Company A, 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion.
Hometown: Kane (James City)
Killed in action on 3 January 1945
Rochelinval, Belgium
Age: 22
The 551st was attached to the 82nd Airborne Division and was assigned to push back the Germans from the Salm River valley. On 3 January, the battalion was to attack in the direction of Dairomont, a small village with open fields covered with fifteen inches of snow and scouts had reported the Germans having several machine guns, mortar positions and supporting armor. Recalled as the "battle of the sunken road" by those veterans there that day, the paratroopers launched the assault with A Company taking immediate small arms fire and took cover along an embankment in the snow covered field. A German tank emerged from the left, near the Laurent farm, and fired point-blank into the troopers. Another tank came from the opposite direction and began attacking the same group. The paratroopers are mowed down and some take shelter in the ditch along the road. One tank is knocked out of action with a direct hit in the tracks and the order to retreat back to the woods is given to the survivors. Sixty-eight enlisted men and three officers are killed in the fighting that day from the 155 men in A Company. On 7 January, the under strength battalion led a suicide attack across the open fields against the last enemy pocket of resistance in Rochelinval. Company A led the assault with forty-six men and were decimated by the German machine gun fire. Only seven men made it to the village edge. The rest of the battalion finally overwhelmed the German defenders and captured the village taking three hundred prisoners and killing fifty-one. After only five days of combat, 110 men were left from the original strength of 790. The casualty rate was 84%, the highest of the airborne units after its sister airborne unit, the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion.
(bio by Joel Frampton Gilfert)
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Hometown: Kane (James City)
Killed in action on 3 January 1945
Rochelinval, Belgium
Age: 22
The 551st was attached to the 82nd Airborne Division and was assigned to push back the Germans from the Salm River valley. On 3 January, the battalion was to attack in the direction of Dairomont, a small village with open fields covered with fifteen inches of snow and scouts had reported the Germans having several machine guns, mortar positions and supporting armor. Recalled as the "battle of the sunken road" by those veterans there that day, the paratroopers launched the assault with A Company taking immediate small arms fire and took cover along an embankment in the snow covered field. A German tank emerged from the left, near the Laurent farm, and fired point-blank into the troopers. Another tank came from the opposite direction and began attacking the same group. The paratroopers are mowed down and some take shelter in the ditch along the road. One tank is knocked out of action with a direct hit in the tracks and the order to retreat back to the woods is given to the survivors. Sixty-eight enlisted men and three officers are killed in the fighting that day from the 155 men in A Company. On 7 January, the under strength battalion led a suicide attack across the open fields against the last enemy pocket of resistance in Rochelinval. Company A led the assault with forty-six men and were decimated by the German machine gun fire. Only seven men made it to the village edge. The rest of the battalion finally overwhelmed the German defenders and captured the village taking three hundred prisoners and killing fifty-one. After only five days of combat, 110 men were left from the original strength of 790. The casualty rate was 84%, the highest of the airborne units after its sister airborne unit, the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion.
(bio by Joel Frampton Gilfert)
-----------
Company A, 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion.
Hometown: Kane (James City)
Killed in action on 3 January 1945
Rochelinval, Belgium
Age: 22
The 551st was attached to the 82nd Airborne Division and was assigned to push back the Germans from the Salm River valley. On 3 January, the battalion was to attack in the direction of Dairomont, a small village with open fields covered with fifteen inches of snow and scouts had reported the Germans having several machine guns, mortar positions and supporting armor. Recalled as the "battle of the sunken road" by those veterans there that day, the paratroopers launched the assault with A Company taking immediate small arms fire and took cover along an embankment in the snow covered field. A German tank emerged from the left, near the Laurent farm, and fired point-blank into the troopers. Another tank came from the opposite direction and began attacking the same group. The paratroopers are mowed down and some take shelter in the ditch along the road. One tank is knocked out of action with a direct hit in the tracks and the order to retreat back to the woods is given to the survivors. Sixty-eight enlisted men and three officers are killed in the fighting that day from the 155 men in A Company. On 7 January, the under strength battalion led a suicide attack across the open fields against the last enemy pocket of resistance in Rochelinval. Company A led the assault with forty-six men and were decimated by the German machine gun fire. Only seven men made it to the village edge. The rest of the battalion finally overwhelmed the German defenders and captured the village taking three hundred prisoners and killing fifty-one. After only five days of combat, 110 men were left from the original strength of 790. The casualty rate was 84%, the highest of the airborne units after its sister airborne unit, the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion.
(bio by Joel Frampton Gilfert)
-----------
Hometown: Kane (James City)
Killed in action on 3 January 1945
Rochelinval, Belgium
Age: 22
The 551st was attached to the 82nd Airborne Division and was assigned to push back the Germans from the Salm River valley. On 3 January, the battalion was to attack in the direction of Dairomont, a small village with open fields covered with fifteen inches of snow and scouts had reported the Germans having several machine guns, mortar positions and supporting armor. Recalled as the "battle of the sunken road" by those veterans there that day, the paratroopers launched the assault with A Company taking immediate small arms fire and took cover along an embankment in the snow covered field. A German tank emerged from the left, near the Laurent farm, and fired point-blank into the troopers. Another tank came from the opposite direction and began attacking the same group. The paratroopers are mowed down and some take shelter in the ditch along the road. One tank is knocked out of action with a direct hit in the tracks and the order to retreat back to the woods is given to the survivors. Sixty-eight enlisted men and three officers are killed in the fighting that day from the 155 men in A Company. On 7 January, the under strength battalion led a suicide attack across the open fields against the last enemy pocket of resistance in Rochelinval. Company A led the assault with forty-six men and were decimated by the German machine gun fire. Only seven men made it to the village edge. The rest of the battalion finally overwhelmed the German defenders and captured the village taking three hundred prisoners and killing fifty-one. After only five days of combat, 110 men were left from the original strength of 790. The casualty rate was 84%, the highest of the airborne units after its sister airborne unit, the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion.
(bio by Joel Frampton Gilfert)
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