Crilley, Joseph “Joe” James, born on 08-01-1920 in Philadelphia and spent many hours of his youth at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, each a four mile walk from his home. His work was first published in 1938, a black and white wash self-portrait as a Boy Scout, on the cover of “The Quaker City Scout” magazine. He was a Life Magazine photographer
and enlisted in the American Army as a paratrooper, on 04-08-1942, following the Engineers Training School in Fort Belvoir and the Para school on 02-11-1942. As a Lieutenant of the 101st Airborne Division, C Company 326th Engineers
, he landed in the Merderet area, with the start of Operation Overlord, D-Day. The 326th Engineers were organized in November 1921 at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was wounded in the battle for Carentan and received the Purple Heart.
Joe always carried his camera with him, a Leica 35 mm, and made hundreds of interesting battlefield photos. Joe Crilley was promoted in the field, on 09-07-1944 as his Captain Francis Liberiton was paralyzed for life by a shot in the spine.
Crilley, here with the famous U.S. Lieutenant-Colonel, 502 company, 101st Airborne Division. Medal of Honour for battle in Carentan June 1944, Robert Cole, you are in charge now, Captain Liberiton said. Crilley’s Company was transferred to England again for a necessary rest and on September 17th 1944 they landed near St. Oedenrode, Holland,
for Operation Market Garden (see Richard “Dick”Winters) (see About). Robert Cole was killed by a sniper in Best, Holland during Operation Market Garden. With his company Crilley liberated the little town of Sleeuwijk Ewijk, the Americans couldn’t pronounce this name and named it Slicky Wicky. The heaviest battles for all 101st Airborne Division, “Screaming Eagles”
soldiers, Commander General Maxwell Taylor, came in Belgium. The Germans opened the Battle of the Bulge, on December 16
General Taylor was on vacation in the US at that time. They could hold the important city of Bastogne, where General Anthony McAuliffe, he replaced Maxwell Taylor, said “Nuts”













The Germans didn’t know what to do with this answer. At last General Georg Smith Patton‘s and (son) Third Army
could relieve the city. Joe was also in Berchtesgaden to visit Hitler’s house, the Berghof on the Obersalzberg, which was already plundered and destroyed by that time.











Death and burial ground of Crilley, Joseph “Joe” James.








