The 712th Tank Battalion landed in Normandy on June 28, 1944, three weeks after D-Day, and was on the front lines in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and Czechoslovakia for 11 months. Although it was an independent tank battalion, it was attached almost exclusively to the 90th "Texas-Oklahoma" Infantry Division, which suffered the third-highest rate of casualties of any division in the European Theater of Operations.
The 712th fought in the hedgerows of Normandy and the breakout at St. Lo. It helped encircle the German 7th Army at the Falaise Gap. It dashed across France with General George S. Patton's vaunted 3rd Army. It crossed a flooded Moselle River in November of 1944 and the Saar in December, and the Moselle again and then the Rhine in March of 1945. It fought in the Battle of the Bulge and the Siegfried Line. It guarded the treasures of the Merkers Salt Mine and liberated the Flossenburg concentration camp.
Of the 1,235 men who passed through the battalion's ranks, 101 were killed in action. Its members were awarded one Legion of Honor, three Distinguished Service Crosses, eight Croixs de Guerre, 56 Silver Stars, 362 Bronze Stars, two Presidential Unit Citations, and 498 Purple Hearts. And of the medals for valor, those were only the incidents that were witnessed and properly written up.
Robert D. Gladson received 5 battle stars, Bronze Star, Purple Heart with clusters and he served from England to Czechoslovakia.
27 июл 2013
