Oral History Interview with Glenn Cleland, August 28, 2001 Page: 47
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Oral History Interview with Glenn Cleland, August 28, 2001 (Sound)
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Glenn Cleland. He was born in Rochester, Indiana on December 3, 1920. He was drafted into the Army in October 1942 and was assigned to a machine gun platoon with the 12th Armored Division, 17th Infantry Battalion. On October 3, 1944 he shipped out to England on the passenger liner MS Empress of Australia. He recalls that it took two weeks to resupply, followed by a landing at Le Havre, France. He recalls that his division was assigned to the 3rd Army and relieved the 4th Armored Division. His division was sent to the small Alsatian village of Herrlisheim on January 16, 1945, to join other units. He recalls that the Americans had captured half of the village by that time, when the Germans retook the town on January 17. By January 18 his unit was holed up in a barn when a German tank arrived, forcing them to surrender. He recalls being marched to the Rhine River, suffering frostbite and crossing the river, where he and the other POWs were loaded onto railroad cattle guards and taken to the German POW camp, Stalag VI-G in Baden Baden. He describes being interrogated by a German who had worked at the Willys Jeep factory in Toledo, Ohio before the war. He was moved several times and finally to Moosburg. He recalls that tanks from 14th Armored Division arrived outside the camp on April 29 and the guards fled. He was transferred to Munich and flown back to France on May 8, the day Germany surrendered. From there he flew back to the States on May 29, was awarded a Bronze Star and discharged on September 5, 1945.
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Oral History Interview with Glenn Cleland, August 28, 2001, text, August 28, 2001; Fredericksburg, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1603616/m1/47/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting National Museum of the Pacific War/Admiral Nimitz Foundation.