Robert G. Willenbaker Memorial Page

Like many other brave soldiers  in a proud tradition before him; he gave what Abraham Lincoln called: "the last full measure..."

The following is taken from the Ellenville High School newspaper "The Quill" of September 7th 1944:

"Robert Baker '43 is dead....he paid the supreme price in the gigantic struggle to preserve the things he stood for-- sportsmanship, clean play, and the spirit of competition. But he is not really dead- his spirit will serve as a lasting inspiration for all clean-living youths of EHS. For Bob, with his natural ways and winning smile, was an excellent example of fine, young American manhood. During his first year, as president of the Student Council, Baker, did much to advance school spirit, and as a result was unanimously re-elected. Active in athletics and dramatics, Bob was assistant baseball coach on the 1943 championship team and distinguished himself in softball by consistently pitching good games in the Village League. His dramatic ability earned him the honor of National Thespian. And then there was that June night in 1943 when he was presented with the Class of 1932 Good Fellowship Award. It couldn't have been given to a finer fellow. Now we of EHS are filled with sorrow as are all others who knew Bob. He was a boy among boys, a friend among friends. We pledge ourselves to the task of upholding the principles for which he stood. So long, Bob..."

From "The Quill" November 30th, 1944: Student Council Plans to Present Monument "The student council chose a committee who will present a monument in honor of Bob Baker at its regular Meeting last week. The committee consists of: Jean Hopkins, chairman; Emanual Wicentowsky, Harold Lazar, Joseph Hart and June Hoerner."
                                

"Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier
dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war".
Otto Von Bismarck

Gone But Not Forgotten

The following is an excerpt from The Ellenville Press of May 4th 1944: "Pvt. Robert G. Willenbaker who has made his home with Mr. and Mrs. M. D. Schoonmaker since the age of four years, is now seeing service somewhere in Africa. "Bob" is a graduate of the Ellenville High School class of '43, was elected, President of the Student Council in 1942 and re-elected in 1943. He enlisted in June and in October, 1943 was inducted at Camp Dix and received his basic training at Camp Croft, S.C. In 1942-43 Bob wrote the School Sports as reported in the Ellenville Press, making his own layouts and headings- incidentally he will be interested in Journalism when he returns to the States. He was awarded the Good Fellowship medal last June. His brother, Cpl. William E. Willenbaker, of the 830th Signal Service Company is now in England after seven months service in West Africa. Bill is also a graduate of the local High School class of 1941".

Bob was initially reported missing in action in a telegram from Washington on July 2nd 1944 and reported Killed in Action in Italy on July 3rd 1944. "His unit was Company G, 30th Infantry of the 3rd  Division, that landed at Anzio and he was killed on the push to Rome, which I believe fell to the allies on July 4th, 1944." He was buried in a U.S. Military cemetery in Nettuno, Italy until the end of WW II, when his remains were requested to be returned to the U. S. He is interred in the family plot in The Holy Rood Cemetery,Westbury , L.I., NY.

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.
Rather we should thank God that such men lived."
- General George S. Patton, Jr

When Bob was KIA he was serving in the 3d Div units on June 3-4 fighting for Valmontone, Italy...not far from Rome...which fell on 5 June. Due to his superior marksmanship, he may have been employed as a sniper. Here is some interesting reading-I have highlighted the text dealing with Valmontone. ~Mister W.

