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WWII 1st Ranger BN Grouping - Captured at Cisterna


KASTAUFFER
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This is the first POW grouping to a US Army Ranger I have ever found so I thought I would post it. I found this on EBay this week for the paltry sum of $50 . Who says there are no good deals on Ebay!

 

This group belonged to a Sgt from Co A and C , 1st Ranger Bn who was captured Jan 30,1944 at Cisterna . The Rangers suffered great losses in this action during the Anzio campaign.

 

He took part in the 1st Ranger Bns actions in North Africa and Sicily before he was captured and became a POW. He spent the rest of the war in Stalag IIIB.

 

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Here are the POW postcards he mailed from Stalag IIIB in Germany. What a way for a Ranger to spend the rest of the war thumbdown.gif

 

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This is my favorite item in the group. It is a letter from a T/Sgt who served with George and was sent to his brother. It describes some of the actions they were in and their service together.

 

ranger_letter.jpg

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This is for the patch collectors! In the scrapbook are numerous newspaper clippings about the Rangers. I couldnt resist taking a picture of this 1st Ranger Bn Arc used in conjunction with a 5th Army patch.

 

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Here is one way to get past censorship. This card is from George, even though it shows the sender as a US Navy sailor. He must have had the sailor mail the card for him. The location of the card is Nemours Morocco and he wanted his folks to know he was there . The Rangers were there being trained there in preperation for the landings in Sicily a few month later in Sept 1943.

 

 

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Kurt,

That is one IMPRESSIVE group of paper. Congrats!

One thing though- the Rangers never wore there patches like that so I think the news clipping might be a fake. Pity! :lol:

Allan

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Laury Allison

Very nice grouping there. My Dad worked with a man several years ago who was a member of the 1st Ranger Battalion (Darby's Rangers) and was captured at the same time as your man. I believe he was in the same POW camp as your guy too.

 

It was an honor to have known him and I still consider him to be the toughest man I have ever known. He gave me one of his 1st Ranger Battalion scrolls several years ago. I wouldn't take anything for it! The last time I saw him was a few years ago and he had just gotten his medals from St Louis....he had never received them or hadn't kept up with them over the years. He wanted to show me the medals he had gotten and was going to have them framed. I showed him and his wife the order they should go in and put his ribbon bar together for him. He had pulled out his Ike jacket from the closet with the 1st Ranger Scroll on the right shoulder and the Infantry School patch on the left. I think it had corporal stripes on it....he said they would take them away from him, but never would take the unit patches. :lol: He had several reductions in rank and had to be promoted back to sergeant once so he could afford to pay his fines. laughing1.gif

 

He would tell some wild stories and I never doubted a one of them. I never asked him about anything, but always just let him talk about what he wanted to share. I've seen him dig shrapnel that had worked it's way to the top out of his arm with his pocket knife. He had been wounded by mortar fire when he was captured and never was treated by a doctor for his wounds.

 

He was one tough man and is still one of my (and my Dad's) greatest heroes I've ever had the honor of knowing. Sadly, he passed away a couple of years ago...I still think of him often. RIP George....Rangers Lead The Way!

 

Laury

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Laury Allison
Nice patch and awesome story Laury . Those guys in the 1st Rangers sure did go " to hell and back " .

 

Kurt

 

Kurt,

 

Thanks! Those early Rangers surely did go through hell and back. You can read about what those guys did, but when you have the chance to talk to and know someone who was actually there and did it, it really puts it all in a different perspective. I had a Great-Uncle who was in the 5th Ranger Battalion, but I never knew him as he didn't survive the war. I did find his name on the WWII Ranger Memorial at Fort Benning.

 

My friend from the 1st Battalion was one of the first group of replacements to Darby's Rangers. He was with them through North Africa until he was captured in Italy. He was repatriated and stayed in the Army for a while afterwards....about 12 years if I remember right. He passed away in 2005, which is actually pretty amazing considering what those guys went through. They sure made some history! thumbsup.gif

 

Laury

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Great thread!!

