Memorial

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T/5 Harry F. Kested enlisted at Fort Niagara, Youngstown, New York on 10 February 1942.

He was a crew member of a M8 Greyhound armored car which came under fire from a German tank in the town of Baelen, Belgium. The M8 exploded from a direct hit.

The 11th September 1944, it was a very sunny day.
They entered the village by taking the street "Les Fusillés". Here the first Sherman tank stopped, the second vehicle was a jeep and the third vehicle was the M8 tank of Kested and Conley. The two first vehicles and the other were protected by houses or banks. A sergeant and two soldiers walked to the crossroad in order to see if it was safe. The inhabitants of the village came out their houses to applaud the liberators.
A young boy (Willi Erkens) of the village (14 years old) showed a German soldier who was looking where the cable was cut.
At that moment, one GI shot the German soldier and he was wounded.
The German Tiger tank shot at the Sherman tank, but the Sherman tank was good protected by immediately. But he also missed the German Tiger tank.

On this time the German Tiger tank took a better place to shoot at the American column. At this time the section Sergeant and Tank commander Bradford S. Conley stood talking with the members from the Willys Jeep who were placed before his M-8 tank Greyhound and protected by the house that the M-8 tank from Conley and Kested was hit by a shot from the German Tiger and exploded.
They died as a result of shrapnel. Sgt Conley was on turret of the tank and Harry Kested was the second pilot and radio operator. The tank was hit on the left side of the rear of the vehicle.

There was no possibility to help the members of this tank who burned. Only the first pilot of the tank jumped out of the Greyhound. But we have no idea about his name.
When the tank was burning, there was a big smoke of 30 meters high. After a few minutes, there were 16 P-47 Thunderbolts air planes, who attacked during 10 minutes the German vehicles. The German Tiger tank and the other vehicles were immediately destroyed.