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Personal info

Full name
SLEATOR, Robert John
Date of birth
30 November 1922
Age
22
Place of birth
Ossining, Westchester County, New York
Hometown
Ossining, Westchester County, New York

Military service

Service number
32724498
Rank
Private First Class
Function
unknown
Unit
C Company,
111th Engineer Combat Battalion,
36th Infantry Division
Awards
Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster

Death

Status
Killed in Action
Date of death
31 January 1945
Place of death
Bilwisheim, France

Grave

Cemetery
American War Cemetery Lorraine
Tablets of the Missing

Immediate family

Members
Albert G. Sleator Sr. (father)
Mary (Kohut) Sleator (mother)
Albert G. Sleator Jr. (brother)
Ann M. Sleator (sister)
George Sleator (brother)

More information

On Wednesday 31 January 1945 Pfc. Robert J. Sleator was working with 6 men from his unit to clear mines, planted by an American unit. The following is from the Company C diary on that day.

The final mention of mine work with the battalion for January ends on another somber tone. Company C sent a mine detector crew in a three-quarter ton weapons carrier to the 131st Field Artillery to sweep for mines. Eleven anti-tank mines and A-1 American mines were removed. The fuses were frozen in the mines and the detector crew loaded them on the truck and brought them back to the Battalion dump in Bilwisheim. On the way back to the company area they picked up two men from their company who had been to the showers in Bilwisheim. After all had arrived at the Battalion Supply Dump in Bilwisheim an explosion occurred killing all eight of the men instantaneously with the exact cause of the detonation unknown.

Source of information: Peter Schouteten, www.abmc.gov, www.wwiimemorial.com, www.archives.gov, www.ancestry.com - Headstone and Interment Record / WWII Draft Cards Young Men / O’Dell Family Tree / David Egerton, www.findagrave.com – Coleman 

Photo source: www.findagrave.com – Dave Hansen / Jeanne Sutherland - Ossining Newspaper - 21 February 1945, www.ancestry.com – David Egerton