ABMC Headquarters 2300 Clarendon Blvd, Suite 500 Arlington, VA 22201 Phone: 703-584-1501 Confessed murderer Frank Sheeran later recalled his war service as the time when he first developed a callousness to the taking of human life. Sparks’s battalion was the left flank unit of the division, with Krieger’s men to its right and a battalion of the 79th Division’s 315th Infantry to its left. The 3rd Battalion’s Lieutenant Willis R. Talkington volunteered to take a pair of light tanks up the trail. Some of the American survivors later reported the enemy using flamethrowers. [1], In August 1941, the 45th Infantry Division took part in the Louisiana Maneuvers, the largest peacetime exercises in U.S. military history. [84] Regardless, by mid-1950 the division had only 8,413 troops, less than 45 percent[n 1] of its full-strength authorization. The massacre of GIs at Malmedy was a recent event. The 45th Infantry Division guardsmen saw no major action until they became one of the first National Guard units activated in World War II in 1941. Support units such as the 45th Signal Company also suffered casualties and required replacements to be reconstituted as did the combat units. AK: The 157th [Infantry Regiment] and the 45th [Infantry Division] drew from New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Arizona, so very much the American West. [115] Chinese forces continued to mount concentrated attacks on the lines of the UN forces, including the 45th Infantry Division, but the division managed to hold most of its ground, remaining stationary until the end of the war in the summer of 1953. After a month of hard fighting across Sicily, followed by the amphibious landings at Salerno and then at Anzio where the division prevented German efforts to split the Allied beachhead, the Thunderbirds were nearly worn out. The Americans knew this because each time they tried to push the enemy back concentrated rocket and artillery fire fell upon them. An estimated five German battalions would be committed in the 45th Division sector. Uncle Sam sent greetings to me, March 1943. In January 1945, an American infantry battalion fought for its life in the frozen hills near Reipertswiller in Alsace-Lorraine. After the North Korean People's Army invaded the Republic of Korea, four understrength U.S. divisions on occupation duty in Japan were rushed to South Korea to stand alongside the Republic of Korea Army. Voss later wrote, “There was no honor to be won by firing upon this death-defying act of comradeship.”. IN MEMORY OF THE MEN OF THE 157TH REGIMENT, 45TH INFANTRY DIVISION WHO MADE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE The following list compiled by the American Battle Monuments Commission consists of 615 men of the 157th Regiment, 45th Infantry Division who were killed in action during WWII and interred in American Military Cemeteries throughout … The Germans were so impressed by the courageous resistance their foe had offered, the prisoners were treated with full honors before they were marched off to captivity. On January 29, 1945, my late father Felix A. Cizewski was assigned as a replacement to the 45th Signal Company. Markham. Sparks went on to rebuild the postwar Colorado National Guard and would eventually rise to command it. [31] After initially encountering resistance from armor of the Herman Goering Division, the division advanced, supported by paratroopers of the 505th Parachute Regimental Combat Team, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, who landed inland on 11 July. O’Brien agreed and sent word to the 45th Division requesting to do so. The 157th was typically given the 158th Field Artillery Battalion, an Oklahoma National Guard unit, as its direct support artillery. [54], After the crossing was complete, the division was relieved from V Corps and assigned to Major General Wade H. Haislip's XV Corps. Seventh Army, along with Free French forces, were able to advance north quickly. By 31 May, the German defenses were shattered, and the 45th Division turned northwest, toward the Alban Hills and Rome. Medal Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on the night of 12-13 September 1944, near Grammont, France. Still, they held out, refusing to give in and praying for their fellow Thunderbirds to reach them. Fighting raged for over an hour before the Germans were repulsed; 50 bodies littered the ground in front of Company K. About half of them lay together in a group, killed by machine-gun fire. Up the trail, Sparks stood in the hatch of the leading tank, urging its driver forward. Mann climbed out of the jeep and found a horrifying sight. On Hill 420, Company G with its platoon from Company E now occupied positions just south of Company K. As the sun rose over the frozen landscape, German troops attacked from close range and achieved almost complete surprise. