John Claiborne Ballard, Jr. was born on 13 June 1924 in Bedford, Virginia. He lived on Bel Air Ave. in Front Royal, Virginia. He worked for the John P. Pettyjohn Construction Company before the war.  He 502ndParachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborned Division.  On 4 January 1945 he was attacking tanks in the town of Champs (Bertogne.) He was killed by mortar fire after having fired 4 bazooka shots himself. 

Information from John Ballard’s draft registration card and from the book The Battered Bastards of Bastogne by George Koskimaki, courtesy of Ronald Busschers