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Personal info

Full name
PEPPLE, Rueben
Date of birth
6 July 1919
Age
25
Place of birth
Cathay, Wells County, North Dakota
Hometown
Germantown, Wells County, North Dakota

Military service

Service number
37280881
Rank
Private
Function
Gunner
Unit
34th Tank Battalion,
5th Armored Division
Awards
Purple Heart

Death

Status
Died of Wounds
Date of death
18 January 1945
Place of death
Michaelsberg Abbey
Siegburg, Germany

Grave

Cemetery
American War Cemetery Margraten
Plot Row Grave
H 7 3

Immediate family

Members
Christ Pepple (father)
Sophie (Kandt) Pepple (mother)
Loraine Pepple (sister)
Adolph Pepple (brother)
Alice Pepple (sister)
Mylidia Pepple (sister)
Harold Pepple (brother)

More information

Pvt Rueben Pepple enlisted at Fort Snelling, Minnesota on 8 June 1942.

Mrs Karen Stucky (according to US Army info) adds: 'Rueben was a gunner on a tank that was hit. He was wounded and told the rest of the crew to evacuate and he stayed with the tank and was captured.'
He was taken prisoner on 15 December 1944 when his unit was fighting in the vicinity of Kufferath, Germany. He suffered from burns in his face and both hands and a bullet in his left heel. He died of these wounds and of body weakness in the Reserve Military Hospital of Siegburg on 18 January 1945 and was buried at the North-Cemetery of this village on 26 January 1944 at 0900 hrs.

Source of information: Raf Dyckmans, Peter Schouteten, Dean Johnson (Wells cty V.S.O.) www.wwiimemorial.com, www.archives.gov, www.5ad.org, www.ancestry.com - Headstone and Interment Record / 1930 census, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/18238601 - page 67

Photo source: Peter Schouteten, Karen Stucky and Susan Wold, Charlotte Magin