Grave marker for Pvt Elmer Mertz in the Garden of Valor, in Greenlawn Memorial Park, Kohler (Sheboygan county), Wisconsin.

Pvt Elmer Mertz was transferred from a 82nd Airborne Replacement Depot to Company E of the 508th on 31 March 1944, just after the regiment moved to Nottingham, England.

He jumped into Normandy, France on D-Day, 6 June 1944 where he was killed in action a week later.

Pvt Mertz was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.