Pvt. Robert Edward Buckmore was my uncle who died in Combat, during the Anzio Campaign in Italy, less than nine months before I was born, and buried in Italy at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery. He was 20 years old at the time and, of course, for that reason, I never knew him.

On the web-site, www.ambc.gov/, it has the following information available about him:

Private, U.S. Army
Service # 11097844
985th Field Artillery Battalion
Entered the Service from: Maine
Died: 20-Jan-44
Buried at: Plot I Row 1 Grave 9
Sicily-Rome American Cemetery
Nettuno, Italy
Awards: Purple Heart

He was my father's younger brother among 15 children between Luther Arthur Buckmore and Mary (Foster) Buckmore.

As far as I know, he was the only member of the Buckmore family killed in military combat, though my father, Alvah Clarence Buckmore, Sr., came preciously close to it at least three times from Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge, and shot for the third and last time on or shortly after December 16, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium.

On the immediate upper right is an old Black & White photograph of him; taken in the Summer or Fall of 1943 before he had left the United States for combat in Italy, presumably after finishing Basic Combat Training (BCT) and Advance Individual Training (AIT).

Behind him is his parents' house in South Gardiner, Maine, my Grandparents on my father's side. It was a very old house where all of my Grandparents' children lived as children, including my father. I can remember sleeping in a second floor bedroom several times when I was a child every time we visited them from Massachusetts, a 10-hour trip by automobile in those days.

Hopefully, I will find other photographs, scan them and forward them to this site.

After several hours of researching my family's photographs, this photograph is the only one I can find of him. Perhaps one of my remaining living relatives has something to offer? I will ask them. Since very few members of the immediate family are still alive today, that is going to be a real challenge.

Note: Most of this biographical information came to me from my uncle Stanley, uncle Robert's brother, who was still alive at the age of 86 in October of 2008, and living in the state of Maine. Uncle Stanley is also my Godfather.