Drabik, Alexander A, born on 28-02-1910 in Holland, Ohio, was the first American soldier of the 9
th Army

under General
William Simpson

to cross the Rhine River into Germany. Under heavy machine-gun fire, Drabik dashed across the
Erich Ludendorff

was executed for leaving the bridge intact, age 22, on 14-03-1945, by a flying court near Birnbach. Drabik later said, we ran down the middle of the bridge, shouting as we went.

I didn’t stop because I knew that if I kept moving they couldn’t hit me. My men were in squad column and not one of them was hit. We took cover in some bomb craters. Then we just sat and waited for others to come. That’s the way it was. Drabik was the son of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Drabik, Polish immigrants who raised thirteen children on a farm near Holland and Toledo, Ohio. Prior to his enlistment, he worked as a butcher in Holland, Ohio. Early in his military career, he distinguished himself by rescuing 120 recruits who had become lost on the California desert. Drabik was seriously wounded

during the Battle of the Bulge. He receives the Distinguished Service Cross, April 1945. On 18-08-1945, Toledo honored him and his commanding officer, Major General
John William Leonard,

with a parade.

Death and burial ground of Drabik, Alexander A.


General
John Leonard died in 1974 and Alexander Drabik was killed, at the old age of 83, in an auto accident on 28-09-1993, en route to a reunion of his unit. Drabik is buried with his wife Margarit, who died age 79 in the same accident, on the Resurrection Cemetery in Toledo, Ohio.