Henry George Stuehmeyer born 7th July 1925 ~ 14th December 2018, my father, my hero...
So here's a little of my father, the teenage boy who ran away from his orphanage "for a better life".
Seeing 33 medals, ribbons and citations pined to my father’s uniform, doesn't really tell you much.
~\~
WW2... Just one man’s tale, and there really is a great deal more to tell.
1943, 15th Oct. ~ My father enlisted into the US Army, Cannon Company C, 232nd Infantry Regiment, 42nd Rainbow Division, aged 18.
1944 ~ WW2, Marseille, “landed Dec 8th” as per my father’s war diary, aged just 18.
France, Germany and Austria ~ fighting through and across numerous known battlefields, taking close to 38 towns and cities, climbing and traversing mountains and rivers, at times in such wet and near freezing conditions, that their weapons froze up. My father and his regiment took part in the retrieval of Hitler's stolen famous art collection and treasures from the Austria salt mines.
A couple of the major battlefields, fought and taken by my father and his men:
Task Force Linden
Hatten
Operation Nordwind
Battle of the Bulge
Siegfried Line
The Rhineland Campaign ~ Aged 18, my father was awarded his 1st of 3 Bronze Stars for bravery.
Strasbourg
Wurzburg ~ Hitler’s SS stronghold. I believe it was a Schindler’s (List) shell which bounced toward and never exploded at my father’s feet.
Dachau
Munich
Nuremberg
Salzburg ~ Retrieval of Hitler's stolen art and treasures, from within the salt mines.
Hitler’s “Eagles Nest”
1945, 29th April ~ My father, aged just 19, and his men helped Liberate 32,000 Survivors at the Dachau concentration camp.
1945, 8th May ~ Victory in Europe Day The Stars and Stripes ~ ETO WAR ENDS…
Southern Germany Edition, Volume 1, Number 1., dated, Tuesday, May 8th, 1945. The Stars and Stripes newspaper, with 74 Signatures and my father, 75 great men in total, made it back home to the USA, from the original 122 young men and heroes from the Cannon Company C, who had all set off together.
1949 ~ My father transferred into the US Air Force, and he was based right across the America, even in the coldest place on earth Alaska, including numerous Air Bases throughout Europe, and R.A.F Bases across the England too. Also my father possibly took part in the Berlin Airlift as well.
1956 ~ My father witnessed the Nevada desert atomic bomb drop, he and his buddies "climbed on the top of their bunker for a better view of the mushroom", rather than viewing this from within the safety of the bunker. My father survived this, sadly his buddies did not.
1967, 9th March ~ 1969, 31st Oct. ~ Three tours of Vietnam.
35 Supply Squadron ~ Phan Rang Air Base
Vietnam Air Offensive / AFP900-1-2 9th March 1967 ~ 31st March 1968
Counterinsurgency Experience, Vietnam from 27th November 1967
35 Supply Squadron, Phan Rang AF RVN PACAF
Vietnam Air Offensive / Phase III
1st April 1968 ~ 31st October 1969. (22 months)
Also, my father rolled up his kit and placed it in his foot locker, ready and waiting for the fourth tour.
1975 ~ 1995 A further 20 years with the US Navy, whilst working for the US government.
51 years of military service, serving in all three US military forces, the US Army, US Air Force, also the US Navy too.
2015, 7th July ~ President Obama, and Michelle very kindly sent my father a 90th birthday card, wishing him a Very Happy Birthday, also a Thank You, for all that he had done for his country.
