Our website was created to help the family members of those who died and participated in Exercise Tiger. Dean Small, son of the late Ken Small, continues with his father's legacy. We are endorsed by the survivors and the families.
Russell L. Wirth - LST 531
Pvt. Russell L. Wirth - U. S. Army
1st Engineering Special Brigade
3206th Quartermaster Service Co.
Name on the Wall of the Missing
Cambridge American Cemetery, England
Brief Biography of Russell by his Family
Russell Lee Wirth was born in 1923, in Bonhomme, St. Louis, Missouri to parents, George and Rose Wirth. He was the fourth of seven children with five sisters and one younger brother. According to US Census records, he completed six years of school and at age 16 was working as an unpaid apprentice blacksmith with his father.
On 5 February 1943, he enlisted in the United States Army. He was a Private in the 3206th Quartermaster Service Company. He was on board the LST-531 during Operation Tiger. In the early hours of 28 April 1944, while off the coast of Lyme Bay, England, the LST-531 was torpedoed by a German E-Boat during a rehearsal for the D-Day Normandy invasion. Private Russell Lee Wirth was listed as Missing in Action. He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing in the Cambridge American Cemetery and was awarded the Purple Heart.
A street in Manchester, Missouri was named Russell Wirth Lane in his honor. Russell Lee Wirth’s nephew, Melvin Koester, and his family were in attendance at the dedication ceremony.
Photos Below of a Memorial in Lafayette, Missouri, bearing the name of Russell Wirth: