COONRADT, Dean William 1924-1991

COONRADT, RUNGE, BUCKNAM

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 4/22/2012 at 21:22:03

Dean William Coonradt

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#1: Social Security Death index:

DEAN W. COONRADT
B: 18 Jun 1924
D: 3 Mar 1991
AGE: 66
SSN: Iowa 482-20-5862

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#2: Findagrave.com / DM Scott:

Birth: Jun. 18, 1924, Osage, Mitchell County, Iowa.

Death: Mar. 3, 1991, Mason City, Cerro Gordo, County, Iowa.

Parents:
Ward L. Coonradt (1886-1955)
Alma Adeline Runge Coonradt (1882-1959)

Spouse:
Mildred Bucknam Coonradt (1923-2009)

Burial:
Osage Cemetery, Osage, Mitchell County, Iowa.

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#3:
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

DEAN COONRADT'S COMPANY
GUARDS NAZIS IN SURRENDER

Excerpts from a letter written by Dean Coonradt to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ward Coonradt, tell of the attack on the Siegfried line, and later the signing of peace by the Germans:

"I arrived in Engwiller, France. The following morning I went up to the front to join the company. I stayed on this one front until the 15th of March, when we stated our attack on the Siegfried Line. We were on the go from then until around the 27th of March. In those few days I really saw some HELL. I didn't mind seeing Germans dead, but it really hurt me to see my first American soldier dead. Some things I saw in those few days I will never tell anyone. When we started out we had 168 men in the company and when we were relieved we had only 31 men left.

"Just in our platoon we had 40 men, and we had only six men left at the end, so I figure myself pretty darn lucky. In the battle for the Siegfried Line you probably read all about it in the paper. But in this letter I am sending you a beach head paper that tells you all about it. I couldn't send this paper home until now, because they print the truth, and they didn't want it to fall into enemy hands.

"The town we hit in Germany was Bobenthal. That is the first taste we had in fighting in the hills and that was awful. We had to knock out a lot of pill boxes. That is a job for tanks and artillery, but we couldn't get that heavy stuff up there, so we had to take them with rifles and machine guns.

"On the following day we got relieved by another battalion. If you wanted to see some tired boys you should have seen us. We got down to a house that night and I slept like a rock until noon the next day. We were told by our commanding officer we were going to be in rest for ten days, but after the second day we were put on the front again to form a spearhead to the Rhine river. We were a bunch of tired soldiers, but we knew we had a job to do so we tore into it.

"For the next four or five days we were chasing the Jerries half way across Germany. We sure had them on the run, and they were giving up by the thousands. But after riding for days General Patch decided we didn't have enough men to go on, so we went back in rest to get some replacements. On the second day of our rest we started to get in some replacements from the states. Some of the new boys had only been in the service for six months. Again we were supposed to get ten days rest, but after we got a few men, we went back up on the front.

"If you remember right that is the time the 7th army and 103 Division started a spearhead to the Italian border. First we had to clean out a pocket that had a lot of Jerries in it. For the next few days we walked day and night and living on K rations, and what we could steal from the German people. We lost a lot of men because their feet couldn't stand it. I will never know how my feet held up undet all that walking. After that we started our drive towards the Bremmer Pass.

"You probably read about the linkup of the 411th and the 88th division of the 5th army. We had to fight our way through a snow storm in the Alp mountains. Then on the 5th of May we were called back to Innsbruck, Austria. At first we didn't know what was going on, but after we got down there we found out the Germans in this sector were going to sign a peace term, and our company was the honored company for guarding.

"We stood out in front of the city hall for four hours waiting for the German and American generals. At 3:00 they came and we had to stand at attention while they all looked us over. To sign the peace terms it took about a half hour and then our company general gave us a talk. He said we had just seen what will go down in history. All this time cameramen were taking pictures which you probably will see in the news flashed in time." -- Dean

[ Mitchell County Press, June 14, 1945 ]
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