2017, 29th April ~ Dachau Memorials. I met with a good number of the fantastic and lovely Dachau Survivors including Clement Quentin and Nick Hope, their families, the directors of Dachau and Holocaust committee (Belgium), Dachau archivist and staff, the Priests and Carmelite Nuns, including so many more lovely individuals, whilst attending all the Dachau Memorials and Church services, absolutely everybody was so very kind and caring. During the first evening at my hotel, I researched online, Clement Quentin, to learn that this lovely man was very sadly just waiting to die in block number 5 at Dachau, and I'm so thankful my father and his men ‘the Liberators’ arrived at Dachau when they did. Over the four days of Memorials, Church services and the full day within the camp archives, I learnt a great deal about Dachau the first every concentration camp, built in 1933 by Heinrich Himmler, just one of 30,000+ camps to be built across Europe. I can have tears in my eyes telling of some of the stories, and somebody really knows what it was like unless they were there!
2018, 24th June ~ Dachau Survivor Nick Hope, and Henry Stuehmeyer 'Liberator', meet for the very first time in 73 years, the fantastic reunion was covered by numerous newspapers, and my ABC7 right across America.
2018, 14th December ~ Very sadly my father passed away in his sleep early this morning. I was out in Thailand visiting my son, thankfully neither of us was alone...but a couple of days later our trip to Hanoi and Vietnam felt both very difficult and upsetting because of course my father had been there during the wars.
2019, 3rd April ~ My father was honoured by President Macron, with France’s prestigious and highest award “French Knight”, the Chevalier, Légion d’Honneur Medal and award.
2020, 5th March ~ I sent in a request and application form (14 pages) to the US Military Archives in St Louis, requesting all of my fathers military service records, also an application for the re-issue of my fathers 32 medals. I have now received my fathers military records, amazingly there are a total of 140 pages covering 1943 until 1975. Also the US Army and US Air Force have very kindly said that they will re-issue 19 of my fathers wartime medals up until Vietnam, these are to follow, and what fantastic news. But, now I have a large task, to see if I can decipher and unravel all of the military codes within my fathers treasured military papers, and within the 140 pages too, so that I can 'hopefully' find some of the missing 13 medals.
2020, 28th April to 4th May ~ Dachau 75th year Memorials and ceremonies. Very sadly these precious Memorials have had to be cancelled. Survivors, Liberators, their children and families were travelling from right around the world, to attend this very special event.
I was to join a fantastic party of approximately 60 Dutch, 25 Norwegians, 16 Americans. I was to represent my father and his men from the 42nd Rainbow Division once again.
In preparation for these Memorials, my aim was to spend every minute of every day this last year, to research and find from right across the globe, using the newspapers, radio, television and as much of the media and the internet world as possible... To invite as many of the 32,000 Dachau Survivors, their children and families, all of the United States Army 42nd Rainbow Division and 45th Infantry Liberators, their families and children too. I especially and really wanted to find all of the doctors and nurses, the joiners, electricians and the plumbers, all those who supplied the clothing and the bedding, the cooks, the bakers, even the truck drivers who delivered the “stacked high” tons of bread loaves each and every day to the camp, following liberation day. In fact everyone who helped out with the rebuilding of the camp transforming it into a hospital, especially and during the following months as I’ve said, whilst everyone cared for so very many, including the extremely sick and dying Survivors. I wanted to find and invite everybody, but very sadly this was just about impossible, mainly because everyone’s attitude is “this story isn’t local, so it has nothing to do with us”, I live in North Yorkshire “You’re not a Yorkshireman, its not a story for us”, I met and talked with Granada television last June during the Normandy D-Day celebrations, “you’re not from Cheshire, it’s not a story we’d cover”. These are large hurdles or should I say mountains, for one individual myself, to try and get past, also having just recently lost my father I’ve not been myself, well it just makes the challenge even tougher at times.
2020, 22nd April ~ 6th May. Very sadly, my drive across to Amsterdam, down to Wurzburg, Munich and over to the Dachau memorials has been cancelled.
I have recorded dad’s lovely wartime friend, Raymond’s voice, telling of the tale of the Wurzburg German shell bouncing toward my father whilst he was standing at his cannon, in fact my father was standing in the middle of five 105mm Howitzer cannons. Unbelievably the shell never exploded at my father’s feet, dad men couldn’t believe it, dad said nothing, he really was shell shocked I expect! All of dads men watched the shell bouncing toward them all, but they all dived into their foxholes in case the shell exploded, and dad stood by his cannon.
