Sawosko Jr, Carl C.

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Sawosko Jr, Carl C, born 24-11-1920, in Cook County, Illinois, USA, son of Kajeta Sawosko and Rozalia Sawosko, born Sztukowska and brother of Hedwig Sowosko; Cecille Sowosko; Edward Sowosko; Cheslana Sowosko; Joseph Sowosko, Walter J and  2 other.

Carl volontered in the National Guard on 08-12-1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  and after a year appointed in the 506th Regiment under command of Colonel, later General Major Robert Sink of the 101 Airborne Division under command of General Majoor Maxwell Davenport Taylor. .  here with John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

After a last training in England the 101 Airborne Division took their part in Operation Overlord “D-Day” The 506th PIR took off for their first combat jump at 0100hrs, 6 June 1944. In the predawn hours of DDay a combination of low clouds, and enemy anti-aircraft fire caused the break-up of the troop carrier formations. The plan called for first and Second Battalions of 506th Regiment “Easy Company”, supported by Regimental Headquarters Company, to land on Drop Zone C. This Zone was just to the south of Boutteville and to the west of St Marie du Mont, which put it about as close to the western approaches of the two lower causeways as was tactically practicable. As rapidly as it could complete its assembly, Second Battalion, reinforced by one section of demolition men, was to move westward along a line running north of St Marie du Mont toward Houdieville. From that point, the Battalion’s northern element—composed of Company E and the demolition section—was to launch an attack westward for the purpose of clearing Exit No 2. The company departed from Upottery airbase in Devon, England, and dropped over the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy, France, in the early hours of the morning of 6 June 1944. Easy Company flew in eight aircraft in Sticks #66-73, with about 17 paratroopers per stick.

Casualities of the 101 Airborne Division during their Europeann campaign. Total casualities 9.328, killed in action 1.776, wounded in action 6.388, missing in action 207 and prisoner of war 967.

By the time the company was pulled off the line, they had taken 65 casualties including 22 killed in action, including the 17 of Stick 66. Out of the 139 men of Easy Company who had left England on the night of 5 June, Major Richard Davis “Dick” Winters roster shows that there was only five officers left (Winters; his three platoon leaders Buck Compton,  Harry F. Welsh , and Warren Rousch; and Rousch’s assistant Francis L.O’Brien, as well as 69 enlisted men. Harry Welsh survived the war and died 21-01-1995, age 76,  in Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. Buck Compton, age 90 suffered a heart attack, on 25-02-2012, Harry Welsh died of heart failure on his good friend, Dick Winters’s 77th birthday. ..

Death and burial ground of Sawosko Jr, Carl C.

Sawosko Jr, Carl C, age 24, on 13-1-1945.was killed by shrapnel in action in the village of Foy, Noville (or Noville-lez-Bastogne), near Bastogne, Belgium. Private John Taylor Julian, age 20,

had been the first man in the battalion to die in 1945, but the last two weeks of 1944 had also been tough on flesh and bone. In Easy Company, bullets or shrapnel had killed five men: Private A.P. Herron, age 21,   Corporal Francis J. “Frank” Mellett, age 25, shot in the chest by a sniper. His body was transported back to New York where it is buried at Long Island National Cemetery with his parents and his brothers. Section J Section 13548, Carl C. Sawosko, John Ernest Shindoll, age 19 and Harold Dominic Webb. “Mr. Alexander” age 19,

seems to be implying that Sawosko and the other four soldiers listed with him died in late 1944, but the official US Army records all list their deaths as January 1945.

Technical Sergeant of the Easy Company, Burton Paul “Chris” Christenson later remarked that the death of Carl was one of his greatest losses. Chris survived the war and died 30-12-1998 (aged 76). Christenson was one of the 140 original Toccoa men of Easy Company. The training camp known as Camp Toombs   was conceived in 1938. The Georgia National Guard and the Works Projects Administration began construction on 17-01-1940 with the site being dedicated on 14 December 1940. Initially it was known as Camp Toombs after Confederate Civil War General Robert Toombs . But Colonel Robert Frederick  “Bounding Bob” Sink  commander of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, one of the first units to train there, did not like the name. He thought it would prompt superstitions among the arriving young recruits, that after travelling down Route 13 passed the Toccoa Casket Company they would be arriving at Camp “Tombs”. Sink persuaded the Department of the Army to change the name to Camp Toccoa. Over the years 17,000 soldiers from the 501st, 506th, 511th, and 517th Parachute Infantry Division (PID), known as the “Toccoa Men”,  trained at Camp Toccoa in preparation to defend the free world from the German offensive that was World War II.

Sawosko Jr, Carl C. body was returned back to America where he is buried at the Cemetery: Camp, Butler National Cemetery, Springfield, Section Plot: C Row:Grave:222.

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