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das) Portrait of Maj. Gen. Fred Daugherty, commanding general of the 45th Infantry Division, Oklahoma National Guard. These attacks were beaten back, but they distracted the Americans from the effort to relieve the five companies on the hills ahead. A sergeant from Company K recalled, “It was the worst mess I ever saw. At one point he heard the rumbling of an engine; soon an American tank lumbered into view. But the mule drivers were shot and buried in the holes they had dug. The Germans were liberally equipped with automatic weapons. After linking up with the British Eighth Army, which had advanced from the south, the combined force, under the 15th Army Group, commanded by British General Sir Harold Alexander, was stalled when it reached the Gustav Line. All the rest, including the entire platoon from Company E, were lost. Mann found Sparks a curious figure. Bronze Star. In late morning the battalion antitank platoon moved up the same route, accompanied by three M-8 armored cars. XHTML: You can use these tags:
. He scanned it with his binoculars and saw a small bridge to his left. Sparks was thrown several yards away, flying through the air to land on pristine white snow nearby. Sheeran later joked that they did so without complaint, likely hoping that he and his buddies would change their minds. Voss remembered it as the worst he ever experienced: “Shells rained upon us like hail in a thunderstorm.” He couldn’t understand how the Americans could mass such fire in one place. Brand New. [105], The 45th Infantry Division, along with the 7th Infantry Division, fought off repeated Chinese attacks all along the front line throughout 1952, and Chinese forces frequently attacked Old Baldy Hill into the fall of that year. 45th Division, rememberances of the veterans of the 157th Infantry Regiment. The encircling Germans were no better off, but for the moment they had the upper hand. The following year, on 10 September 1946, the 45th Infantry Division was reconstituted as a National Guard unit. [94] The involvement of the National Guard in the fighting in Korea was further expanded when the 40th Infantry Division of the California Army National Guard received warning orders for deployment as well. A Salute to Van T. Barfoot: Hero of the 45th Infantry Division . After dark, Voss and his machine-gun crew were reassigned to a different company and again sent up the hill. A battalion of the 179th Infantry was coming up to help. The 157th Regiment was pulled off the line on January 21. Lucas sent famed U.S. Army Ranger leader Colonel William Orlando Darby to assume command of the 157th Infantry, and the Germans were repulsed. [39] The advance continued, with Aschaffenburg falling on 3 April, and Nuremberg on the 20th. [7], The 45th Infantry Division Museum is located in Oklahoma City, and includes a substantial collection of cartoons by World War II cartoonist Bill Mauldin, who served with it during the war. When the Finns dropped out of the war in September 1944, the division was ordered to withdraw through Norway. 45th Infantry Division shoulder sleeve insignia. “You can imagine how glad we were to see that guy,” Melton said. When it arrived in Korea, only half the division's manpower were National Guard troops, and over 4,500 guardsmen left between May and July 1952, continually replaced by more active duty troops, including an increasing number of African Americans. Some of the German troops were camp guards; the others were sick and wounded troops from a nearby hospital. 157th Infantry Regiment 179th Infantry Regiment 180th Infantry regiment Temperatures were below freezing and showed every sign of staying there. Wilkin. The antitank platoon was recalled to form the battalion reserve. Those half dozen were from the German 476th Infantry Regiment, 256th Division. Would any relative of any member of his outfit maybe have any info about my uncle Len? Lucas then moved the rest of the 45th Division to the left-center of the perimeter, at Aprilia and along the west branch of the Mussolini Canal. Thanks, this is such a long shot. Then the Wehrmacht mule drivers were given shovels and ordered to "dig their own shallow graves". Constituted 8 February 1879 in the Colorado National Guard as the 1st Infantry Battalion. The infantry continued forward until forced back. One of the battalion officers told O’Brien about Sparks leading the tanks on a rescue effort. Some of the victims apparently had died only hours before the 45th Division entered the camp, while many others lay where they had died in states of decomposition that overwhelmed the soldiers' senses. The 1st and 3rd Infantry Divisions, commanded by Major Generals Terry Allen and Lucian Truscott respectively, sailed from ports in Tunisia, while the 45th Infantry Division, under Major General Troy H. Middleton, sailed from the United States via Oran in Algeria. This mission succeeded after a brief firefight and temporarily opened the road. He took off his web gear and gave another soldier his Thompson