I also have a recording of Raymond, telling me the story of how he witnessed my father being bullied by some of the army recruits at the training camp. When Raymond saw this, he went straight up to the recruits to ask why they were doing this, he also said that he would smash their faces in if they did it again! Raymond was a year and a half older than my father, he looked out for my father during their training days at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, and right through the war too. They remained lifetime friends.
Now very sadly, my father including all of the men from his regiment are now looking down from over 'their Rainbow' at their families and friends below, without, as I've already said the exception of one lovely and amazing gentleman, Raymond Deming. I believe Raymond is now the only infantry man still with us today, but I really wish I could find one or two more of these extraordinary men before they have all gone, could you possibly help?
My father was never injured by a bullet, dagger, shrapnel, nor amazingly by the Wurzburg German shell.
Dad had treatment and surgery for five cancers, he amazingly made it across too many battlefields to mention, films have been made and stories are still being told, and thankfully my lovely father lived through it all, and to the great age of 93, to just pass away in his sleep.
Not bad for a young orphan boy who ran away from his orphanage “for a better life”.
~\~
Who really was Henry George Stuehmeyer?
It’s difficult at times for me to tell of this teenage boy, aged 16, who ran away from his St Louis orphanage “for a better life”, whilst also leaving behind seven of his siblings. On admission into the orphanage, the nuns were told by the children’s grandfather, my great grandfather "my grandchildren are never to be singled out and sent separately to foster homes, all of the children must be kept together". All eight children were aged between 1 and 10 years of age when they were placed in the orphanage. Their father very sadly died aged only 28, from blood poisoning from an ear infection. Just two years before his death, he and his family all lost their home in America’s worst ever tornado, which sweep across three America states. The “Tri State Tornado” destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, the tornado lasted three and a half hours.
As a child my father (and his siblings) never ever had any of his own clothes, toys and or anything personal affects wise to call his own, whilst growing up in the orphanage. Everything was passed down and across from all the other orphans. Life was so very though there, so much so that at meal times, the children always helped the nuns peel the vegetables, but all the children had to eat were the vegetables peelings. Over the years my father, his brothers and sisters, all watched their best friends and friends chosen and taken away by new parents and families, and so over the years hundreds of their friends left for new homes, but this group of brothers and sisters were left behind.
So when I say, my father treasured his first ‘awarded’ infantry badge and medal, this being the first ever ‘thing’ my father had ever won, and it actually belonged to him and no one else.. you might now be able to think a little differently about who my father and who he really was, as the young teenager who joined the army “for a better life”!?
My father treasured everything, especially all of his medals, ribbons and awards, and military documentation, everything, but sadly he never spoke of them.
I miss my father so very much, more than I can say.
~\~
A YouTube clip, introduction to the 42nd Rainbow Division.
This original cine film footage, introduces you firstly to the 42nd Rainbow Div. during WW1, followed by actual WW2 cine footage of the 42nd Rainbow Div. ‘in action’, and my father could easily be one of the men on this film reel.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef_HvbhLwtc
~\~
Well I’m sorry that’s all I have at the moment, I really hope I’ve not bored you to tears, nor that you’ve fallen asleep from reading all of this.
I'd especially love to hear from everyone connected to the 42nd Rainbow Division and with regards to the Liberation of Dachau concentration camp in any way.
You’re certainly very welcome to forward any of above and especially my details, to any to anyone you wish, contact me at anytime, day or night… I’m a night owl! I welcome any amount of questions.
I look forward to hearing from you.
My very best wishes, and please take care.
Jeremy Stuehmeyer
A Veteran and Liberator's son.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET IN TOUCH, Great click here...
