Doyce Frank Spruell was born on September 15, 1922 in Carroll County, Georgia. He was the son of Caleb Norman Sprewell and Mary Belle Treadaway Sprewell. Before entering the service, he was employed by the R.D. Cole Mfg. Co. He was trained at Ft. Benning, Georgia and was stationed in England for some time prior to the invasion.

Pfc Speuell was a paratrooper of the 501st PIR that took off from station 464 in Merryfield, UK in C-47 42-101025 to drop over DZ-D as part of Operation Albany during the Normandy invasion. Their target time was 0134. Their plane was the last of five waves to cross the Cotentin, over air defenses now on full alert. To complicate matters, there were heavy clouds at 1500 feet, gone unreported due to the strict radio silence. Some pilots decided to pull up and find their DZs with the Eureka-Rebecca system, others went low to obtain a visual of their DZs, and a rare few stayed the course through the cloud bank. While approaching their drop, the plane came under heavy flak fire. It exploded in mid-air at 0142.