Operation Diadem

Twenty-five Allied divisions attacked. The British 13 Corps immediately
crossed the Rapido at two points and established a small bridgehead, but the
Polish Corps assault on Monte Cassino failed with more than 50 percent of
the attacking force counted as casualties. In the II Corps area the U.S.
88th Infantry Division made slight progress against heavy resistance, while
the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division succeeded in taking Monte Majo on 13 May
after bitter fighting, breaking the Gustav Line. This FEC penetration over
rugged terrain succeeded in securing the high ground overlooking the Liri
valley and threatened not only the entire left wing of the XIV Panzer Corps,
but also the Germans at Cassino. Sensing an opportunity to widen the breach
in the Gustav Line in the Monte Majo area, both the 85th and 88th Divisions
smashed into the German positions and after savage fighting forced the
defenders back. Having lost over 40 percent of their combat strength in just
three days, with pressure building along the entire Gustav Line, and faced
with the encirclement of Cassino, the Germans began to withdraw to the
north, fighting desperate rearguard actions the entire way. By the early
morning hours of 16 May, the II Corps and FEC had broken the Gustav Line at
several points at the cost of 3,000 casualties, 1,100 in the 85th Division
alone. To the east, the British 13 Corps also broke through the German
defenses, with the Canadians pouring across the Rapido and the British 78th
Division cutting Highway 6. On 17 May the Polish Corps, supported by the
78th Division, again attacked Monte Cassino and, following a day of
ferocious combat and heavy losses, rendered the German positions untenable.
During the night the remaining enemy forces quietly retreated, allowing the
Poles to take the summit unopposed the following morning.

Having dislodged the enemy from the Gustav Line, the Allies sought to keep
the offensive moving and to prevent the Germans from settling into new
positions on the Hitler Line. Yet by the time the British advance up the
Liri valley resumed on 18-19 May, the Germans had dug in, and the Eighth
Army faced a renewed round of costly frontal assaults. In the Fifth Army
sector, however, the situation remained fluid. Because the Germans were
withdrawing northeast away from the coast to avoid being cut off, Clark made
the decision to thrust north to Fondi and Terracina to link up with the
Anzio beachhead and head toward Rome rather than relieving the pressure on
the Eighth Army's left flank as originally instructed. Ordering the FEC to
continue its offensive on the Fifth Army right.


Thereby diverting German attention from II Corps movements, Clark sent the
88th and 85th Divisions racing toward Terracina. Between 23-25 May the
Allied armies pushed the Germans back along the entire front. But while the
FEC and II Corps pierced the Hitler Line in several places, the Eighth Army
advance up the Liri valley slowed due to stubborn enemy resistance,
difficult terrain, exhaustion, and heavy casualties.

The 90,000 Allied troops of VI Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Lucian K.
Truscott, Jr., started their offensive from the Anzio beachhead as planned
on 23 May 1944. Attacking toward Cisterna, Truscott understood his ultimate
objective to be the capture of Highway 6 at Valmontone. During the following
three days of hard fighting by the U.S. 3d and 45th Infantry Divisions, the
1st Armored Division, and the 1st Special Service Force, VI Corps broke free
of the beachhead, drove inland, and threatened to drive a wedge between the
Tenth and Fourteenth Armies. In the meantime, at dawn on 24 May, a task
force of motorized infantry, engineers, tanks, and self-propelled artillery
from the 85th Division met a patrol of VI Corps engineers moving south from
Anzio, ending the 125-day isolation of the Fifth Army beachhead.

The Germans rapidly began withdrawing to the Caesar Line, an incomplete string of
fortifications extending east from the region between Anzio and Rome to a
point two miles south of Valmontone.

Alexander had intended the VI Corps breakout to be the start of the second
thrust aimed at destroying German resistance south of Rome. However, Clark
had never accepted Alexander's view that the liberation of Rome was
secondary to the destruction of the German armies in Italy. The American
Fifth Army commander was now convinced that Alexander's plan to trap the
enemy at Valmontone was impossible because of the heavy concentration of
German troops in the area. Fearing that the Caesar Line would prove too
difficult an obstacle for VI Corps, influenced by intelligence reports which
indicated that the area north of Anzio was being denuded of enemy troops,
and wanting Americans to liberate Rome, Clark decided to shift the bulk of
VI Corps to the north for an all-out drive on the Italian capital. Brushing
aside Truscott's protests, and without consulting his staff or Alexander,
Clark ordered the 3d Division and 1st Special Service Force to continue
toward Valmontone, but he directed the 1st Armored and the 34th, 45th, and
36th Infantry Divisions to join the northern advance of the 85th and 88th
Divisions.

