Hitler's Third Reich and World War II in the News is a daily edited review of WWII news, providing thought- provoking collection of hand-picked WW2 information.

Category: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers  -- See latest WWII news here. See also 'Medal of Honor: Most decorated Heroes', 'D-Day, Normandy', 'U.S. Army Rangers', 'Airborne Paratroopers', 'WW2 Jeeps', 'Tank Destroyers'.

WWII veteran's memoirs online by the Veterans History Project of The Library of Congress
LeRoy Maleck's memoir of his years in the Army during the Second World War has been published online by the Veterans History Project of The Library of Congress. He sent his book, "What Am I Doing Here? True Adventures While Surviving 1172 Days in the U.S. Army During World War II," to The Library of Congress several years ago. --- "After what seemed an infinity of expectancy, it happened - the ominous ripping sound of a German MG 42 machine gun shattered the morning air. The now familiar zing, zing, zing of machine gun bullets told us we were targeted! Mortar fire smothered the advancing infantrymen."     [ galesburg.com :: 2008-07-24 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Werner Von Rosenstiel fought in Wehrmacht and U.S. Army
Werner Von Rosenstiel saw that Germany was gearing towards war. He thought of leaving, but his father wanted him to finish his education. In 1938 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, but after seeing the Kristallnacht he was appalled. He was offered a job in Nazi regime, but he asked to go to the U.S. for 30 days to improve his English. He would not return for 5 years. After the Pearl Harbour attack he was tried as an enemy alien. Luckily, he had a letter in which he condemned the Kristallnacht. He enlisted in the U.S. army, rose to the rank of lieutenant, fought at the Battle of the Bulge and - as a translator - saw the Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Trials.     [ montrealgazette :: 2008-07-12 :: Wehrmacht: German Armed Forces ]

World War II veteran Jack Frank retraces his steps
In the autumn of 1944 Army Cpl. Jack Frank and 4 other American GIs searched a cave at Zichen, Belgium, for Wehrmacht soldiers. Finding none, they carved their names into the cave wall with knives. 64 years later, Frank returned to Belgium to find his name still visible in the cave, retrace some of his steps during the war and experience a hero's welcome: American flags hanging from the windows, preserved-like-new American Jeep driving him to city hall... "I was a king for a day." Among other places he also visited fortress Fort Eben-Emael; a museum at Bastogne, a center of action during the Battle of the Bulge; and the bridge at Remagen.     [ the-dispatch.com :: 2008-07-05 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Attacking Antwerp: Supply lines of Normandy campaign, and Operation Market Garden
It was the most dangerous logistical situation of World War II for the Allied forces. The armies that landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, depended for their ability to battle through Northern Europe on a complex supply chain. A port was needed, as close as possible to the German border, to meet the vast needs of the armies. That port was Antwerp. The allied troops entered Antwerp on Sept. 4, but soon Hitler unleashed a secret weapon on the city: the V-2 rocket, the first ballistic missile, flying at over 4 times the speed of sound. To prevent a logistical disaster, a risky operation, called Market Garden, was undertaken.     [ forbes :: 2008-06-06 :: Battle of Arnhem - Operation Market Garden ]

World War II veteran fought from Nazi Germany to Czechoslovakia
Charles Campbell, staff sergeant with the First (Big Red) Division, invited himself to dinner with the Wehrmacht by kicking in a door. "There were 4 German officers at the table having breakfast." Maybe it was the threatening figure of an American soldier and M-1 Garand. Maybe it was just weariness. But all 4 surrendered. "Toward the end ... they were all just waiting to be captured.." His war is a blur of images: dead bodies, burning tanks and shooting. Campbell avoided the Purple Heart, but he earned a Combat Infantry Badge and a chest full of medals, including one Bronze Star - How he earned it escapes him.     [ bucyrustelegraphforum :: 2008-02-26 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Glen Gloyd survived Omaha Beach landing
There is one recollection that stands out in Glen Gloyd's mind about the days before the D-Day invasion: the children he and his comrades came to know in UK. "We greeted them and then threw coins to them. They really enjoyed having us there..." At midnight on June 6, 1944, he got on a landing craft ship headed across the English Channel and to the beaches of Normandy. He was part of the first wave of attacks on Omaha Beach. "It was complete chaos when we got there. There was one point when I looked and saw 12 machine guns with 12 American soldiers draped over them dead. It was hell." ... "We were welcomed by the French citizens like we were stars..."     [ venturacountystar :: 2008-01-20 :: D-Day, Normandy & Operation Overlord ]

