REMEMBERING
FELTON FORREST ALLEY

By Joe C. Fling

As 1943 gave way to 1944, the war raged on all fronts, from the South Pacific to Italy. There would be no more war casualty funerals in Eagle Lake until 1948. There would be no more training accident deaths. Just a steady stream of reports of casualties on foreign soil, far from home. Nine Eagle Lake area boys would die in 1944 followed by nine more in 1945. The first of these was Felton Forrest Alley.

Felton Forrest Alley was born March 7, 1924 in Ramsey, the son of Joe Dan and Della Parker Alley. He was descended from one of the oldest families in Colorado County whose relatives settled east of the Colorado River during the days of Stephen F. Austin.

Alley attended school in Columbus. Alley enlisted in the army on June 4, 1943 right out of High School. The Headlight stated that Alley, "gallantly went off to serve his country in a time of stress although he was only a youth of 18 years."

Alley received his basic training at Camp Wolters in Texas and had come home for an October visit before going overseas. His last time to mingle with all his friends was at a Halloween Carnival in the city park. He left the next day for New Jersey where troops were shipping out to reinforce Operation Torch, the Allied Invasion of North Africa.

Like so many young men, he would be trained and shipped overseas in a remarkably short time. In fact he would be killed within eight months of his enlistment. Alley served as a private in the Army's 45th Infantry Division. He participated in the invasions of North Africa and Italy.

The fighting in Italy had dragged on since the fall of 1943 when the allies tried to solve the stalemate on the Cassino Line by an amphibious end run. Two divisions of British and American troops were landed seventy miles behind German lines at Anzio on January 22, 1944. The enemy reacted quickly however and bottled up the Allied troops on a small beachhead. Four more American divisions were sent in to reinforce the effort, including the 45th division on February 3. Alley was most probably deployed with these troops. The fighting was fierce on the Anzio perimeter.

Only two days later, Alley was killed. Newspaper accounts relate only that he was in the battle for Rome when he died. Alley's mother received his Purple Heart citation in March, 1944. The War Department listing stated that he was "killed in action," and interred on Italian soil. For a time, he was interred in the large Sicily-Rome American Cemetery at Netunno, where Marion Jackson of Columbus and Israel Ed Selph of Sheridan are buried, but was later returned home for burial.

One of the youngest men from Colorado County to die in the war, Alley was a month short of his twentieth birthday.

Alley was survived by three sisters, Edna Nohavitz, Mrs. Nick Marsalia, Aileen Glueck and four brothers, Carl, John Ross, Wylie and Joe Dan, Jr. Alley's father had preceded him in death in 1938.

On July 24, 1948, over four years after his death, Alley's body was returned from Italy to Colorado County and buried in the Alley family cemetery at Ramsey. The funeral was conducted by Rev. Leo Ross, pastor of the Columbus Methodist Church with the Columbus American Legion conducting the military honors for the burial. Pallbearers were August Stancik, Willie Williams, Arthur Brune, Leon Stolle, Frank Strieder and Elton Litzmann, all of Columbus.