Manz served in General Patton's 2nd Cavalry and was killed in action at age 19, during Operation Cowboy, a top-secret mission to rescue 600 Allied prisoners of war and save the famed Lipizzaner horses in Czechoslovakia.

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The Czech village, Bela Nad Radbuzou, dedicated a memorial in 2006  to PFC Manz and another American soldier, both killed while destroying a German SS roadblock.  Germany surrendered 11 days later.  These two Americans were among the last to die in Europe in World War II. 

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