Italians honor World War II 36th Infantry Division Soldiers
The 36th Infantry Division (ID) was the first American combat division to land on the continent of Europe. Located half way between Naples and Rome is one of the bloodiest battlefields from the Italian campaign. It was here in the Liri Valley that Allied Forces slowly struggled their way to victory through San Pietro and Monte Cassino during 1943-1944, finally liberating Rome. Herman Chanowitz was a captain in the 2nd Tactical Air Communications Squadron, assigned to the 36th ID. He has first-hand knowledge of the bloody Battle of San Pietro Infine. He was dismayed by the conditions: "War is hell, war is hell... We shared our food, blankets ... whatever we could spare."     [ blackanthem :: 2008-01-11 ]

Sailor saw worst from the D-Day English Channel to the Pacific
Leroy Whannel got a view of WWII in all its horror: from clearing landing crafts full of dead soldiers from Omaha Beach at D-Day, to repatriating Bataan Death March survivors. Omaha, on June 6,1944, may have been the worst: 100 yards of sandy beach, with German machine gun placements on the bluffs overhead. "We went in with the first bunch. The first bunch, it was just plain murder. The Nazis could sit up there and just rake those landing craft as they came in. That first wave, I felt sorry for those guys. It was like suicide. I talked to those guys... and they said, 'Oh, God, let's get out of here and get this over with.' They wanted to get gone."     [ wcfcourier :: 2008-01-03 ]

The Day of Battle: War in Sicily and Italy 1943-1944 by Rick Atkinson
After chasing Erwin Rommel and Wehrmacht out of North Africa in May 1943, Allied commanders needed to decide what to do next as Operation Overlord could not be undertaken until 1944. In "The Day of Battle" Rick Atkinson shows how Field Marshal Albert Kesselring occupied high ground, bloodying the enemy and then retreating to next mountain citadel. "The Tommies will have to chew their way through us, inch by inch," a German paratrooper wrote. Ortona and Monte Cassino were little Stalingrads with house-to-house fighting. Malaria, venereal disease and breakdowns took thousands off the battlefield. Misguided strategy and bickering among Allied generals also took a toll.     [ iht :: 2007-10-03 :: Fascist Italy - World War II ]

Of 80 Germans Benigno Diaz killed, one haunts him: Hitler Youth boy
Of the more than 80 Germans Benigno Diaz killed in World War II, one continues to haunt him - a 10yo little boy, part of the Hitler Youth campaign to train Nazi soldiers. The boy was hiding out with two German gunmen who had been shooting from inside a building in a small German town in 1945. "I spotted the two ... so I threw a hand grenade and what I saw later was that I had killed a little boy." He can hardly get through the story without forcing back tears. "I didn't expect that. I felt guilty. I still feel guilty. I had to turn away from his face because I didn't want to see it anymore."     [ whittierdailynews :: 2007-06-03 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Earl Parker fought from D-Day to the final surrender in Reims
It was May 7, 1945, and Army Cpl. Earl Parker watched as German General Alfred Jodl goose-stepped up to the schoolhouse in Reims. "He looked tough and mean. That's the way they were trained". Jodl was there to surrender the military forces of Nazi Germany. The nightmare of Nazism was over. Parker, a member of the U.S. 1st Division "The Big Red One," was on General Dwight Eisenhower's staff, and had been one of the soldiers invited to witness history. It had been a long road to this moment, starting on the Omaha Beach 9 months earlier. In the Hurtgen Forest he was hit with shrapnel. He was in a hospital when it was hit by a V-1 "buzz bomb." But again, Parker survived.     [ thevictoriaadvocate :: 2007-05-18 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Battlefield return brings closure for World War II vets
It has taken more than 60 years, but gazing down a ridge over a battlefield near Germany's border with Belgium, Stan Tuhoski believes he has found closure from the greatest trauma of his life. He was just a teenager when he was caught up in the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest single engagement for U.S. forces in World War II. Captured by German troops as they overran his unprepared division in Dec 1944, he survived death marches and the horrors of POW camps, but returned home broken and verging on suicide: "I would sit down and cry and cry and cry." But it took a return to the forested battlefield of the Ardennes to come to terms with his wartime nightmare.     [ alertnet :: 2007-05-12 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