sub-machine gun so he could run faster. At any second a burst of fire could cut Sparks down, but for some reason no one shot at him. Voss viewed the man through his binoculars and thought he was an officer. The 45th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the United States Army, part of the Oklahoma Army National Guard, from 1920 to 1968. Only two soldiers made it back to the 157th’s lines: Pfc. The 158th Infantry Regiment ( 45th Infantry Division 157th Infantry Regiment Operations Moletta River Line Anzio Campaign CD 1 32 Pages - PDF. Ammunition and food were almost gone and there was little to be done for the wounded. One of them was a squad leader, Sergeant Bernard Fleming. Mann didn’t know it, but Sparks had grown up hunting in Arizona to help feed his family during the Depression. There were 25 officers among the prisoners, and they were received at the 11th Regiment headquarters with dignity. Along with Anzio and Dachau, the battle was Sparks’s worst memory of the war. Though the batteries were slowly dying in the cold, the surrounded companies still had tenuous radio contact with their headquarters. When they heard Fleming’s men firing, they made their way over. It was again an infantry regiment of the 45th Infantry Division during and after World War II. The SS officers also promised not to mistreat any prisoners. [93][97] Nevertheless, it was not deployed to Korea until December 1951, when its advanced training was complete. [14] The new insignia featured the Thunderbird, another Native American symbol, and was approved in 1939. While he exulted in the small victory, he wondered what would happen when the Americans sent more tanks. At the end of World War II, it contained 89 divisions, but by 1950, there were just 10 active divisions in the force, along with a few reserve divisions such as the 45th Infantry Division which were combat-ineffective. My moms’ older brother PFC Leonard F. Ordway Co. H 157 Infantry 45 Infantry Div. He felt more comfortable with a shotgun than a carbine or rifle; he didn’t feel he could shoot either as well. [text_ad]. Two regiments of the 45th (the 179th and 157th Infantry) were sent to the Aprilia sector to reinforce the British. Private First Class Leonard E. Adams 157th Infantry Regiment 01/21/1945 Private Howard M. Anchors 180th Infantry Regiment 06/03/1944 Private Zeno P. Babarski 157th Infantry Regiment 06/04/1945 Like the American units, the 6th SS had problems with the quality of its replacements and little time to properly rest and reconstitute. The division received seven distinguished unit citations and eight campaign streamers during the conflict. Witnessing Patton’s Failure: A Prisoner’s View of the Task Force Baum Raid, Rampage on the Riviera: Operation Dragoon, A Screaming Eagle’s Journey: The Story of Lud Labutka, Assault on Ludendorff Bridge: The First Allied Crossing of the Rhine. One such involved the encirclement and destruction of an American infantry battalion during five days of combat so intense that even veterans of Anzio were shocked by its ferocity. After investigating the incident, the Army considered court-martialling several officers involved, but Patton successfully intervened. At about the same time, the regiment was ordered to prepare to fall back as part of a larger movement by the U.S. After refitting in Denmark, the unit was earmarked for the Ardennes but was instead sent farther south for Operation Nordwind where it engaged the Americans in the Vosges. By late afternoon Company B was down to 22 effectives in its rifle platoons, and there were only two machine gunners left from the weapons company. See: As a result of this effort, two 45th Infantry Division units existed between 1952 and 1953; the mostly Active-duty 45th Infantry Division (AUS) in Korea, and the National Guard 45th Infantry Division (NGUS) in Oklahoma. When Sparks was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on January 18, Frederick denied it. Before long artillery started falling, sending lethal shards of shrapnel ripping through the freezing air. Just over an hour later, as Company G was attacking to reach Company K’s left flank, a general German attack began along the entire local front line. [104], The division remained as a unit of the Oklahoma National Guard, and participated in no major actions throughout the rest of the 1950s save regular weekend and summer training exercises. The sleeping bag absorbed much of the blast and, though in shock, he was uninjured. Artillery and armored assets were also given to the division. [17] With poor weather and bad equipment, the undertrained 45th Infantry Division was criticized by officers who considered it "feeble. That essentially ended the efforts for January 18. [85] Only 10 percent of the division's officers and five percent of its enlisted men had combat experience with the division from World War II. Still, the 157th had the same problems as other RCTs in the winter of 1945.