PS… please excuse any grammatical errors, irregular font changes, and typo’s, thank you.
So here's a little of my father, the teenage boy who ran away from his orphanage "for a better life".
Seeing 33 medals, ribbons and citations pined to my father’s uniform, doesn't really tell you much.
~\~
WW2... Just one man’s tale, and there really is a great deal more to tell.
1943, 15th Oct. ~ My father enlisted into the US Army, Cannon Company C, 232nd Infantry Regiment, 42nd Rainbow Division, aged 18.
1944 ~ WW2, Marseille, “landed Dec 8th” as per my father’s war diary, aged just 18.
France, Germany and Austria ~ fighting through and across numerous known battlefields, taking close to 38 towns and cities, climbing and traversing mountains and rivers, at times in such wet and near freezing conditions, that their weapons froze up. My father and his regiment took part in the retrieval of Hitler's stolen famous art collection and treasures from the Austria salt mines.
A couple of the major battlefields, fought and taken by my father and his men:
Task Force Linden
Hatten
Operation Nordwind
Battle of the Bulge
Siegfried Line
The Rhineland Campaign ~ Aged 18, my father was awarded his 1st of 3 Bronze Stars for bravery.
Strasbourg
Wurzburg ~ Hitler’s SS stronghold. I believe it was a Schindler’s (List) shell which bounced toward and never exploded at my father’s feet.
Dachau
Munich
Nuremberg
Salzburg ~ Retrieval of Hitler's stolen art and treasures, from within the salt mines.
Hitler’s “Eagles Nest”
1945, 29th April ~ My father, aged just 19, and his men helped Liberate 32,000 Survivors at the Dachau concentration camp.
1945, 8th May ~ Victory in Europe Day The Stars and Stripes ~ ETO WAR ENDS…
Southern Germany Edition, Volume 1, Number 1., dated, Tuesday, May 8th, 1945. The Stars and Stripes newspaper, with 74 Signatures and my father, 75 great men in total, made it back home to the USA, from the original 122 young men and heroes from the Cannon Company C, who had all set off together.
1949 ~ My father transferred into the US Air Force, and he was based right across the America, even in the coldest place on earth Alaska, including numerous Air Bases throughout Europe, and R.A.F Bases across the England too. Also my father possibly took part in the Berlin Airlift as well.
1956 ~ My father witnessed the Nevada desert atomic bomb drop, he and his buddies "climbed on the top of their bunker for a better view of the mushroom", rather than viewing this from within the safety of the bunker. My father survived this, sadly his buddies did not.
1967, 9th March ~ 1969, 31st Oct. ~ Three tours of Vietnam.
35 Supply Squadron ~ Phan Rang Air Base
Vietnam Air Offensive / AFP900-1-2 9th March 1967 ~ 31st March 1968
Counterinsurgency Experience, Vietnam from 27th November 1967
35 Supply Squadron, Phan Rang AF RVN PACAF
Vietnam Air Offensive / Phase III
1st April 1968 ~ 31st October 1969. (22 months)
Also, my father rolled up his kit and placed it in his foot locker, ready and waiting for the fourth tour.
1975 ~ 1995 A further 20 years with the US Navy, whilst working for the US government.
51 years of military service, serving in all three US military forces, the US Army, US Air Force, also the US Navy too.
2015, 7th July ~ President Obama, and Michelle very kindly sent my father a 90th birthday card, wishing him a Very Happy Birthday, also a Thank You, for all that he had done for his country.
