Thursday, June 6, 2024 marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, which was a major turning point in the war against Nazi Germany. One local St. Clair County resident made the ultimate sacrifice for his country on D-Day.

Earl Brown Crumpton was born in 1913 to Brown B. Crumpton, a farmer, and his wife Ollie (Allbright) Crumpton, both natives of Alabama. Earl was the youngest of seven children born to the couple, having four older brothers and two older sisters. In 1920, the family was living on a farm in Shelby County, Alabama. By 1930 the family had relocated to a farm in the community of Moody in St. Clair County, where Earl attended local schools but dropped out after one year of high school, likely to work on the family farm. In 1940, Earl was living in Jefferson County, Alabama and working as a miner for the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company.

Earl voluntarily enlisted in the US Army in June 1940 and served as a Private in the 8th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division, which was known as the Ivy Division. The division trained in the States before sailing to England in January 1944, where it spent the next few months preparing for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Western Europe.

On D-Day, 6 June 1944, the 8th Infantry Regiment had the distinction of being the first wave going ashore on Utah Beach in Normandy, France. Due to strong tidal currents, wind, and confusion, the assault forces were erroneously landed some 2,000 yards south of the intended location, but this mistake proved fortuitous since the German defenses were weaker in that location. Unlike the landings at Omaha Beach depicted in the movie “Saving Private Ryan”, the landing at Utah Beach was relatively bloodless as the 4th ID landed 21,000 troops at the cost of only 197 casualties. Once ashore, the division pushed westward across the Merderet River and by mid-day established contact with the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division at Pouppeville. Pvt Crumpton was killed in action at some point that day, and was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

Earl Brown Crumpton was initially buried overseas and after the war was reinterred in Cedar Grove Cemetery in Leeds.

The story of Pvt Crumpton was researched and written as part of the Stories Behind the Stars project, a nationwide non-profit founded in 2020. The project endeavors to ensure that each and every one of the over 421,000 American service men and women who paid the ultimate price to preserve our freedoms in World War II are remembered as more than just a statistic in a book or a grave marker in a local cemetery. The project is named after the gold star banner that families of an American service member lost in WWII displayed in their window.

Bob Fuerst, a NASA engineer in Huntsville, serves as the Alabama State Director for the Stories Behind the Stars project, and leads a small team of volunteers from across the state who have so far researched and written stories of more than 5,000 of the over 6,300 Alabamians who lost their lives during WWII. All stories written for the project are being saved to a common online database so they can be easily viewed by anyone. The stories are also being shared on a daily basis via a Facebook page named Remembering Alabama WWII Fallen.

Fuerst is just one of hundreds of Stories Behind the Stars volunteers, from all 50 states and a dozen other countries, researching and writing stories of American WWII fallen. The volunteers come from all ages and backgrounds; some are as young as junior high school while others are retired. While some are amateur genealogists or seasoned researchers with years of experience, most are not. Stories Behind the Stars provides online training in how to research and write the stories, as well as free access to key online research sites that would otherwise require a paid subscription. The project also has a Facebook group where volunteers interact to help each other with research and answer questions.

“Basically, if you can write an obituary, you can research and write one of these stories in as little as a couple of hours,” said project founder Don Milne of Louisville, Kentucky.

So far, the project volunteers have completed almost 50,000 stories of American WWII fallen, including all who died at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941; all who died in Normandy on D-Day; and all buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Many more volunteers are needed to complete this historic project. Anyone interested in learning more about the project or to register as a volunteer can do so at www.storiesbehindthestars.org.

Contact Bob Fuerst at bob.al@storiesbehindthestars.org for more information.