A messenger of the 6th Armored Division - Bronze Star for Valor
In his first weeks in France during 1944, U.S. Army Private Emmett L. "Jack" Worley had been shelled, straffed by machine guns, driven his Jeep through heavy German rifle fire, fought enemy soldiers hand-to-hand, killed some and saw buddies die next to him. But his most frightening moment was a quiet one: listening to the German farmers who had captured him discuss among themselves who was going to kill "the American." He landed in France at Utah Beach on July 18, just over a month after D-Day. Because Allied units could not use radios, commanders used messengers to deliver orders and tactical information.     [ staugustine :: 2007-03-06 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Book filled with World War II stories
More than 300 collected stories will fill the pages of a World War II book being put together by the Tazewell County Genealogical and Historical Society. "These stories are just amazing. These stories can be looked back on 200 years from now to see how these farmers from small villages came together and won this war," said Marge Shepler. The book, which will memorialize the WW2 veterans who lived, worked or died in Tazewell County, will consist of 500 pages of stories of service during the war.     [ pantagraph :: 2007-02-02 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

With H Company, 345th Infantry Regiment, 87th Infantry Division
On July 9, 1944, Jean Bateman landed on Utah Beach where Allied forces had pushed 12 miles into France. After some minor firefights and ambushes, he took part in his first major campaign to capture a strategic hill occupied by German paratroopers. It wasn't easy. The troops had 15 Sherman tanks. 12 were destroyed. "We lost a lot of people there. K Company had 224 people. That evening, they had 77 left." He also saw a Sherman battle tank get hit with armor-piercing and high-explosive shells. "A man got out of the Sherman and his skin was sliding off his hands." Another man escaping from a hatch had no legs.     [ gallupindependent :: 2006-11-29 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Back to Normandy: From D-Day Omaha beach to Ardennes
On June 6, 1944, Bob Gunsallus and his unit were shipped out to Omaha Beach at Normandy. "They flipped down the landing platform of the LST 50 to 60 feet from shore and said 'start swimming.' I thought I was a pretty strong swimmer, but I damn near drowned several times. The last 10 to 15 feet you literally had to move bodies with every stroke to keep moving." ... During the Battle of the Bulge, he had a shell knock his helmet right off his head. "If I would have had my helmet strapped on I would have probably been killed from the force of the shell. But luckily it just knocked the helmet from my head."     [ globegazette :: 2006-10-20 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Fighting in France's hedgerows with an anti-aircraft gun
Three days after D-Day, Miguel Soto's unit landed on Utah Beach and was attached to the 448th Anti-Aircraft Battalion. "A landing barge full of engineers next to my barge received a direct hit... I recall seeing dead American paratroopers hanging from trees, riddled with bullets." As his unit pushed toward St. Lo the hedgerow fighting was fierce. Later, he and 3 GIs volunteered for a special mission. They took a 40-mm antiaircraft gun, and placed it with its barrel on top of a hedgerow aimed at an area in which Germans had placed heavy machine guns. They fired explosive shells, then armor-piercing shells, until infantry could destroy the target with hand grenades.     [ azcentral :: 2006-09-09 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Harold Kuehn earned silver star in WWII
Article no longer available from the original source.
After boot camp Harold Kuehn was sent off to the front line in the European Theater. He found out - when he arrived at his assigned company - that the first and second scouts had been killed and he was the first scout's replacement. At his arrival, there had been 35 days of intense fighting, and his company had been reduced by 50% in one day. On his first day on patrol, he captured a German soldier who was telephoning for artillery. At one point two young soldiers requested to be made scouts, they had noticed that Kuehn had survived more than 30 days. 10 minutes after they became scouts they were killed.     [ cjournal :: 2006-09-08 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

