Hayes, Harold Guinn, born 17-03-1923 in Ware Shoals, South Carolina, USA, 
to William Randolph Hayes ( 1897-1972) and his wife Blanche Annette, born Campbell ( 1901-1976). Harold had two sisters, one half brother and one brother: Douglas Ansel Hayes ( 1929-1987), Dorothy Hayes Camak ( 1925-1986) and Martha Hayes., halfbrother Private W.H. Cobb. Harold before entering the Army was engaged in lifestock business with his fahter.. Harold grew up on the family farm and enlisted in the Army 
30-09-1943. He was initially in the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment 
, but joined 506th Easy Company 
under command of Captain Ronald “Sparky” Speirs 
after the Normandy campaign and made the 17-09-1944, jump with them into the Netherlands for Operation Market Garden 
The 506 th Regiment was dropped off at my birthtown Eindhoven. They captured all bridges in bloody battles, except one, which was destroyed by Germans. They made a replacement and headed to a town called Nuenen. But they received a vicious German counterattack at the town and were forced to retreat. They weren’t able to make a shortcut to Germany but continued on to be involved in more skirmishes between Nazi soldiers in Holland. Particularly the Crossroads fight. The counter attack of the Germans gave them the opportunity to bomb Eindhoven, crammed with British troops and military equipment. The bombing of my hometown cost almost 300 victims.
The day after the liberation of Eindhoven from the German occupation, which took place on 18-09-1944, Luftwaffe aircraft, at ten after seven, dropped flares and 76 aircraft’s, Junkers-88 en Dorniers-217 of the Kampgeschwader 2, 30 en 66 and Lehrgeschwader 1, part of the IX Fliegerkorps, under command of Oberstleutnant Rudolf Hallensleben 
, made preparations for the planned air raid by dropping flares, which some people mistaken for festive fireworks. Soon after, some 85 German aircraft, namely JU-88 bombers and Stuka dive bombers, unleashed their burden on the liberated city. There was no effective resistance from the allied forces in Eindhoven; Allied air defenses had not yet been installed. A large part of the center, the vicinity of the NS station, the Geldropseweg and Stratum, among others, were affected. In that part of the city, an air raid shelter on the Biesterweg received a direct hit, killing 41 people. 
A total of 227 people lost their lives in this act of war. My parents on there way to the raid shelter survived as my brother Kees run away as the first bombs fell. The only house in the street that had a direct hit, was the house of my parents, nr 65, 
they had double luck. Oberstleutnant Hallensleben was traveling on the Autobahn to his command post on 19-04-1945. Hallensleben, age 28 and three other passengers were killed when their car was attacked by strafing US fighters just as they were crossing a bridge over the Danube near Leipheim
Easy Company carried out the mission to capture the Crossroads, which was occupied by the infamous SS. They were reassigned to a Belgium town called Bastogne. The Germans were planning an offensive on Belgium, and the 506th couldn’t let that happen.
In December, 1944, the 101st Airborne Division headed to the Ardennes to help stall the German advance, in what would become known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Harold fought through the harsh conditions on the line. The Easy Company was founded in 1942 and was first deployed during the Normandy landings. She performed her first real combat action in the early morning of D-Day. A German battery with four 105mm guns aimed at Utah Beach had to be destroyed. After this, the company led the Battle of Carentan, took part in Operation Market Garden, held out at the Battle of Bastogne, led the counter-offensive at the Battle of the Bulge, fought in the Rhineland Campaign, and took Hitler’s Kehlsteinhaus. The last surviving member of the Company, Private Bradford “Clark” Freeman,
passed away on 03-07-2022 at the age of 97.
Captain Speirs after the war attended a Russian language course in 1956 and eventually was made a liaison officer to the Red Army. He subsequently became governor of Berlin’s Spandau Prison in 1958, but returned to the US Army and was on a mission to the Royal Lao Army in 1962. He retired from the Army in 1964 as a Lieutenant Colonel and stayed with his family in California. “Sparky” Speirs died in Montana on 11-04- 2007, in St. Marie, Montana,
Death and burial ground of Hayes, Harold Guinn.
On 09-01-1945, Easy Company under command of Lieutenant General Sink, Robert Frederick “Bob”, “Five-Oh-Sink” 
were part of an offensive to clear the woods outside of the towns of Foy and Recogne. That night they dug-in in the woods and suffered German artillery barrages. It was during these that Harold Hayes, age 21, was killed. Harold is buried back home in South Carolina, at the Edgewood Cemetery, Greenwood, Greenwood County, South Carolina, VS and his name is included on the memorial to Easy Company in the Bois Jacques, Belgium.
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