Lt. Ray received his Medal of Honor posthumously in December 1945. A Merchant Marine ship and later an Army barracks in Germany were named in his honor.
In February, collector Stefan Sayorski was exploring the battlefield with a metal detector and found the tag under three feet of earth along with a crucifix and a coat button.
Lt. Ray was evidently buried on the battlefield, dug up and reinterred in a German cemetery and later again reburied at the National Cemetery in Pine Lawn. Sayorski typed Ray's name into an internet search engine and found a web page. His search drew the attention of John Chiarella, 55, of Dix Hills who began a search of his own for relatives.
He was having no success until the chance meeting with DiLeo at the cemetery. It turns out that Ray's sister Grace Gustafson is his last living relatives and lives in Delray Beach, Florida.
I found nothing about the button or crucifix or if they might have belonged to Ray. I also don't know how the dog tag got from Germany to the US.
Of interest, when Elvis Presley had his stint as a soldier in Germany, he was supposed to stay at the Ray Barracks, but because he had money was able to live off base.
This is One Really Interesting Story. The Greatest Generation. --Cooter
No comments:
Post a Comment