39th Combat Engineers Reunion - Leading the infantry into battle
The mission of the 39th Combat Engineers was, as David Wagner put it, to "lead the infantry into battle." If that meant rebuilding a bridge the Nazis had destroyed, so be it. If it meant clearing a minefield equipped only with a bayonet, understood. The men of the 39th Combat Engineers took their missions seriously, and out of their shared experiences in North Africa, Sicily and Anzio was born a strong bond. A small group of men from the 39th first got together following the war in 1946. It soon blossomed into a yearly reunion of hundreds of the men.     [ clintonherald :: 2006-09-07 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Man who drove the first armored vehicle across the Remagen
A braggart would have told you that in World War II he drove the first American armored vehicle across the bridge at Remagen. But quiet Walter James Dunsmore hid it well. In WWII he served with the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion. In 1945, when Allied forces closed in on Nazi Germany, his battalion neared the Remagen bridge, the last one standing over the Rhine River. With U.S. troops at the river's edge, Germans blew the bridge. They failed to destroy it, and the 27th Battalion surged ahead. Dunsmore told only close friends that he drove the first armored vehicle across the bridge, putting the Allies one step closer to crushing Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.     [ newsobserver :: 2006-08-23 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps and convoys during WWII
Roland Jones served in the the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps after receiving convoy training. "After we landed in Normandy, they called us the Red Ball Express. We had a big, red ball on the windshield. We went with blackout lights, chasing the truck in front of us. After watching those little taillights for hours, you would chase them right off the road. The Germans were good soldiers, well-trained and well-seasoned, unlike our young rookies who were just kids with a few weeks basic training. I met Gen. Patton. He was a rough SOB. Hate to say that, but he was. He didn't care about the men. He wanted to go as fast as he could, didn't care about the costs."     [ courierpub :: 2006-06-27 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

297th Engineer Combat Battalion - In front of the frontline
Shot, shelled, mortared, machine gunned, bombed, bazookaed, and they survived. About 450 of the more than 500 members of the U.S. Army 297th Engineer Combat Battalion lived through World War II. Their mates drowned in the English Channel off the Omaha Beach and Utah Beach on D-Day. Legs were blown off in the Battle of the Bulge. Combat engineers are the men in front of the men with the guns. They remember soldiers drowning in the English Channel: "They put grease on our uniforms to keep out the chemical weapons. Might have kept out the mustard gas. Let in the water. Guys went belly up."     [ thetandd :: 2006-06-04 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Victoria Cross Lieutenant's story told - historian found documents
The lost story of a Welsh wartime hero, who lived and died by the toss of a coin, is told for the first time, after new documents were uncovered by a historian researching for a new book, Dunkirk: Fight To The Last Man. Lieutenant Christopher "Dickie" Furness of the Welsh Guards was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery, in sacrificing his life to remove a German machine gunner attacking British patrols at Arras in May 1940. He led a mission of 10 men to attack the German position. Only one returned unscathed.     [ icnetwork :: 2006-05-31 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Mobile US bakery company: Bread and German paratroopers
An army moves on its stomach, the saying goes. Hickey's mobile bakery company fortified the U.S. Third Army. "One night I was on guard duty. I saw when they came out of the plane and thought it was smoke from flak, but it was German paratroopers." It was Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's last-ditch counterattack. Some Germans in US uniforms also tried to infiltrate. US troops were under strict orders to have every button buttoned. "If they caught you with a button unfastened, they'd take you in. They caught a couple of guys, and they asked them some foolish questions. They could speak perfect English. If you didn't know, they looked like GIs."     [ wcfcourier :: 2006-05-29 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

With the 26th Division - German sniper and 11th Panzer Division
Pvt. Carl Cooley fought with 26th Division which relieved Gen. George Patton's 4th Armored Division. "I was first scout, so I was out in front. I looked down this street, and all of a sudden I was sitting on my can. A German sniper put a bullet between my helmet and my helmet liner." The sergeant spotted the sniper, and fired at him with his M-1 rifle. Later near Siegfried line they were facing enemy forces holding a farmhouse with an 88 artillery piece and a tank on a nearby hill. The 26th was facing the well-seasoned 11th Panzer Division, also known as "The Ghost Division" because of its ability to materialize anywhere along the Western Front.     [ sun-herald :: 2006-05-29 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Museum opens exhibit on the 10th Mountain Division
Hitler had his eyes on conquering all of Europe long before Japan invaded Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile, high in the Rocky Mountains, men trained on skis to meet Hitler's army and drive them back across the Italian Alps. The Estes Park Museum will open an temporary exhibit on the 10th Mountain Division. The exhibit explores the history of the special WWII force that trained for mountain combat. The 10th Mountain Division went on to distinguish itself in combat in Alaska and Italy. In 1940, Charles Minot Dole petitioned President Roosevelt to create an American light-infantry alpine ski force to combat Hitler's advancing mountain troops.     [ eptrail :: 2006-05-18 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

