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name
GILES, Alexander Marvin - Date of
birth
5 March 1922 -
Age
22 -
Place of birth
Garden City, Finney County, Kansas -
Hometown
Sublette, Haskell County, Kansas
Personal info
Military service
- Service
number
37236964 -
Rank
Corporal -
Function
unknown -
Unit
D Company,
2nd Tank Battalion,
9th Armored Division
-
Awards
Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster
Death
-
Status
Missing in Action - Date of
death
24 December 1944 - Place of
death
19, Rue de Neufchâteau
Bastogne, Belgium
Grave
-
Cemetery
American War Cemetery Ardennes - Tablets of the Missing
Immediate family
-
Members
Charles L. Giles (father)
Louzell L. (Freeman) Giles (mother)
Maxine Giles (sister)
Ruth Giles (sister)
Nita Giles (sister)
Marjorie Giles (sister)
More information
His battalion commander, Lt Col Oliver Shantz, wrote a letter to his parents, explaining what happened to their son: Cpl Giles was wounded in action on 18 December 1944 along the Belgian-Luxembourg border. He was evacuated to a hospital in Bastogne. On the evening of 24 December 1944, this hospital was hit by a German shell during an artillery barrage, which killed Cpl Giles.The hospital in question was the aid station of the 20th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 10th Armored Division, located at 19, Rue de Neufchâteau in Bastogne. More than thirty wounded American soldiers and the Belgian nurse Renée Lemaire were killed in this bombardment. A plaque on the wall of the building at the spot where this aid station was situated, remembers this tragic event.
Cpl Giles is also remembered at the Valley View Cemetery in Garden City, Finney County, Kansas.
Source of information: Peter Schouteten, Raf Dyckmans, Terry Hirsch, www.abmc.gov, www.wwiimemorial.com, www.findagrave.com - Scrap, www.ancestry.com - Giles family Tree / 1930 US Census, The Tonganoxie 4 October 1945
Photo source: Danny van der Groen, www.findagrave.com - Kristi Meyers