Private First Class Charles F. Dieckman 39591077

Private First Class Charles F. Dieckman 39591077 KIA US Army. Born 25 August 1918 in Marshalltown, Iowa. He attended Denver schools and was a student at Boulevard, Baker Junior High, and a graduate of West High School in 1936. Prior to entering military service on 29 June 1944, at the age of 25. Charles Dieckman was an Army Air Forces Procurement Inspector at the Firestone Rubber Company plant at Santa Ana, California. He received his preliminary training at Camp Hood, Texas, with Company C, 153rd Battalion, 91st Regiment, IRTC. Shipping overseas late in 1944, he was with Company K, 9th Infantry, 2nd Division, First Army, then embroiled in the great Battle of the Bulge (ETO). Stubbornly holding a shoulder of the enemy salient caused by the Ardennes break-through, the 2nd Division went on to recapture all ground lost, and in February and March stormed key German towns in its thrust to the Rhine. The river defenses were breached in the First Army’s spectacular crossing over the intact Ludendorff Bridge in the Remagen area, with the subsequent establishing of a bridgehead on the east bank. In the hard fighting on 26 March 1945, the very day that the First Army broke out of the bridgehead and began its race toward Frankfurt, Private First Class Dieckman was struck and killed instantly by a sniper’s bullet, at the age of 26. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart Medal (PHM). Charles Frederick Dieckman was the son of Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Clark, of 1043 Cherokee Street, Denver. He is also the brother of Gunner’s Mate, 2d Class Harold A Degnan.

 

Source:

1- THE FIGHTING MEN OF Colorado – Asiatic-Pacific Theater World War Two – 1948

2- https://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=893&mtch=1&cat=WR26&tf=F&q=Charles+F.+Dieckman&bc=,sl,sd&rpp=10&pg=1&rid=8014287