Doyle Glass Acrylic & Bronze Sculptor "John Squires" Louisville Courier Journal

Sgt. John Squires Medal of Honor Doyle Glass has sculpted this clay prototype of the 6-foot bronze statue that he is planning of Medal of Honor winner John C. Squires of Louisville. Glass wants it to be on public display in the city.

THE LOUISVILLE COURIER JOURNAL . . . THURSDAY MAY 13, 1999

Sculptor wants to honor hero

by Bob Hill

Often working alone, driven by a sense of honor and history, Doyle Glass is on a mission to memorialize one of Louisville's most remarkable, yet forgotten, heroes: World War II Medal of Honor winner John C. Squires. "This has become my favorite project," said Glass, an attorney and sculptor.
John Squires was born in Louisville, where he attended Male High School. He left at 17 to take a job at Jeffboat, and then another with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. He was drafted in August 1943 and sent to Italy with the 30th Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division in January 1944.
He was a private first class and a platoon messenger, a high-casualty job requiring that he deliver messages between units in combat. In April 1944, in his first action in the war, his unit was pinned down by German fire near Padiglione.
Squires volunteered to crawl through shellfire and a minefield to another another platoon. There he rounded up survivors and led them into combat. He then volunteered to get reinforcements. His commander later wrote: "I could see him running through barbed wire and zig-zagging across the exposed flat fields toward our lines, shells bursting within 15 yards of him as he moved."
Squires returned through the same intense fire with reinforcements. Cut off from help, he scouted German lines and came back with an abandoned Spandau machine gun and ammunition which he used.
Between attacks, Squires moved forward and captured 21 Germans. That netted him 13 more Spandau machine guns and a supply of hand grenades. In a fourth counterattack by the Germans, Squires was credited with killing three and wounding many others.
Squires was promoted to sergeant, then killed in the attack on the Anzio beachhead a month later, on May 23, 1944, four days after his 19th birthday. His family was never told how he died. His Medal of Honor was presented to his family at Fort Knox in October 1944.
He was, at the time, the youngest member of the Army ever to win the Medal of Honor. He is buried in Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, where only the gold letters on his white cross distinguish it from the thousands of others.
Glass, 37, who lives in Louisville and works in the Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions in Frankfort, began sculpting seven years ago and has done well enough at it to find art dealers in Arizona and his native Texas to sell his work. He was a history major at Southern Methodist University who wanted to combine his passions for history and sculpting, and was energized when he saw the movie "Saving Private Ryan."
"I got in contact with the Medal of Honor people," he said. "I was literally scrolling down the computer screen looking at names when I saw Jefferson County ... John Squires."
Glass wrote letters to people named Squires listed in the local telephone book, which eventually led him to relatives of John Squires: a brother, Steven; a sister, Mary Karthman; and a nephew, Lee Squires. The family provided many pictures of John, whose two brothers also fought in Italy.
"The family's, biggest concern was that I got Johns face right," Glass said.
He sculpted a 2-foot-tall model of Squires from clay. It shows Squires running with an M-1 rifle. Glass got advice from another Louisville sculptor, Ed Hamilton, whose work on black soldiers in the Civil War is on display in Washington. "I was having trouble with the figure leaning too far forward," Glass said. "Ed was great. He really helped me out."
Glass' model is lifelike, poignant, evocative. He wants the final product to be a 6-foot-tall bronze placed so that Louisvillians can see it. 'He estimates it will cost about $25,000 and has established a not-for-profit ac-count at Fifth Third Bank. The Veterans of Foreign Wars' Shawnee Post has given $1200; Glass $1000; and an anonymous donor, $400.
"It's just an incredible story," he said. "The kid got killed, and nobody knew about him. His family weren't the Rockefellers; they were just good people. They deserve this."
Glass can make small bronze copies of his model to sell as a fundraiser. If all goes well, he would add life-size statues to a tableau memorializing three other Medal of Honor winners who were born - or once lived - in Louisville, one each from the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and the Vietnam War. But his focus now is on John Squires, making him a symbol of our century's greatest and costliest struggle.
There's nothing like it in Louisville now and there should be - to honor Squires and his entire generation. Glass can be reached at P.O. Box 3164, Frankfort, Ky. 40603, or at a John Squires Web site: www.doyleglass.com.
It shouldn't be terribly hard to raise $25,000 if the cost is divided among the many, organizations and people - John Squires died for.

Texas Medal of Honor Memorial sculpture by Doyle Glass Bronze Medal of Honor Sculpture by Doyle Glass

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