The most decorated unit in the US Army: Japanese Americans
On May 18 Robert Asahina's "Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad" will be published. The book is a history of the most decorated unit in the American Army in World War II for its size and length of service - the 442d Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit of Japanese Americans. About half of the regiment had come out of the "relocation camps." Everyone I spoke knew about the "internment", but no one knew about the 442d. Until I researched I didn't know much about it - or about its predecessor the 100th Battalion, a segregated unit of Japanese Americans from Hawaii.     [ nysun :: 2006-05-15 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

When orders for the battalion to withdraw were not received
In 1944 Major Tasker Watkins won the Victoria Cross - only the second Welshman in the WWII to do so. While commanding a company of the Welch Regiment, the battalion was ordered to attack objectives near Balfour. Company had to cross open cornfields in which booby traps had been set. The company came under fire, and the only officer left, Major Watkins, charged two posts in succession. When he found an anti-tank gun his Sten gun jammed, so he threw it in the German's face and shot him with his pistol. The company had only some 30 men left and was counter-attacked by 50 enemy infantry, and orders for the battalion to withdraw were not received by company...     [ icwales :: 2006-04-15 :: Victoria Cross Medal (VC) - Stories of the most decorated Heroes ]

A convoy under air attack
Retired Army Capt. W.W. Wilkins Jr. is on a mission to win the Bronze Star for retired Cpl. James F. Weyandt, an ambulance driver. A convoy - part of the 4th Armored Division of the 3rd U.S. Army under Gen. George Patton - was strafed several times by a German plane, which then dropped anti-personnel bombs that rained down shrapnel. "They explode in the air, there are no foxholes there, so you'd just lay down. Many guys got hit in the back." Weyandt loaded two men on stretchers into his ambulance and helped 7 men who could sit up. Weyandt drove off to the nearest field hospital. The ambulance drew fire on a road through enemy territory. Three times, the vehicle came under rifle fire. Then, a German plane zeroed in on the lone ambulance...     [ tribune-democrat :: 2006-03-11 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

The first american soldier to set foot on German soil in WWII
Veterans from WW2 and other foreign wars are getting older. In Iowa about 6,000 veterans die each year. Jack McKay was awarded one of his two Bronze Stars during D-Day on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. He also received two Silver Stars, the Distinguished Service Cross, and five Purple Hearts. He was field commissioned to Lieutenant after his superiors saw his leadership and bravery. According to McKay's son, a district court judge, McKay was believed to be the first american soldier to set foot on German soil in World War Two.     [ whotv :: 2006-02-26 :: Forces of the Western Allies: American Soldiers ]

Joseph Beyrle: The Only U.S. Soldier To Fight For Soviets
Joseph Beyrle is believed to be the only soldier to have fought for both the United States and the former Soviet Union during WWII. Mr. Beyrle was among the first paratroopers to land in Normandy, as part of the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The Germans captured him shortly after he landed. He escaped from a POW camp in Poland and joined a Soviet tank unit headed for Berlin. He fought alongside the Soviets for three weeks or so, and they called him "Joe." He got wounded in the leg along the way, and had to be hospitalized. While he was staying in the hospital, Marshal Georgy Zhukov came over for a visit.     [ RIA Novosti :: 2005-03-23 :: The Red Army & russian partisans ]

See also

'Medal of Honor: Most decorated Heroes'

'D-Day, Normandy'

'U.S. Army Rangers'

'Airborne Paratroopers'

'WW2 Jeeps'

'Tank Destroyers'.

Although the articles linked from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich 1933-1945 and World War II in the News are reviewed and specially selected, they do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, who is not responsible for the content of any external sites. This service is © Joni Nuutinen 2005-2008. All rights reserved.