 

Kurt, this is just a wonderful grouping. The letters always add so much.

 

Laury, I loved the story of your guy and the scroll.

 

Thanks to both of you for posting and it's good to know both your guys survived the war.

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Laury Allison
Great thread!!

 

Kurt, this is just a wonderful grouping. The letters always add so much.

 

Laury, I loved the story of your guy and the scroll.

 

Thanks to both of you for posting and it's good to know both your guys survived the war.

 

 

You are most welcome. Those men went through things that most of us can't even imagine in our worst nightmares. They were beaten, tortured, starved, and damn near worked to death. For whatever sins they may have committed on this earth, I sure hope they have a nice soft spot in "Ranger Heaven" with an endless supply of good whisky and cigarettes....they certainly earned it!!! That they survived the ordeal they went through and lived as long as they did is a testiment to just how tough they were. I'm sure the remaining years of their lives were haunted by demons and nightmares that most of us will hopefully never know.

 

I just pulled my guy up on NARA...he was in Stalag 2B at Hammerstein, which was apparantly a work camp. I remember him telling me when he was liberated, he "hitched" a ride on a tank (they wouldn't let him inside of it because he was ate up with lice and other vermon). He rode into Berlin on top of a tank. He stayed in Germany after the war for a period, I'm sure he had enough points to rotate home, but volunteered to stay....heck, he was making too much money to go home. The "black market" was good in 1945...coffee, sugar, gas, etc. He told me the Germans had money to buy stuff then, but there wasn't anything for them to buy. When he was thrown out of Germany (that is another story), he had 83 thousand dollars in a bank account that he had to leave behind. This was 1945 dollars! He had just sold a G.I. truck full of gas and was sitting in a bar and had a drink and had just ordered his second one when the MPs came in the bar and arrested him.

 

It must have been in Italy, he said he came ashore and there was the nicest looking German helmet you ever saw on the beach. He wanted it for a souvenier really bad. He knew it was booby trapped, but dug around it for at least an hour with his bayonet. He was never able to get it though and had to leave it behind.

 

He told me when he and the other replacements joined the Rangers in North Africa, the 1st Sergeant had them in formation and cussed them out telling them that none of them were worth a damn (among other things I'm sure). He invited any of them that thought they could take him to step forward. He and his buddy stepped up to the challenge. He grabbed the 1st Sgt from behind and his buddy was going to work him over from the front. The 1st Sgt flipped him through the air and did a roundhouse kick to his buddy's forehead. He went to a Ranger reunion at Fort Benning (this was in the mid to late 1970s). And lo and behold, all three of them were there. They had all thought the other 2 had been killed in action. The 1st Sgt told them both they were the only ones in the Company that were worth a damn because they were they were the only ones that had the guts to step forward. His buddy apparantly still had a scar on his forehead from the Shirt's boot.

 

He wasn't a model soldier when he wasn't on the line. That was common in those days. He had several courts martial and Article 15 actions. He told me though that he never had a single one when he was in the Rangers. The First Sergeant would just take them out back and work them over...cuts down on paperwork that way. He was reduced in rank several times...where is velcro when you need it? He was (at least) once promoted to sergeant so he could afford to pay his fines.

 

I remember a lot of his other stories of his exploits. I'm undecided if I will post them here or not.

 

I hope I didn't steal your thunder here Kurt....your post reminded me of my guy's stuff. I'm sure they probably knew each other. Today's Rangers wouldn't be what they are without what these guys did.

 

"Rangers Lead the Way"

 

Laury

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  • 4 years later...

post-28272-1328500847.jpg

The gentleman featured in the scrapbook is my father. Circumstance was such that we never met but I've been most fortunate to first, discover this post and the excellent images and second, see and photograph his medals. He died July 2nd, 1983. May he rest in peace.

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