Posted on 06/06/2002 7:25:18 AM PDT by g'nad
Edited on 06/07/2005 12:19:13 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
When he was promoted to officer rank at eighteen, S. L. A. MARSHALL was the youngest shavetail in the United States Army during World War I. He rejoined the Army in 1942, became a combat historian with the rank of colonel; and the notes he made at the time of the Normandy landing are the source of this heroic reminder. Readers will remember his frank and ennobling book about Korea, THE RIVER AND THE GAUNTLET, which was the result of still a third tour of duty.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
From the History books. Few and far between today.
He was killed by a female sniper in house-to-house fighting on the penninsula.
This information was given to his father by a GI who was with him at the time.
I dunno, but it seems pretty damn appropriate...
On June 6, 1994 (50th Anniversary) I sent him a big flower arrangement in commemoration of his buddies that still lie there.
I don't know, but my uncle was one of them too.
My uncle was in the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, which was among those in the first wave, and he survived (in fact he lived for 50 more years). They fought their way up the hills there, through the town, and all the way to Paris, where they were among the first soldiers to march through Paris, when it was liberated.
Then they fought their way through Belgium, and marched into Liege when it was liberated. There was also a famous battle at a bridge though I'm not sure which one. Then they liberated a concentration camp in Germany (I'm trying to find out which one though I think it could have been Dachau from what I'm reading, but still not sure). But they were so appalled when they opened up that camp, that after capturing the guards, they marched back into the village nearby and forced the villagers at gunpoint to go into the camp to see what was going on near where they were living.
He said later that up to that point he had been feeling conflicted about shooting at the Germans, as he was himself a 2nd generation German-American (his grandparents had emigrated at least 80 years before) and was worried that he had been shooting at cousins. But after that camp experience, he no longer cared about that, and no longer felt German in any way. He felt American.
My uncle would almost never talk about it, though my sister was able to get only a small amount out of him. And some I've learned just by reading about the history of the Big Red One. He died just a few years ago.
Wish I could have done the same for my uncle, he died just a year before that anniversary.
On D-Day, June 6,1944, the Big Red One stormed ashore at Omaha Beach. Soon after H-Hour, the Division's 16th Regiment was fighting for its life on a strip of beach near Coleville-sur-Mer that had been marked the "Easy Red" on battle maps. Within two hours, the decimated unit huddled behind the seawall. The beach was so congested with the dead and dying, there was no room to land reinforcements. Col. George Taylor, commander of the 16th Infantry Regt., told his men, "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach! The dead and those who are going to die! Now, let's get the hell out of here!" Slowly, the move inland got underway.
A German blockhouse above the beach became a command post named "Danger Forward."
The Division moved through the Normandy Hedgerows. The Division liberated Liege, Belgium, and pushed to the German border, crossing through the fortified Siegfried line. The 1st Inf. Div. attacked the first major German city, Aachen, and after days of bitter fighting, the German commander surrendered the city on Oct. 21, 1944.
The Division continued its push into Germany, crossing the Rhine River. On Dec. 16, 24 enemy divisions, 10 of which were armored, launched a massive counterattack in the Ardennes sector, resulting in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. On Jan. 15, 1945, the First Infantry attacked and penetrated the Siegfried line for the second time and occupied the Remagen bridgehead. On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, the Division marched 150 miles to the east of Siegen. On April 8, the Division crossed the Weser river into Czechoslovakia. The war was over May 8, 1945.
At the end of World War II, the Division had suffered 21,023 casualties and 43,743 men had served in its ranks. Its soldiers had won a total of 20,752 medals and awards, including 16 Congressional Medals of Honor. Over 100,000 prisoners had been taken.
Following the war, the First Division remained in Germany as occupation troops, until 1955, when the Division moved to Fort Riley, Kan.
My dad served on the USS Maryland in the Pacific and it was the same here. He never talked to me about it until I got back from Viet Nam. Some of the things he told me were pretty horrific, guess he figured I could handle it then. Too bad he is gone now I would like to talk to him some more about it.
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