Entered the service from Nebraska.
------
Twin brothers Julius "Henry" Heinrich Otto Pieper and Ludwig "Louie" Julius Wilhelm Peiper were born on May 17, 1925 at Esmond, South Dakota. The sons of German immigrants Otto Henry and Anna Dicke Pieper, they had an older brother and three younger sisters (two of them also twins). During the early 1930s the family moved to a farm near Creston, Nebraska. Henry and Louie attended school in School District No.8 in Creston Township and graduated from Creston Highschool in 1942, the first set of twins to graduate from that highschool. That winter the twins began working for the Burlington Railroad in Lincoln but just a few months later, on February 17, 1943, they applied for enlistment in the US Navy Reserve. They were just 17. After getting their parents consent, the boys' enlistment applications were officially accepted on February 27th. Their brother was also serving in the US Navy.
The twins completed basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training School near North Chicago, then beginning June 28 attended Radioman School at the University of Chicago to become radiomen, graduating on November 5.
On February 3rd, RM3c Henry and Louie Pieper were assigned from the US Naval Amphibious Training Base in Solomons, Maryland to the radio room of the newly commissioned Tank Landing Ship USS LST-523. They were to be separated as per US Navy protocol, but after their father wrote to their commanding officer stating that "My sons came into this world together, and they should have the right to fight and die together", their CO relented and allowed the twins to stay together.
LST-523, also known by her nickname "Stardust", sailed from Bayone, New Jersey to Boston, Massachusetts then up to Halifax, Nova Scotia where in March she joined a large convoy heading for Plymouth, England. On June 1st, the twins were both promoted to Radioman's Mate 2nd Class.
Assigned to Western Task Force, Force B (Follow-Up), LST-523 and her crew took part in Operation Overload, supplying men, vehicles, supplies, and equipment to Utah and Omaha Beaches at Normandy and taking the dead, wounded, and POWs back to England.
They made their first round trip from England to the Normandy beachhead on DDay that landing the ship did not get to shore at Omaha Beach as far as it needed to, resulting in a number of offloading vehicles sinking. A second round trip was made a few days later, this time to Utah Beach. That landing went successfully. The ship would only complete one way of her next trip, and there would be no third landing.
On June 18, USS LST-523 sailed from Portsmouth, England with her crew of approximately 145, a 40-man strong medical team, materials and roughly 200 men of the Second Echelon of the 300th Combat Engineer Battalion, and an unknown number of men from the 207th Combat Engineer Battalion. They crossed the Channel the night of June 18-19 and anchored in the anchorage area a mile or so off shore from Utah Beach the morning of June 19th, waiting for their turn at the beach. A major storm had unexpectedly rolled in early that morning and the sea was very rough. USS LST-523 was trailing USS LST-27 in the formation waiting to unload but after LST-27's anchor got snagged in underwater wreckage as she moved in towards shore "Stardust" was ordered to take her place. At shortly after 1300 USS LST-523 lifted anchor and started to move in toward the beach. At 1315 a huge explosion ripped through the ship, tearing it in two just forward of the superstructure. The stern half stopped dead in the water and sank within minutes, the bow half continued forward for about 600 yards before coming to a stop. The bow quickly settled and grounded on a sand bar with part of the deck at the other end jutting out of the water. USS LST-523 had hit a large underwater German magnetic mine.
It was mess time when the ship hit the mine which resulted in major casualties, among them over 200 dead, as the concentrated point of the explosion happened in the area of the ship where a large portion of the personnel on board were gathered for lunch: the mess line, the eating area, and in the mess kit washing line. The ship was carrying large quantities of ammunition which added to the power of the explosion.
Among the 111 dead crewmembers were RM2c Julius Pieper and RM2c Ludwig Pieper. They were 19 years old. Two days before their death, they had written a letter to their parents which included the line, "Do not worry about us. We are together."
On July 30th, over 300 people attended a memorial service for the twins at the St. Peter's Lutheran Church in their hometown of Creston. They were the first Creston boys to be killed in the war and the town's American Legion Pieper Post No. 306 is named after them.
Louie's body was recovered and buried in the Normandy American Cemetery. After the war, during the US fallen servicemen repatriation program, his family chose for him to remain there, and his final resting place is in the cemetery's plot E.15.39.
Henry's name was transcribed on Normandy American Cemetery's Walls of the Missing as his body was not able to be recovered or identified. But as of November 2017, a rosette has been placed beside his name on the Wall, showing that RM2c Ludwig Pieper now has a known gravesite. In 1961 a French salvage team had discovered several sets of remains while diving on the wreck of USS LST-523, including in the ship's radio room. The remains were turned over to US authorities in Europe. One particular set of remains was buried at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium on September 8, 1965 in a grave simply marked as "Unknown". In April 2017, those remains were disinterred and sent to Offutt Laboratory. Dental and chest X-ray records confirmed the identity: it was Henry Pieper. He now lies beside his twin brother.
