Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Unisaw on February 18, 2018, 10:40:09 AM
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I just returned from my uncle’s funeral. Growing up, I didn’t particularly associate him with the military — it was only in the last 10 years that I heard a little about him attending reunions of his old unit. It turns out that he was a member of the Rainbow Division. From Wikipedia:
On 14 February 1945, the 42ID as a whole entered combat, taking up defensive positions near Haguenau in the Hardt Forest. After a month of extensive patrolling and active defense, the 42ID went on the offensive. On the night of February 27 Germans laid down a heavy concentration of artillery and mortar fire and under this the elements of the 6th Mountain Division were withdrawn and replaced by the 221st Volksgrenadier Regiment.
In the brief period this unit had been in the line, it had come to respect the Rainbow and fear its patrols and raids. "Is your Division a part of Roosevelt's SS?" asked one German when captured. The remark was passed along and men kidded each other about being in the Rainbow SS.[10] The 42ID attacked through the Hardt Forest, broke through the Siegfried Line, 15–21 March 1945, cleared Dahn and Busenberg, and mopped up in that general area, while the 3rd Army created and expanded bridgeheads across the Rhine. Moving across the Rhine, 31 March 1945, the 42ID captured Wertheim am Main, 1 April 1945, and Würzburg, 2–6 April 1945, after a fierce battle. Schweinfurt fell next after hand-to-hand engagements, 9–12 April 1945. Fürth, near Nürnberg, put up fanatical resistance, but was taken, 18–19 April 1945, by the 42ID.
On 25 April, the 42ID captured Donauwörth on the Danube, and, on 29 April 1945, liberated some 30,000 inmates at Dachau, a Nazi concentration camp. The 42ID passed through Munich, 30 April 1945, and ended its campaign by crossing the Austrian border north of Salzburg.
My uncle was a quiet, even-keeled man from Elkader, IA who had a long career at the Department of Agriculture. I was astounded to learn that he enlisted right after graduating from high school, was assigned to the Rainbow Division as it was reactivated and served with it until it was deactivated and sent home in 1947.
God Bless the remaining WW2 vets!
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it was the same in my family, my uncle survived D Day , died later in France.
It was never talked about in the sixties.
sorry for your loss.
:'(
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Sounds like a life well lived.
Condolences, though.