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Levi II (Rock) passed in May 1954 in Birmingham Alabama and is buried in the Grace Hill Cemetery in Birmingham. Levi was born January 6, 1924 in Birmingham (Wenonah #7)Alabama to Martin and Iphenia Lawson Shearer.
New Headstone
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Levi Shearer
WWII, Tech5 3439 QM Truck Co
Born Jan 6, 1924 Died: Mar 12, 1954
Grace Hill
Section B
Block 131
Lot 23
Space 4
New Grace Hill Cemetery, 1931 Martin Luther King Jr Dr, Birmingham AL 35211
Levi was a member of the Quartermaster Corps in Germany and was a Truck Driver with the Red Ball Express. He and brother Sidney (Ball) met in Germany when his unit was suppling gas and supplies to the tanks during the Battle of the Bulge. The Red Ball Express was the codename for one of World War II's most massive logisitics operations, namely a fleet of over 6,000 trucks and trailers that delivered over 412,000 tons of ammunition, food, and fuel (and then some!) to the Allied armies in the ETO between August 25 and November 16, 1944. For the 225th AAA Searchlight Battalion, which was a semi-mobile outfit, being a "Red Ball" trucker meant that you were charged with driving battalion trucks to the Red Ball depots and picking up supplies, especially gasoline and ammo, and then ferrying them back to the 225th's positions at forward airfields along the West Wall. Though you didn't make the long hauls from Normandy into eastern France and Belgium, you kept the battalion supplied as a last, vital hop in the supply. Red Ball Express-Wikipedia
Units in the Normandy Invasion
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James E Carden, Jr
Great movie. Saw it first in about 1954. First time I have seen it since. I have been searching for the DVD version for some time. I have since learned a lot of WWII history as it relates to two of my uncles. I was about 8 years old when they returned from the war. I remember very clearly that my oldest uncle had a Black Panther (761st Tank Batallion) shoulder patch on his uniform. I also remember them talking about meeting in France. They were African American and I have recently connected the dots. One was a tank commander attached to Gen Patton's tankers (761st) and the other was assigned to the 3439 Quartermaster Truck Company, (which was sssigned to the Red Ball Express). Considering, that the roles of African Americans in WWII was almost non-existant in movies in those days, I remember the pride I felt seeing the movie with Blacks playing iimportant roles along side white actors (first movie I saw starring Sidney Portier). I always admired Jeff Chandler for his role because I felt white actors did not want roles that showed blacks as equals. I spent 38 years in the military (3 years Army and 35 years Air Force. I have always felt the pride I felt when my uncles returned home and how well the looked in their uniforms was the primary motivating factor in me choosing to devote the major portion of my life to the military. I was not disappointed!