2017, 29th April ~ Dachau Memorials. I met with a good number of the fantastic and lovely Dachau Survivors including Clement Quentin and Nick Hope, their families, the directors of Dachau and Holocaust committee (Belgium), Dachau archivist and staff, the Priests and Carmelite Nuns, including so many more lovely individuals, whilst attending all the Dachau Memorials and Church services, absolutely everybody was so very kind and caring. During the first evening at my hotel, I researched online, Clement Quentin, to learn that this lovely man was very sadly just waiting to die in block number 5 at Dachau, and I'm so thankful my father and his men ‘the Liberators’ arrived at Dachau when they did. Over the four days of Memorials, Church services and the full day within the camp archives, I learnt a great deal about Dachau the first every concentration camp, built in 1933 by Heinrich Himmler, just one of 30,000+ camps to be built across Europe. I can have tears in my eyes telling of some of the stories, and somebody really knows what it was like unless they were there!
2018, 24th June ~ Dachau Survivor Nick Hope, and Henry Stuehmeyer 'Liberator', meet for the very first time in 73 years, the fantastic reunion was covered by numerous newspapers, and my ABC7 right across America.
2018, 14th December ~ Very sadly my father passed away in his sleep early this morning. I was out in Thailand visiting my son, thankfully neither of us was alone...but a couple of days later our trip to Hanoi and Vietnam felt both very difficult and upsetting because of course my father had been there during the wars.
2019, 3rd April ~ My father was honoured by President Macron, with France’s prestigious and highest award “French Knight”, the Chevalier, Légion d’Honneur Medal and award.
2020, 5th March ~ I sent in a request and application form (14 pages) to the US Military Archives in St Louis, requesting all of my fathers military service records, also an application for the re-issue of my fathers 32 medals. I have now received my fathers military records, amazingly there are a total of 140 pages covering 1943 until 1975. Also the US Army and US Air Force have very kindly said that they will re-issue 19 of my fathers wartime medals up until Vietnam, these are to follow, and what fantastic news. But, now I have a large task, to see if I can decipher and unravel all of the military codes within my fathers treasured military papers, and within the 140 pages too, so that I can 'hopefully' find some of the missing 13 medals.
2020, 28th April to 4th May ~ Dachau 75th year Memorials and ceremonies. Very sadly these precious Memorials have had to be cancelled. Survivors, Liberators, their children and families were travelling from right around the world, to attend this very special event.
I was to join a fantastic party of approximately 60 Dutch, 25 Norwegians, 16 Americans. I was to represent my father and his men from the 42nd Rainbow Division once again.
In preparation for these Memorials, my aim was to spend every minute of every day this last year, to research and find from right across the globe, using the newspapers, radio, television and as much of the media and the internet world as possible... To invite as many of the 32,000 Dachau Survivors, their children and families, all of the United States Army 42nd Rainbow Division and 45th Infantry Liberators, their families and children too. I especially and really wanted to find all of the doctors and nurses, the joiners, electricians and the plumbers, all those who supplied the clothing and the bedding, the cooks, the bakers, even the truck drivers who delivered the “stacked high” tons of bread loaves each and every day to the camp, following liberation day. In fact everyone who helped out with the rebuilding of the camp transforming it into a hospital, especially and during the following months as I’ve said, whilst everyone cared for so very many, including the extremely sick and dying Survivors. I wanted to find and invite everybody, but very sadly this was just about impossible, mainly because everyone’s attitude is “this story isn’t local, so it has nothing to do with us”, I live in North Yorkshire “You’re not a Yorkshireman, its not a story for us”, I met and talked with Granada television last June during the Normandy D-Day celebrations, “you’re not from Cheshire, it’s not a story we’d cover”. These are large hurdles or should I say mountains, for one individual myself, to try and get past, also having just recently lost my father I’ve not been myself, well it just makes the challenge even tougher at times.
2020, 22nd April ~ 6th May. Very sadly, my drive across to Amsterdam, down to Wurzburg, Munich and over to the Dachau memorials has been cancelled.
I have recorded dad’s lovely wartime friend, Raymond’s voice, telling of the tale of the Wurzburg German shell bouncing toward my father whilst he was standing at his cannon, in fact my father was standing in the middle of five 105mm Howitzer cannons. Unbelievably the shell never exploded at my father’s feet, dad men couldn’t believe it, dad said nothing, he really was shell shocked I expect! All of dads men watched the shell bouncing toward them all, but they all dived into their foxholes in case the shell exploded, and dad stood by his cannon.