Some historians have argued that Clark's decision to shift the direction of
the offensive allowed a significant portion of the enemy's army to escape
past Valmontone, since the weakened American forces in the vicinity and the
Eighth Army still struggling up the Liri valley thirty miles to the south
were not capable of preventing that movement. Meanwhile, north of Anzio, the
redirected Fifth Army units began to encounter increasingly stiff resistance
from enemy units now dug in on the Caesar Line. Although Alexander accepted
Clark's fait accompli with good grace, the Allies were unable to destroy the
German armies south of Rome and possibly end the Italian campaign in June
1944. In addition, the slow progress made by the 45th and 34th Divisions
between 27 and 30 May indicated the possibility of a renewed stalemate just
miles south of Rome.

Yet on the evening of 27-28 May, patrols of the 36th Division scored a major
coup when they discovered a gap between the 362d Infantry and Hermann
Goering Divisions atop Monte Artemisio. In a move which more than made up
for the 36th Division's earlier failure on the Rapido, the 141st, 142d, and
143d Infantry regiments quickly occupied the heights, and artillerymen soon
brought there weapons to bear.

To General  Truscott this was the turning point in the Allied drive to the north.
Kesselring was furious with Mackensen for allowing the ridgeline to fall and
ordered it retaken at all costs. But all of the German counterattacks
failed, and when Valmontone became untenable because of American artillery
fire, Mackensen was relieved of command and replaced by Lt. Gen. Joachim
Lemelsen.

The new Fourteenth Army commander could do little to reverse the tide of
events. When units of the II and VI Corps began to exploit the gap made by
the 36th Division, and when the FEC and Eighth Army renewed their attacks
(north of Frosinone), Kesselring was forced on 2 June to order all German
units to break off contact and withdraw north. Declaring Rome an open city
on 3 June, the Tenth and Fourteenth Armies conducted an orderly retreat
through the city. Only the suburbs were contested. On orders from Hitler,
the wholesale vandalism and demolitions that had characterized the
evacuation of Naples the previous fall were not repeated.


During the night of 4 June elements of the 1st Special Service Force, 1st
Armored Division, and the 3d, 34th, 36th, 85th, and 88th
Infantry Divisions entered Rome and quickly moved north. On the following
morning large numbers of Romans poured into the streets to give the long
columns of American soldiers still passing through Rome a tumultuous
welcome. The American troops who actually liberated the city, however, had
passed through Rome during the early morning hours in darkness and near
silence and were again engaging the Germans along a twenty-mile front on the
Tiber River.

The liberation of Rome made headlines around the world and was greeted by
the Allies with great joy. Yet the capture of this first Axis capital had a
high price. Since the start of DIADEM on 11 May, the Fifth Army had suffered
a total of 17,931 American casualties: 3,145 killed, 13,704 wounded, and
1,082 missing-30 percent of the total casualties suffered by the Americans
since Salerno in September 1943. French and British Fifth Army casualties
numbered 10,635 and 3,355 respectively. The Eighth Army counted casualties
of 11,639, bringing total Allied losses during the campaign to over 43,000.
German losses were estimated at 38,000, for both Tenth and Fourteenth
Armies, not including 15,606 prisoners of war.

The accomplishments of the Allied armies in Italy, culminating in the
capture of Rome on 5 June, were quickly overshadowed by the opening of the
long-awaited second front with the Normandy invasion (OVERLORD) on 6 June
1944. Although OVERLORD was to have been supported by a simultaneous
invasion of southern France (ANVIL-DRAGOON), the heavy fighting around
Cassino and chronic supply and manpower shortages caused this landing to be
postponed until 15 August 1944. Yet both OVERLORD and ANVIL-DRAGOON had an
immediate impact on the Italian campaign by further reducing its military
priority. After the liberation of Rome, the Allied forces in Italy received
ever less in terms of men and materiel, confirming in the minds of many
soldiers that the campaign was a holding action of secondary importance. In
addition, with the Allied high command convinced that ANVIL would have a
greater potential for tying down German forces in support of northwest
European operations, the armies in Italy were stripped of many of their best
units and equipment. By mid-July 1944 the FEC would move, along with the VI
Corps headquarters and the U.S. 3d, 36th, and 45th Infantry Divisions, to
the newly created Seventh Army preparing for ANVIL. By midsummer the Eighth
and Fifth Armies would have only 14 divisions facing the 9 divisions of the
Fourteenth Army in the west and the 8 divisions of the Tenth Army in the
east.

