"Then came Montelimar" is the bone-chilling 3-word sentence to start a chapter in the memoir of the 141st Infantry Regiment 36th Infantry Division during WWII - described as a unit that fought for 5 years, 5 countries and 5 campaigns. Montelimar is a commune village in the Rhone Valley in the south of France, an otherwise beautiful area of the world. In the last week of August 1944, though, it was anything but. Chesterton's Charles Smalley, Jr. was embedded with the 141st after marching across Italy and most of southern France as the Allies encountered a determined German 1st Army including a feared Panzer Division. For 168 hours in the hills, fields and clustered towns in that scenic valley, a firefight bloodbath of explosions and close combat took place. Sometime in those 168 hours, Private Smalley lost his life. A former Methodist church youth group leader, Boy Scout and big brother to Jack and Ronald - his remains were never recovered in the carnage that was left. The Germans limped out in retreat defeated, vastly weakened and disorganized - a victory for the Allies, but at a steep, steep price.