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Bluechip · #1 09-21-2011, 04:01 PM

It is with sincere regret that I inform everyone of the death of Casey (Chicken) Kinchen's grandfather, Huey Otis Taylor.

Mr. Taylor played a major role in Casey's life as every grandfather has to ours also. Casey expressed to us how he was not only a grandfather to him but also a father during their years together.

Please take the time to keep everyone in your prayers as they work through the grief and healing process of losing such a valuable loved one.

The Moderator's have made arrangements to send flowers from the saltycajun.com. I have provided a link of the arrangements and an incredible story about such a great American Veteran.

God Bless you Casey...

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/the...&pid=153746869

Huey Taylor has led a life as the proverbial pillar of his community. A plant worker, store owner, deacon, father, grandfather and civic leader, he was honored on his 90th birthday this year by Gov. Bobby Jindal himself, as well as many others.
Yet something he did before all of these other things gives him a special place in history. He was among the U.S. Army soldiers who liberated the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany at the end of World War II.
Colyell Baptist Church, where he is the oldest living deacon, filled up on Sunday, Feb. 26, as Parish President Mike Grimmer read a proclamation declaring it "Huey Taylor Day." State Sen. Dale Erdey presented a similar honor on behalf of the governor and Legislature.
Among the estimated 200 people attending the event five days before his actual birthday were three other World War II veterans from Livingston Parish, Zoltan Koleszar of Albany, Paul Sibley and Nick Erdey.
Taylor graduated from French Settlement High School in 1938. Four years later, he was drafted and sent to Colorado Springs for basic training. Taylor weighed 120 pounds and had never been far from home before.
A man named Milton Northcraft from Missouri helped Taylor with his bags when he got to Colorado Springs.
"We remained friends for 50 years, until he died in 1987," Taylor said. Some of Northcraft's family members attended Taylor's recent celebration.
In January 1945, Taylor was shipped from Boston to Germany. Taylor remembers being very seasick during those 14 days at sea.
Taylor slept on a top bunk and the ship was very crowded and he already knew in a general way what was coming.
"Our mission was to show the Germans that war was hell. We were in the Army, and it was kill or be killed," Taylor said.
Taylor served as a staff sergeant in Company B, 353rd Infantry Regiment, 89th Division.
On April 4, Company B seized an unexpected opportunity to advance across the Mulde River in Germany. None of the men suspected what horrors they would find at Ohrdruf on the other side.
Nazi concentration camps were unknown to the Americans before April 4. Ohrdruf was the first.
Ohrdruf was named after the town of the same name, apparently locally famous for its history of being the place where Johann Sebastian Bach composed some of his works.
Andrew Rosner, 23, had been a prisoner at Ohrdruf nearly five years when Taylor and the other American soldiers advanced across the Mulde River. The S.S. guards slaughtered over 60 prisoners who were too weak to march away from the advancing American army. Their bodies were found in a central compound.
"I was barely alive as we began the death march eastward," Rosner said at a ceremony on April 23, 1995, in Kansas.
At dawn, the shooting started.
"I played dead as men ran over me, stumbling over me as they went."
After the battle, Rosner said the ground was covered with dead German soldiers.
Villagers told him to go back to the town of Ohrdruf.
"There, I was surrounded by Americans. Their officers questioned where I had been and what had happened to me. GIs were showering me with food and chocolate."
It was all too much for Rosner, who collapsed. By April 12 he had recovered enough to go back into the concentration camp with Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton and Omar Bradley.
"In a shed was a pile of about 40 completely naked human bodies in the last stages of emaciation," Patton wrote in his diary. "These bodies were lightly sprinkled with lime, not for the purposes of destroying them, but for the purpose of removing the stench.
"When the shed was full, I presume its capacity to be about 200, the bodies were taken to a pit a mile from the camp where they were buried," according to Patton's diary.
The Ohrdruf pits ultimately yielded 9,000 bodies.
Patton said that Ohrdruf was "one of the most appalling sights that I have ever seen."
Huey Taylor's unit arrived at the concentration camp eight days before the generals. They saw a high barbed wire fence with a wooden sign which read, "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work will make you free).
Ohrdruf prisoners were building a railway.
After the citizens of Ohrdruf were forced to see the dead bodies in a macabre ceremony, the town's mayor and his wife returned home and allegedly killed themselves.
"I didn't go inside the camp and I'm glad that I didn't," Taylor said. "I do remember the terrible smell which was like nothing I can describe."
Taylor remembers being next to camp and seeing countless pairs of shoes left behind by victims of the Ohrdruf Camp.
"So many people died in the war and I was one of the lucky ones who didn't get a scratch," Taylor said. "I did have some close calls. I remember trying to make my way through some barbed wire with a tool. I fell back behind some brush while being shot at and I think that was my closest call."
Taylor remembered his friend, C.V. Averett. He and Averett went to school together and were both in the 89th Infantry Division.
"He went overseas before I did and was killed during the Battle of the Bulge," Taylor said.
"I can't remember killing anyone, and if I did, I don't want to remember."
Taylor does remember lining up an estimated 25 German soldiers who chose to surrender.
"I don't know what happened to them," Taylor said.
Taylor served in the Army for three and half years and was discharged in 1946. Then he returned home to lead an exemplary life, never forgetting the savagery of the things he saw or the importance of living with a moral compass.
Huey Taylor worked for the Underwood Typewriter Company when he first got out of the Army, and then got a job at Ethyl Corporation in Baton Rouge.
On Sept. 4, 1948, he married Amy Wheat. The couple purchased a grocery store and renamed it Taylor's Grocery. They owned and operated the store for 30 years, retiring in 1980.
The couple's first child, Donna, was born Aug. 16, 1954, and on April 14, 1959, their son Otis was born.
Taylor became a member of the Board of Directors of First National Bank of Denham Springs in 1970. He also served on the advisory board of Hancock Bank until 2008.
He has been involved in many organizations and is a member of the American Legion and Hurd Merrill Lodge 454.
"He had promised God that if he had got home safely, he would honor Him for the rest of his life, and he has done that," Otis Taylor said of his father.
Otis' son, Phillip, is a member of the Louisiana National Guard. He is a senior at Southeastern Louisiana University and will be deployed to Afghanistan in June.

Cutty713 · #2 09-21-2011, 04:08 PM

Prayers sent Casey

bjhooper82 · #3 09-21-2011, 04:12 PM

Sorry to hear this Casey. You and your family will be our prayers.

wetaline · #4 09-21-2011, 04:16 PM

Prayers going out to Casey and family.

trophytroutman · #5 09-21-2011, 04:21 PM

Prayers sent Casey.

"H" · #6 09-21-2011, 04:24 PM

Casey, sorry to hear about your grandfathers passing. I was very close to both my grandfathers, they have moved on to be with Jesus, walking streets of gold a long time ago.
At the age of 54 I still miss them everyday and looking foward to seeing them again some day. I know you are a Christian and because of Christ we have hope. I will keep you and your family in my prayers. Please let your SC friends know if there is anything you guys need during this time.