The search for a soldier’s family
Work by Placitas photographer, British historian who discovered dog tag of Mora County man killed in World War II leads group to S.F. cemetery for tribute
It’s still unclear if it was an artillery or mortar shell that killed Pfc. David Solomon Ortiz of Northern New Mexico on July 12, 1944, as he moved forward with members of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division to take the German-held Hill 192 outside the French town of Saint-Lô.
How or why Ortiz’s dog tag ended up in a field about two miles from the battle’s front
line, separated from his body, also remains a mystery.
Initially buried in France, Ortiz’s remains were brought home in December 1947 and interred at Santa Fe National Cemetery. On Tuesday morning, some 75 years after his death during the Normandy campaign, his dog tag is coming home, too.
About 25 family members are expected to gather at 10:30 a.m. at Ortiz’s grave with two men — Placitas photographer Ron Overley and British historian David Billingham, who were strangers brought together in 2017 by a shared goal of memorializing a man history might otherwise have forgotten.
In their endeavor to return Ortiz’s dog tag, discovered in that field near Saint-Lô, they also brought together a family.
Based on information gleaned from his headstone, a two-paragraph obituary, a brother’s memory preserved in writing, the Office of the State Historian, Overley and Billingham,
this is what is known about Ortiz: He was born Nov. 15, 1915, in Mora County to Ramon and Maria Luisa Ortiz. He was a dandy who prided himself on his classy attire and fondness for women. His education ended after grammar school.
On Dec. 6, 1940 — just a year and a day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, initiating the U.S. entry into World War II — he enlisted in the U.S. Army in Santa Fe. At 25, he likely was older than most other recruits.
A photo of Ortiz in his U.S. Army uniform in 1941 shows a dashing but serious young man of 25 or 26.
“When World War II intervened he was one of the first boys from our village to volunteer,” Ortiz’s older brother, Paul Ortiz, wrote in a brief essay titled “David” a few years before his death in 2011.
“Sometime later he came home on leave,” Paul Ortiz wrote. “He looked so proud and he did full justice to his uniform. O, how he strutted and pranced about, just like a young general. All eyes were on him and he clearly delighted on the sensation he was causing — but he paid it all back with his charm and wit and his ability to make us all part of himself.”
During that leave, David Ortiz met a Taos woman, identified by Paul Ortiz as Stella Montoya, and the two got engaged. They planned to marry when the war ended. That didn’t happen. David Ortiz was one of some 70 U.S. soldiers killed in the Battle of SaintLô over several days of bloody fighting against German troops who did not want to give up Hill 192 because of its strategic value. (According to Billingham, another 328 soldiers were wounded and eight went missing in the battle.)
“Hill 192 was a key part of the German defense and defended by welltrained, well dug-in German troops,” Billingham said by email. “It offered the defenders a key observation point from which they could plan artillery and supporting fire. It was key to taking St. Lô.”
The town served as a strategic crossroads for several major roadways.
The battlefield was, to a large degree, made up of tall, thick hedgerows that made combat even more uncertain and dangerous.
“Attacking in these circumstances was not the stuff of large open tank formations but yard-by-yard fighting,” Billingham said.
The Allies took Hill 192 — which was, in some ways, a path to victory in the war — but at a huge cost.
Ortiz’s four brothers also joined the military to fight in World War II. They all came back, said Isabel Lopez of Denver, Ortiz’s niece. She said her mother, Ortiz’s sister Rebecca, never talked much about the brother she lost in the war. Rebecca told her daughter she hated to hear taps because it brought up sad memories.
Billingham and Overley’s efforts to return Ortiz’s long-missing dog tag to his family members have strengthened the family’s connections and inspired them to search for more information about Ortiz, Lopez said. The project has “revived our memories of a man who could have faded away in some ways with each passing generation.”
Ortiz’s grave in Santa Fe National Cemetery is surrounded by the graves of others who fought in World War II, including many who, like Ortiz, died in battle.
Overley, a retired businessman who’s lived in New Mexico for 16 years, said he was asked in 2011 to visit the national cemetery and photograph the headstones of men who took part in the Normandy invasion. Ortiz’s headstone was one of 40 to 50 he photographed one day.
He posted the images on a memorial website called Find a Grave and didn’t think much more about them — until Billingham reached out to him by email in 2017.
Billingham, who has a home in Normandy, and a friend had begun poking around the region near Saint-Lô where they found some “interesting foxhole items” in March 2017. As they were returning to Normandy from the digging project — a nearly 90-mile drive — they stopped at a field they believed had been the site of U.S. troop activity during World War II.
“That is where I found David’s dog tag,” Billingham said. “Very close to the surface, showing the signs of 75 years of Norman weather, but the name and serial number clearly visible. I knew I’d found something special, as it was so close to what would have been the front line.
“You cannot be interested in the history of the Normandy campaign and not be moved by finding something so very personal,” he added.
He wanted to find out more about Ortiz. Later that year, he found the photo of Ortiz’s headstone online and contacted Overley, asking him to help find any living descendants of Ortiz in New Mexico.
“How hard can that be?” Billingham asked.
“Pretty hard,” Overley responded. “Ortiz is a pretty common name around here.”
The two men began searching for records. Overley found a two-paragraph obituary for Ortiz published in August 1944. It said memorial services were held at Wagon Mound’s Presbyterian church, so he tried to find the church as a starting point. It no longer exists.
The two men asked for help from libraries, veterans organizations such as the American Legion, the cemetery itself and the state archives, with little luck.
It didn’t help that a massive fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Mo., in 1973 destroyed countless military documents, including Ortiz’s records.
Earlier this year, the men had a breakthrough in their search. Billingham found a social media message online about Ortiz and reached out to the person who had posted it — Linda Stanley, a sister-in-law of Lopez. Stanley helped connect Lopez and Billingham, and the two began discussing a way to return the dog tag to the family.
“It was a shock — very emotional for everybody,” Lopez said. “It’s an amazing story for all of us. It’s all so strange, including how they found us.”
The dog tag, family members decided, will go to 21-year-old David Ramon, a Colorado college student who is Ortiz’s great-nephew.
The dog tag will help everyone remember, Lopez said.
On Tuesday the family will gather with Billingham and Overley around Ortiz’s grave, where a bagpiper will play “Amazing Grace.”
“It’s been amazing grace for all of us,” Lopez said.