29th Division, 175th Inf Reg Memorial Letter

[jasonm]

Found this letter last week at a local estate sale. Honored to be the caretaker of this letter. 

[Old Crow 1986]

Beautiful.  I'm glad Private Stroud's memorial letter found a good caretaker.

 

Bless'em all...

[Mapman]

So sad that the guys in the 29th had such a rough time.  The 175th was mostly Baltimore City (5th Regiment Armory).  The entire division was Fedealized on 3 February 1941.  My 3 uncles were in the 110th Field Artillery and lived in Carroll County, Maryland and were ordered to Pikesville Armory and activated at Ft Meade. The "Blue and Gray" of Maryland and Virginia  did lots of training and were in the Carolina Maneuvers, Camp Blandng, Florida and were happy to be headed home for Christmas and being de-federalized, "however" something happened on 6 December at Pearl Harbor and they would not be going home.  Now they found themselves taking lots of draftees.  Unlike in the movie, "Saving Private Ryan", the 29th would be one of five divisions to land on D-Day.  And "no", the relatives weren't taken out of the 29th, the "only" former National Guard Division of 5 divisions that landed on D-Day.  Had they taken relatives out of the division, the 29th wouldn't have landed on D-Day!  And my 3 uncles wouldn't have gone across Europe together.  I notice this guy had gotten wounded, probably around St. Lo.  My uncles weren't concerned to much about Omaha Beach, but asked me "what St Lo looked like"?  The city was bombed and completely destroyed during the battle.  I explained to them, "it's almost a brand-new city".  The 29th had MG Gerhardt as a Division Commander.  He was Regular Army and begged for combat time.  On D-Day, the 29th had the worst sector of the Beach.  The far-right, and the 2nd and 5th Rangers landed with them.  My Boy Scoutmaster "Joe Farinholt" was in the 175th and became the only enlisted man in WW2 to receive 4-Silver Stars.  The last one he blew a tread off of a Tiger Tank as his anti-tank unit had been killed and wounded and he single-handedly fired the gun, and quickly got back in his jeep.  As he ran the machine-gunner opened up and hit him n the legs.  He got into his jeep and headed to the command post to warn them. He lost a great deal of blood and passed out, crashing his jeep into the cp.  But he was able to give them the word and tank busters flew in and saved the day. Joe was sent to a hospital, returned to Staunton, Virginia to another hospital for 2 years, and received care for the 26 machine-gun holes in his legs. A great scoutmaster, he never complained about being on crutches or a walker.  Camping with the scouts he would comment from time to time, "We did this when I was in the army".  I never knew he was a hero until I attended a 29th reunion and he was there.  Everybody knew the guy who volunteered and completed the 29th Rangers with the British Commandoes, (de-activated before D-Day).  At Roanoke, Virginia, Major General Steve Blum announced at the banquet, that the 29th had recommended his 4-Silver Stars be upgraded to the Congressional Medal of Honor.  "Unfortunately" The Secretary of the Army kicked it back.  In less than a year in combat the division would have 3,729 killed in action with a total of 20,111 total casualties.  They had a joke about their division commander: 

General Gerhardt was a unique Division Commander that had 3 divisions: 

1 division in the field.

1 division in the hospital.

and 1 division in the cemetery. 

 

I have a story about Joe in "The WW2photogallery at:  ww2dday.com