I also have a recording of Raymond, telling me the story of how he witnessed my father being bullied by some of the army recruits at the training camp. When Raymond saw this, he went straight up to the recruits to ask why they were doing this, he also said that he would smash their faces in if they did it again! Raymond was a year and a half older than my father, he looked out for my father during their training days at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, and right through the war too. They remained lifetime friends.
Now very sadly, my father including all of the men from his regiment are now looking down from over 'their Rainbow' at their families and friends below, without, as I've already said the exception of one lovely and amazing gentleman, Raymond Deming. I believe Raymond is now the only infantry man still with us today, but I really wish I could find one or two more of these extraordinary men before they have all gone, could you possibly help?
My father was never injured by a bullet, dagger, shrapnel, nor amazingly by the Wurzburg German shell.
Dad had treatment and surgery for five cancers, he amazingly made it across too many battlefields to mention, films have been made and stories are still being told, and thankfully my lovely father lived through it all, and to the great age of 93, to just pass away in his sleep.
Not bad for a young orphan boy who ran away from his orphanage “for a better life”.
~\~
Who really was Henry George Stuehmeyer?
It’s difficult at times for me to tell of this teenage boy, aged 16, who ran away from his St Louis orphanage “for a better life”, whilst also leaving behind seven of his siblings. On admission into the orphanage, the nuns were told by the children’s grandfather, my great grandfather "my grandchildren are never to be singled out and sent separately to foster homes, all of the children must be kept together". All eight children were aged between 1 and 10 years of age when they were placed in the orphanage. Their father very sadly died aged only 28, from blood poisoning from an ear infection. Just two years before his death, he and his family all lost their home in America’s worst ever tornado, which sweep across three America states. The “Tri State Tornado” destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, the tornado lasted three and a half hours.
As a child my father (and his siblings) never ever had any of his own clothes, toys and or anything personal affects wise to call his own, whilst growing up in the orphanage. Everything was passed down and across from all the other orphans. Life was so very though there, so much so that at meal times, the children always helped the nuns peel the vegetables, but all the children had to eat were the vegetables peelings. Over the years my father, his brothers and sisters, all watched their best friends and friends chosen and taken away by new parents and families, and so over the years hundreds of their friends left for new homes, but this group of brothers and sisters were left behind.
So when I say, my father treasured his first ‘awarded’ infantry badge and medal, this being the first ever ‘thing’ my father had ever won, and it actually belonged to him and no one else.. you might now be able to think a little differently about who my father and who he really was, as the young teenager who joined the army “for a better life”!?
My father treasured everything, especially all of his medals, ribbons and awards, and military documentation, everything, but sadly he never spoke of them.
I miss my father so very much, more than I can say.
~\~
A YouTube clip, introduction to the 42nd Rainbow Division.
This original cine film footage, introduces you firstly to the 42nd Rainbow Div. during WW1, followed by actual WW2 cine footage of the 42nd Rainbow Div. ‘in action’, and my father could easily be one of the men on this film reel.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef_HvbhLwtc
~\~
Well I’m sorry that’s all I have at the moment, I really hope I’ve not bored you to tears, nor that you’ve fallen asleep from reading all of this.
I'd especially love to hear from everyone connected to the 42nd Rainbow Division and with regards to the Liberation of Dachau concentration camp in any way.
You’re certainly very welcome to forward any of above and especially my details, to any to anyone you wish, contact me at anytime, day or night… I’m a night owl! I welcome any amount of questions.
I look forward to hearing from you.
My very best wishes, and please take care.
Jeremy Stuehmeyer
A Veteran and Liberator's son.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET IN TOUCH, Great click here...
PS… please excuse any grammatical errors, irregular font changes, and typo’s, thank you.