in the torpedoing of the USS Leopoldville when Joy Margaret was 2 years old. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO, THE MORNING CALL) Though Joy was 3,000 miles away in Allentown, the explosion sent her life spinning in a new direction. She'd just turned 2 years old. It would be weeks before the Army informed her mother that Hayes was missing, months before the military would declare him dead, and decades before his parents would ever put up a tree to celebrate the holiday. Somewhere in between, Joy came to understand why her father went away. He had his reasons. The pianistWhen she was 16 years old, a friend set up Dorothy Becker on a blind date for her junior prom at Allentown High School.
Discontented"I noticed that your grandfather was growing more discontented," Dorothy said in a letter to her granddaughter years later. Before he left home, Hayes contacted Masteller. If anything happens to me, Hayes told his friend, take care of Dorothy and Joy. One night in November 1944, Dorothy, who along with Joy was living with her parents, received a phone call. Dorothy never saw him again. "I knew not to ask" The telegram arrived Jan. 15, 1945. "The Secretary of War desires to express deep regret …" Albert was listed as missing in action. For a few weeks, the family was desperate for word. What had happened to Albert? Then, on March 7, Dorothy received a second telegram. "… with deepest sympathy …" After the torpedo hit, 515 soldiers went down with the USS Leopoldville. Two-hundred-forty-eight others died of injuries. At the time of the attack, Dorothy learned from a letter that May from her husband's commanding officer, Hayes' platoon was in a portion of the ship that had been struck directly by the torpedo. They never found Hayes' body. At a graveyard in Freeland, Luzerne County, the family planted a marker. With it went most conversation about the son, husband and friend they'd lost. As Joy grew up, she listened to Albert's voice on an old phonograph he recorded on a trip to San Francisco. She thumbed through the old photographs. Who her father was and what he was really like were a mystery she knew she'd never solve. Joy's grandparents didn't celebrate Christmas; it had died with her father in the years before Joy's memory begins. That changed only once. In 1965, Joy was a mother living on a military base in Kentucky. Her husband had been deployed to Vietnam. That year, Joy's grandfather bought plane tickets for Joy and her children to visit Pennsylvania. In the house, for the first time since 1944, he put up a Christmas tree and gave gifts. Today, Joy lives with her daughter in Leesburg, Va. Every Christmas with her children and grandchildren around her, Joy celebrates the holiday. The reasonOver the years, Joy and her son, Kirk, attended SS Leopoldville reunions and memorials. At each one, they learn about the wreck and the men who'd been aboard the ship with Hayes. Every time they ask if anyone remembers an Irish guy named Hayes with a wide grin and ear for music. No one has. Dorothy, who by then was nearly 80, responded with 26 handwritten pages. It was the story of the couple's short time together, and the young man's reason for leaving home to die in a war he could have avoided. "He felt he was being unfair to Joy by staying home," Dorothy wrote "When Joy grows older, what will she say? My daddy didn't go to war." "I will always love him." | |||||||
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Arrived on November 26th, 1944 in England, the division polishes up its training until December 24th In the daytime of the departure and the crossing towards France and Normandy. The division embarks on two ships of which the SS Leopoldville which receives 262th and 264th regiment Infantry and leaves Southampton in training(formation) accompanied with four escort ships. Arrived unless 5 miles from Cherbourg, a German submarine U-Boat 486 is in ambush and sends a torpedo to the ship. He is touched on the starboard beam before. 802 soldiers over the 2235 which he(it) transported are killed in this drama. Leopoldville is marine cemetery today. |
SOURCE INFORMATION & PHOTO | Clive TIRLEMONT - Frédéric LAVERNHE - Leopoldville.org |
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PROGRAMMER | Garrett, Clive, Frédéric & Renaud |