WW2 American Memorial Card of Sgt. Charles McMillan. (Silver Star Recipient)

Charles was born on May 22nd 1916 in Canandaigua, New York. Prior to enlisting, Charles worked as a hotel clerk. He would enlist into the Armed Forces on March 25th 1941. During the war he would serve with the 315th infantry Regiment within the 79th Infantry Division. He would get Married to a Dorothy Morgan on March 18th 1943 and would have a son named Richard.

The 79th Infantry Division would go overseas on April 7th 1944 and would arrive in Liverpool on April 17th, they began training in amphibious operations. After training in the United Kingdom from 17 April 1944, the 79th Infantry Division landed on Utah Beach, Normandy, 12–14 June and entered combat 19 June 1944. They would push their way through France and into Germany.

On April 7th 1945, the 79th were securing the North bank of the Ruhr and took part in clearing the Ruhr Pocket.

Sgt McMillan was awarded the Purple Heart and Silver Star Medal posthumously. The citation cited: On 7 April 1945, after the encirclement of the enemy was accomplished and the process of cleaning out enemy resistance within the circle begun, the observation post group, including Sgt McMillan and two air-liasion officers started to check the position on the flank of the battalion, when they came under fire from enemy from their rear. After a fire fight, the enemy was driven off, one of the liasion officers was missing and it was surmised that he had returned in the direction from which the group had come. Sgt McMillan volunteered to search for the officer and also to convey information to the companies regarding the enemy activity. Successfully reaching the companies under enemy fire, he found the officer and started back to the observation post group. About twenty minutes later, Sgt McMillan's body was found, riddled by seventeen bullets. Interrogation of subsequently captured enemy soldiers revealed that a force of eight or ten German Soldiers opened fire on him with machine pistols and he had valiantly returned fire until his death.

Charles would almost make it through the war but was unfortunately killed exactly 1 month before the War in Europe ended.

In the memorial card, there are excerpts from letters he had sent home as well as a poem that was found in his Bible on his body.



Charles is buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial Margraten, Eijsden-Margraten Municipality, Limburg, Netherlands.

 

Very nice, thanks much for that.

 

hi,
I was wondering where you got this tribute. I would like to make up one for my uncle

 

I do have a few memorial cards for American soldiers, but they aren’t exactly like this one. I believe this is the only pamphlet style one I have.

 

Hello! And I got this from eBay. It was actually made by the family back during WW2. But there are many websites you can use to create a memorial like this online.