Newsmen See Yank GI
Die In Santo Domingo

   EDITORS NOTE --- Associated Press photographer Bob Shultz accompanied U.S. paratroopers on a patrol in Santo Domingo on Saturday and saw one of the soldiers shot and killed by a sniper.  His story follows.

By BOB SCHULTZ

SANTO DOMINGO. Dominican Republic (AP) --- Twelve U.S. newsmen and photographers saw a U.S. paratrooper shot out of a Jeep on Saturday and killed.
   Then, some of us were pinned down by a sniper and had to be rescued by the paratroopers.
   We were accompanying a reconnaissance patrol which went into  Santo Domingo from Duarte bridge now held by American troops.  The patrol went past us and made a sweep around a few city blocks.  There was some sniper fire.  It did not seem heavy.
   Then, as we crossed Avenida Gen. Hector, near Calle Jose, one of the Jeeps came toward us and just as it passed a green building, a sniper opened fire,
   The sniper fired from a second-story window.  One paratrooper in the Jeep stood up, grabbed his throat and fell off.
   Another Jeep following picked up the body.
   Two or three more Jeeps returning by this road caught in te crossfire but no one else was hurt.
   We photographers made several shots of the action while pressed against a wall, then we ducked into a doorway.
      We started moving back to the U.S. lines but before we had gone far another sniper fired at us.  We ducked into a doorway, and four of us were trying to get under each other.
    There was really only a palm tree between us and the sniper.
   We could not move but finally a group of paratroopers came up and under their protective fire we were able to make our way back.
   The sniper who killed the paratrooper could have gotten us just as easily.  But, he never went after us.  He waited for the Jeep to come by before firing.

[Pensacola News Journal, Pensacola, FL, Monday, May 3, 1954, Main Edition, Page 18]

"I Hoped It
Wasn't Gerry"
Father Says

 HOLLYWOOD FL (AP)   --- When paratrooper Gerald S. Kellerman left home three weeks ago after a 10-day leave, his parents said they didn't know where he would be sent.
   They said they learned Sunday for the first time that their 24-year-old-son had gone to Santo Domingo, where he was killed by a sniper's bullet during the civil strife in the Dominican capital.
   "I understand that he had to go to Santo Domingo for a good reason," his father, Donald C. Kellerman, said.  "We are fighting communism all over the world."
   Kellerman said his sob was one of two paratroopers killed as American forces secured a bridge and then moved onto rebel-threatened sectors of the capital.
   "I had heard that the paratroopers were landing and I hoped it was not Gerry," his father said.  Then I heard the 82nd airborne was there and I hoped it wasn't Gerry.  Then two of them were killed and I hoped it was wasn't Gerry. But one of them was."
   The paratrooper's younger brother, Raymond, 19, is with the Air Force in Tripoli.
   Monday the flag flew at half-[mast in  the Kellerman yard in this Atlantic beach community.

[Palladium-Item, Richmond, IN, Monday, May 3, 1954, Page 2]

Grave marker for Sgt Gerald S. Kellerman in Section 26, Lot 5, Fred Hunter's Hollywood Memorial Gardens East Hollywood (Broward county), Florida.