Dear Bill,
>
>thanks for responding to my e-mail regarding your brother Robert who was in
>the 30 Inf Regiment of the 3rd Inf. Division WWII.
>
>I am sorry to report I am unable to fill you in on any information because
>I didn't know your brother. As you know we had thousands of men in the 3rd
>Inf Div during WWII. My assignment was mostly in Division Headquarters and
>the 3rd Reconnaissance Troop. I spent very little time in Valmontone,
>Italy, but remember it. I was in the push off Anzio beach to Rome, Italy,
>and that was the area where your brother was also. We were stationed in
>Rome as garrison troops, until it was agreed upon by Gen. Mark Clark that
>we would leave Rome to go back to Naples area to prepare for the Southern
>France landing.
>
>I don't know if I told you in my e-mail, but I was originally from New York
>City, but a lot of the 3rd Inf. Div was from the west coast, because Ft Ord
>was their "home".
>
>I looked up your brother's name in the Division History book, and saw it
>there in a classification you reported - KIA.
>
>If I can be of any further service where the 3rd Div is concerned, don't
>hesitate to e-mail me again.
>
>Sorry I can't be of further assistance to you.
>
>Frank Huttman
>3rd Inf. Div WWII

> Dear Mr. Willenbaker,
> I've been following my late father's path during WWII
>as
>a Pfc. in the 3rd Division ,30th infantry Division, 2nd Battalion, Company
>"F" and Hq. Co from
>04/07/43 to the end of the war. He was Lee E. Hatfield. In the official
>history by Taggart(1947) Robert G. Willenbaker is listed as 'killed in
>action' with no specifics.
>In the 30th Regiment History,he is listed on the "Honor Roll" as having
>been
>in Company "G" . I don't know of a reprint of the 30th regiment history,
>but
>a reprint of the "History of the Third Infantry Division in World War II"
>by Taggart is available from:
> The Battery Press
> P.O. Box 198885
> Nashville, TN. 37219
> Phone / Fax - 615 - 298- 1401
> e-mail -- batterybooks@aol.com
> web -- www.sonic.net/~bstone/battery
> It is an excellent resource.
> Best of luck in your search. If I can be of any more help,please
>contact
>me. I guess we're all looking to fill in the voids. If you make any
>progress
>,I'd be glad to know.
> Yours,
> Lee Hatfield, Jr.

MEMORIAL DAY

Lest We Forget

"I will never forget.
I will keep the faith.
I will finish the mission.
I am an American soldier."

Noted in the Army News Service, May 22,2002) -- by Capt.
John Rasmussen

It was raining "cats and dogs" and I was late for physical training.
Traffic was backed up at Fort Campbell, Ky., and was moving way
too slowly. I was probably going to be late and I was growing more
and more impatient. The pace slowed almost to a standstill as I
passed Memorial Grove, the site built to honor the soldiers who
died in the Gander airplane crash, the worst redeployment accident
in the history of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

Because it was close to Memorial Day, a small American flag had
Been placed in the ground next to each soldier's memorial plaque.
My concern at the time, however, was getting past the bottleneck,
getting out of the rain and getting to PT on time. All of a sudden,
infuriatingly, just as the traffic was getting started again, the car
in front of me stopped.

A soldier, a private of course, jumped out in the pouring rain and
ran over toward the grove. I couldn't believe it! This knucklehead
was holding up everyone for who knows what kind of prank. Horns
were honking. I waited to see the butt-chewing that I wanted him to
get for making me late.

