Two Sill Soldiers killed in action

FORT SILL, Okla.-- Two Fort Sill Soldiers serving in Operation Enduring Freedom were killed May 20.

Dead are Capt. Jesse Ozbat, 28, of Prince George, Va., who was assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 214th Fires Brigade; and 2nd Lt. Tobias Alexander, 30, of Lawton, who was assigned to 1st Battalion, 14th Field Artillery, 214th FiB.They died in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device.

The Soldiers were assigned to Security Force Advisory Teams responsible to train and mentor Afghanistan's National Security Forces....read more

 

Today in History

GLOBEMASTER TRAGEDY STUNS FORT SILL

Tough Hero Fights For Crash Survival
By Bob Farquhar

FORT SILL – A much-decorated Fort Sill man, who is referred to as one of the nation’s greatest soldiers, was battling for his life late Wednesday following a C-124 Globemaster plane crash that killed 18. MSgt. L. M. Chilson, 41, one of four persons who were critically injured in the crash, was personally decorated by President Truman on Dec. 6, 1946. Chilson’s decorations include three Distinguished Service Crosses, two Siler Stars, Bronze Star for valor, the Legion of Merit, two Purple Hearts, combat infantryman’s badge and the French Croix de Guerre with palms. He and two other Lawton men, Pfc. Jimmy R. Hunter, 23, and Pfc. James E. Aldrich, 24—are in critical condition in Madigan Army Hospital, Tacoma, Wash., along with an air force man, S-Sgt. Ernest T. Landrum, 37, Shreveport, La.

The crash occurred in heavy fog early Wednesday morning during take-off at McChord Air Force Base on the Fort Lewis military reservation near Tacomb, Wash. Chilson joined the Army in Akron, Ohio, in 1924, serving in World War II. He was credited with destroying an enemy machinegun crew members who were pinning down his platoon in Nuremberg.

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He captured eight others, Chilson burst from his position and minutes later attacked another group of German soldiers on the street, killing two of them. He was wounded in the right arm, but shifted his busy rifle to the left and kept pumping away at the enemy. When he had run out of ammunition, he began clubbing the soldiers with his rifle, then finally collapsed in exhaustion.

Lt. Gen. Bruce C. Clark, then commander of the Continental Army Command, called Chilson one of the two greatest soldiers the nation has produced. Capt. Audie Murphy, now a movie actor, was the other to which he referred. World of the crash was received at Fort Sill shortly after 7 a.m. By 8 a.m. the post’s 15-man information office crew had swung into action.The men, under command of Lt. Col. Joseph D. McWherter, jr., information officer, and Capt. Fred Schmidt, assistant, worked most of the day receiving information from Fort Lewis, supplying it to news media and [illegible] out-of-state victims were notified both by telephone, and where there was no other way, by wire.

Later in the afternoon, wires went out to next of kin, requesting instructions as to where bodies of the victims are to be shipped.Of the 12 army men killed, three were Lawton residents and one lived at Fort Sill (Daily Oklahoman, May 25, 1961). Note: Chilson survived the crash, retired from the Army and died in 1981. For more details on the crash, visit http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=8512 and to check out the Chilson Video follow this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWjYpNVQves.