Private First Class Mellish
Known by the nickname "fish" by Private Adrian Caparzo, Private Mellish was one of the Company C Rangers who survived the attack on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Handed a Hitler Youth knife by Caparzo, Mellish joked that it was now a Shabbat challah cutter, a Jewish bread knife. The trauma of the beach assault hit Mellish quickly, and he found himself holding the knife and sobbing.
Days later Mellish was chosen by Captain Miller for a dangerous mission to find and rescue a paratrooper, Private James Ryan, whose brothers had been recently killed in combat. The squad's first casualty in the search for Ryan was Mellish's friend Caparzo, who was killed by a sniper in the village of Neuville.
Mellish himself was killed on June 13th during a German attack on Ramelle, a small village that Ryan and his unit had been tasked with defending. Miller had decided to stay and assist the paratroopers in defending Ramelle's bridge, and Mellish had teamed up with Corporal Henderson in manning a .30 caliber machine gun. During the battle Mellish and Henderson had fallen back to the second story of a heavily damaged building. Henderson was fatally shot, and Mellish was attacked and forced to fight hand-to-hand over Henderson's body. Mellish was eventually overpowered, and his opponent sank Mellish's own bayonet into his chest.