He was getting soaked to the skin. His BDUs were plastered to his
frame. I watched-as he ran up to one of the memorial plaques,
picked up the small American flag that had fallen to the ground in
the wind and the rain, and set it upright again. Then, slowly, he
came to attention, saluted, ran back to his car, and drove off.

I'll never forget that incident. That soldier, whose name I will never
know, taught me more about duty, honor, and respect than a
hundred books or a thousand lectures. That simple salute-that
single act of honoring his fallen brother and his flag-encapsulated
all the Army values in one gesture for me. It said, "I will never forget.
I will keep the faith. I will finish the mission. I am an American soldier."

I thank God for examples like that. And on this Memorial Day, I will
remember all those who paid the ultimate price for my freedom, and
one private, soaked to the skin, who honored them.

Taps
We have all heard the haunting song, "Taps."

It's the song that gives us that lump in our
throats and usually creates
tears in our eyes.  But, do you know the story
behind the song?

If not, I think you will be pleased to find out
about it's humble beginnings..........................


Reportedly, it all began in 1862 during the
Civil War, when Union Army
Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near
Harrison's Landing in
Virginia.  The Confederate Army was on the other
side of the narrow strip of land.

During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the
moans of a soldier who lay
severely wounded on the field.  Not knowing if
it was a Union or Confederate
soldier, the Captain decided to risk his life
and bring the stricken man
back for medical attention.

Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the
Captain reached the
stricken soldier and began pulling him toward
his encampment. When the
Captain finally reached his own lines, he
discovered it was actually a
Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead.
The Captain lit a lantern
and suddenly caught his breath and went numb
with shock.  In the dim
light, he saw the face of the soldier.

It was his own son.

The boy had been studying music in the South
when the war broke out.
Without telling his father, the boy enlisted in
the Confederate Army.

The following morning, heartbroken, the father
asked permission of his
superiors to give his son a full military burial
despite his enemy status.

His request was only partially granted.  The
Captain had asked if he
could have a group of Army band members play a
funeral dirge for his son
at the funeral. The request was turned down
since the soldier was a
Confederate.
But, out of respect for the father, they did say
they would give him one musician.

The Captain chose a bugler.  He asked the bugler
to play a series of
musical notes he had found on a piece of paper
in the pocket of the dead
youth's uniform.  This wish was granted.

The haunting melody, we now know as "Taps" used
at military funerals,
was born.

   Day is done
        Gone the sun
            From the Lakes
                From the hills
                   From the sky.

    All is well,
       safely rest.
            God is nigh.

    Fading light
        Dims the sight
            And a star
                Gems the sky,
                    Gleaming bright
  From afar,
        Drawing nigh,
            Falls the night.

    Thanks and praise,
        For our days,
            Neath the sun,
                Neath the stars,
                    Neath the sky,
    As we go,
        This we know,
            God is nigh.

I too, have felt the chills while listening to
"Taps" but I have never
seen all the words to the song until now.  I
didn't even know there was
more than one verse.

Tuesday 12/12/2000 7:47:30am
Name: John Wetton
Homepage Title: Wetton Aerodrome
Homepage URL: http://www,fly.to/aerodrome
Referred By: E-Mail
Location: England
Comments: Thanks, Bill, for letting me know your site was updated. Reading
the page dedicated to your late brother reminded me of a family friend who
served in Italy - he was wounded, but returned home to live many years more.
Ironically, as Allied servicemen were facing determined and costly
resistance from the Axis forces in Italy, a member of the British Parliament
(the grossly misinformed Lady Astor)literally suggested that the troops in
Italy were making the most of an 'easy' assignment and what's more, using it
to avoid being sent on the rumoured landings in France. This disgraceful
speech naturally angered all the men serving in Italy and somebody penned a
memorable protest song which lampooned their supposed 'holiday' in the
Mediteranean before reminding Lady Astor of all the Allied graves which
contained their fellow 'D-Day Dodgers' who would stay in 'Sunny Italy'
forever.
Thank you for telling your brother's story - because of men like him our
generation can live in freedom.
Best wishes, John

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