ALBRIGHT — On February 19, 1945, TSGT Harold William Schmidle, an Albright native, was killed in action during the Battle of Banzai Point on the Island of Corregidor in the Philippines.
At 2 p.m. Saturday, the Albright Bridge on W. Va. 26 will be named after him to honor his sacrifice.
“I think it’s wonderful,” said Martha Taylor, Schmidle’s youngest sister and the last of 14 children. “I was just little, but I was old enough to remember him.”
One of Taylor’s brothers brought the news of Schmidle’s death to her mother.
“Oh yeah it was [a hard day], for her and all of us,” Taylor said.
Her husband, Bill, worked to make the dedication happen.
“I just researched on my computer and family records and found out about it,” he said. “He ended up over there in the Pacific. He’d been in several pretty good fights and then he got into this last one where he was killed. And he spent about three years over there.”
Of the 14 kids, four were in the army at the same time,” Bill said. Schmidle, known to many as “Teen,” was the only one killed in action.
Bill said he worked with state Senator Randy Smith to get the bridge named in his honor. The process took about three years. Martha said it was a lot of work.
The bridge is less than a thousand yards from where Teen was born and grew up, Bill said. The family home is gone now.
The ceremony will feature an honor guard and military speakers.
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