Memorial

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Pfc Albert B. Curtiss graduated from Roosevelt High School, where he was captain of the wrestling team in his senior year, a member of the football squad and a national honor society student, in June 1943.

He enlisted in August of the same year. He received basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia and took a semester of work at the University of Maryland in the Army Specialized Training Program. When this program was disbanded, he was transferred to the infantry and was sent overseas in September 1944.

He was awared th Silver Star Medal posthumously for voluntarily leaving his position to secure much needed ammunition. He returned with sufficient to save his unit. He was killed shortly thereafter.

Captain Elburn S. Moore, chaplain of his unit, wrote to his parents: "It happened on the day of the Roer river crossing. After the heavy artillery barrage our troops made the crossing at Linnich, going over in assault boats until a bridge could be maintained. Pfc Curtiss went over with the machine gun squad and it was not until some time after we had crossed that he was hit. An emergency arose when the squad ran out of ammunition. Some distance away, another machine gun had been knocked out, and near it was a supply of ammo. Although it was not in his line of duty, Pfc Curtiss volunteered to go get it. He was returning with two boxes and was five yards away when he was hit by enemuy machine gun fire."