Entered the service from Nebraska.
------
Twin brothers Julius "Henry" Heinrich Otto Pieper and Ludwig "Louie" Julius Wilhelm Peiper were born on May 17, 1925 at Esmond, South Dakota. The sons of German immigrants Otto Henry and Anna Dicke Pieper, they had an older brother and three younger sisters (two of them also twins). During the early 1930s the family moved to a farm near Creston, Nebraska. Henry and Louie attended school in School District No.8 in Creston Township and graduated from Creston Highschool in 1942, the first set of twins to graduate from that highschool. That winter the twins began working for the Burlington Railroad in Lincoln but just a few months later, on February 17, 1943, they applied for enlistment in the US Navy Reserve. They were just 17. After getting their parents consent, the boys' enlistment applications were officially accepted on February 27th. Their brother was also serving in the US Navy.
The twins completed basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training School near North Chicago, then beginning June 28 attended Radioman School at the University of Chicago to become radiomen, graduating on November 5.
On February 3rd, RM3c Henry and Louie Pieper were assigned from the US Naval Amphibious Training Base in Solomons, Maryland to the radio room of the newly commissioned Tank Landing Ship USS LST-523. They were to be separated as per US Navy protocol, but after their father wrote to their commanding officer stating that "My sons came into this world together, and they should have the right to fight and die together", their CO relented and allowed the twins to stay together.
LST-523, also known by her nickname "Stardust", sailed from Bayone, New Jersey to Boston, Massachusetts then up to Halifax, Nova Scotia where in March she joined a large convoy heading for Plymouth, England. On June 1st, the twins were both promoted to Radioman's Mate 2nd Class.
Assigned to Western Task Force, Force B (Follow-Up), LST-523 and her crew took part in Operation Overload, supplying men, vehicles, supplies, and equipment to Utah and Omaha Beaches at Normandy and taking the dead, wounded, and POWs back to England.
They made their first round trip from England to the Normandy beachhead on DDay that landing the ship did not get to shore at Omaha Beach as far as it needed to, resulting in a number of offloading vehicles sinking. A second round trip was made a few days later, this time to Utah Beach. That landing went successfully. The ship would only complete one way of her next trip, and there would be no third landing.
On June 18, USS LST-523 sailed from Portsmouth, England with her crew of approximately 145, a 40-man strong medical team, materials and roughly 200 men of the Second Echelon of the 300th Combat Engineer Battalion, and an unknown number of men from the 207th Combat Engineer Battalion. They crossed the Channel the night of June 18-19 and anchored in the anchorage area a mile or so off shore from Utah Beach the morning of June 19th, waiting for their turn at the beach. A major storm had unexpectedly rolled in early that morning and the sea was very rough. USS LST-523 was trailing USS LST-27 in the formation waiting to unload but after LST-27's anchor got snagged in underwater wreckage as she moved in towards shore "Stardust" was ordered to take her place. At shortly after 1300 USS LST-523 lifted anchor and started to move in toward the beach. At 1315 a huge explosion ripped through the ship, tearing it in two just forward of the superstructure. The stern half stopped dead in the water and sank within minutes, the bow half continued forward for about 600 yards before coming to a stop. The bow quickly settled and grounded on a sand bar with part of the deck at the other end jutting out of the water. USS LST-523 had hit a large underwater German magnetic mine.
It was mess time when the ship hit the mine which resulted in major casualties, among them over 200 dead, as the concentrated point of the explosion happened in the area of the ship where a large portion of the personnel on board were gathered for lunch: the mess line, the eating area, and in the mess kit washing line. The ship was carrying large quantities of ammunition which added to the power of the explosion.
Among the 111 dead crewmembers were RM2c Julius Pieper and RM2c Ludwig Pieper. They were 19 years old. Two days before their death, they had written a letter to their parents which included the line, "Do not worry about us. We are together."
On July 30th, over 300 people attended a memorial service for the twins at the St. Peter's Lutheran Church in their hometown of Creston. They were the first Creston boys to be killed in the war and the town's American Legion Pieper Post No. 306 is named after them.
Louie's body was recovered and buried in the Normandy American Cemetery. After the war, during the US fallen servicemen repatriation program, his family chose for him to remain there, and his final resting place is in the cemetery's plot E.15.39.
Henry's name was transcribed on Normandy American Cemetery's Walls of the Missing as his body was not able to be recovered or identified. But as of November 2017, a rosette has been placed beside his name on the Wall, showing that RM2c Ludwig Pieper now has a known gravesite. In 1961 a French salvage team had discovered several sets of remains while diving on the wreck of USS LST-523, including in the ship's radio room. The remains were turned over to US authorities in Europe. One particular set of remains was buried at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium on September 8, 1965 in a grave simply marked as "Unknown". In April 2017, those remains were disinterred and sent to Offutt Laboratory. Dental and chest X-ray records confirmed the identity: it was Henry Pieper. He now lies beside his twin brother.
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