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45th Infantry Division WW2

3K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  Air Tractor 
#1 ·
My late father served as a Staff Sergeant in Headquarters Battery of the 160th Field Artillery Battalion of the 45th Infantry Division during WW2. I was wondering if there are any on this list who had relatives serving in the 45th (Thunderbird) Infantry Division during this time?

KBailey385
 
#2 ·
My Grandfather was a First Sergeant and later Master Sergeant in Service Battery, 189th FA, 45th Inf. Division during WW2. He joined the Oklahoma National Guard in 1936 in Minco, OK and was with this same unit until he was sent home from Munich, Germany in 1945 after the war. He was awarded a Bronze Star at Anzio. After the war he accepted a commission in the Army Reserve and retired a Lt. Colonel in 1968. Sadly he passed away in 1998. The old Armory building is still standing but has been given to the town of Minco by the State. It was built right before the war. I think it was a WPA project. We used to practice baseball on rainy days in there when I was in High School. Those dingy walls made it almost impossible to see the balls! Lots of broken windows too.
 
#3 ·
45th Infantry Division



lpcullen,

My Dad would have been in all the same engagements as your Grandfather: Sicily, Italy, Southern France, and Germany. Like your Grandfather, he went in on the practice landing in North Africa and saw combat in all other of the operations. My Dad also was awarded a Bronze Star at Anzio and was at Munich when the war ended. After the war he engaged in some occupation duty in Austria before returning home. The 45th Infantry Division was an outstanding Division of the US Army during WW2. Along with the 3d and 36th Divisions they left impressive records in Military History. I do appreciate so very much your Grandfather's service to our nation.
 
#4 ·
Thank you very much. I also appreciate your fathers service also. When I was a kid I would go with him to some of the 45th Division reunions. It was great seeing all those old guys together having a good time. I think that had a lot to do with me getting interested in military history and firearms (although he didn't really like guns that much and only had a shotgun and a .22 for hunting.) Do you know if the 160th also used 155mm howitzers? Or were they 105's? If you ever get a chance to come to OKC the 45th ID Museum is fantastic. I like it better than the WW2 Museum in New Orleans but that just may be personal preference. The worst story I ever heard him tell was about what he saw at Dachau. Mostly he just talked about the good times like trading some bourbon for a Harley in Italy when they took some trucks back for repairs or replacement. He said he took the Motorcycle with him to France and ended up leaving it in Germany. He was a cool dude. In the early 90's a French lady he knew during the war came over for vacation and stayed with my Grandparents for a couple of weeks. It drove my Grandma crazy and made him nervous as a cat. Luckily her English wasn't that good and my Grandma spoke no French. The whole situation was bizarre. He claimed she was only 15 when he met her in '44 and that he was "friends" with her mother. I think there was more to the story than anyone let on! Sorry to ramble. I've got a cold from hell and I think the meds are getting to me:)
 
#5 ·
45th Infantry Division



The 160th Field Artillery used the 105 Howitzer. My Dad never did attend any of the 45th Division reunions. In his later years prior to his death he told me that he really regretted not attending any of the reunions and reconnecting with his fellow Thunderbirds. I have read a great deal about the 45th ID Museum and hope one day to make a trip out to OKC to visit there. Both of my parents were from Eastern Kentucky and moved to Southern Ohio after they were married. We ended up being neighbors to a lady from Munich Germany that my Dad met during the war. She was a teenager when my Dad met her when he was doing occupation duty just before going to Austria. She ended up a few years later marrying an American GI, who was there in Occupation duty and moving to the US. It is really strange how the paths of individuals often times cross later in life. The story about your Grandfather and his friends from France was repeated many times in the lives of the American GI's I'm sure. Your Grandfather's conversation with the French lady would have been interesting to hear.

Hope you are feeling better soon. I don't know which can make one feel worse: A cold or the medication use to treat it...
 
#8 ·
Interesting. That definitely seems like a lot. Especially the MIA's. My Grandpa said they only lost one man in his battery during the war (Homer Marvel-why that name sticks in my mind I will never know) and he was run over and killed while sleeping under a deuce and a half. He mentioned a run in with some German infantry near Anzio who wanted to surrender and running into a Panzer while driving a jeep (the crew was outside of the tank so they were able to turn around and get away) but mostly the shelling bothered him. He was always jumpy around loud noises. He said the only time he fired his rifle in anger was at Salerno. I think even the cooks were put on the line there. He also told stories about a one legged prostitute with a leather stump cap plying her trade on a billiard table and his buddy killing a German officer with a M1 Carbine who was jumping out of the window of a bordello as they were going in. This same guy also convinced him to go with him in a Messerschmidt they found. He said they started it but just drove it around a little as neither one of them could figure out how to make it take off. Crazy. I think they drank a lot. I myself have lived a fairly uneventful life in comparison. I met this guy when I was a kid. He was a "teamster" and had body guards with him at the reunions. Later I visited his home in Missouri. My family thought he was in the Mafia but he wasn't Italian so who knows? He was killed in a car wreck in the 80's.
 
#10 ·
Sorry, I am not related to Jess Larsen. I think there are still something like 88,000 MIA's from WWII. Looks like the units in Italy had more MIA's than most divisions with the 34th at 3,460 and the 36th at 3,579 MIA. I have wondered about that and can only think in the mountains in Italy, artillery comes in and men are buried under dirt and rocks, like a mini avalanche, and never found. Johnh
 
#11 ·
If you look at what the T-Patchers were required to do, you can figure out why they had a lot of MIAs (actually, KIAs never recovered in probably 99% of the cases). And why Mark Clarke was never welcome in Tejas after the Italian Campaign.
 
#12 ·
I'm late to this thread. My great uncle was in the 45th. He worked in a bakery when drafted so they sent him to "bakers school" at Ft. Lee, VA. Fine with him but he ended up in the 180th Inf. as a heavy machine gunner. He was a replacement for losses suffered in Sicily. His infantry career was short-lived as he was captured at Anzio. He was with a large group of POW's. They were divided in half as the train to Germany would only hold so many. He went on the first train. Before the second train arrived, allied forces freed the remaining POW's. Uncle Willie went to stalag VII/A.

He survived the camp and came home. The civilian world was not to his liking so he rejoined the army in '47. He went to Panama then to Austria. Since he was stationed in Austria before 1955, he received the occupation medal. In the 80's or 90's the POW medal came out. He received one of those and is probably one of the few GI's that had medals for being a prisoner and an occupier. He mustered out of the Army in '57 as a Sergeant First Class.

Again, he wanted no part of civilian life so he joined the Army again as a civilian. He was stationed in Waukegan, IL then on to the Pentagon. He was in Germany for several years. He worked for the Defense Dept. until he finally retired in the early 90's.

I tried to get a job at the post office once. I jokingly asked Uncle Willie if he could "boost my score" on the post office test. He said no, but he could give me a military record that would be so airtight no one would ever question it. I'm betting he'd done that before for intelligence spooks.

Malin J. Wilhelm and his wife Mary passed, were cremated and interred at Arlington National Cemetery. I ended up with all of Willie's medals. I gathered up WW2 patches and insignia that he would have worn in WW2 and made a display. Also included is his Stalag VII/A tag. I assembled his medals into a bar, German style, for the display. Pic of Willie getting his POW medal from some general. Also, civilian superior service medal like Obama gave himself. Gary
 

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