Top Photo: American soldiers execute SS camp guards who have been lined up against a wall during the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

Commemorations of victory celebrations in World War II, including V-E Day on May 8 and V-J Day on August 15, usually begin with the public jubilation that erupted in the cities of the victors, but they quickly turn to reflections on the tremendous sacrifices the effort required to defeat the Axis powers. 

In the popular memory of the war, a misperception has emerged—in part due to the extraordinary efforts of esteemed scholars such as Stephen Ambrose to effectively capture the experiences of the war—of soldiers training together, enduring the crucible of combat together, then returning home with the same group of “buddies” to resume their lives and, in later years, reminisce about their experiences. While this may have been true for some units, most famously the Company E, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, of the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division, or US Marine units in the Pacific, it was not the case for most ground combat units in the war. Men who mobilized in existing National Guard units, for instance, were often scattered to the wind as experienced or overage men transferred out and new “selectees” transferred in. And the sustained combat typical of the European theater often inflicted severe casualties on units, especially those in the Mediterranean who battled for years without relief, to the point that units would be “flushed out” with new personnel several times over. 

As Alex Kershaw has argued, “celebrated units such as the 101st Airborne” dominated both headlines and the popular memory of the war with their victories in Normandy and the Bulge, but “the disasters and bloody attrition of Italy and the Vosges did not square with the more reassuring narrative of inevitable victory.”1 

This was the case for Company I of the 157th Infantry, in the famed 45th Infantry “Thunderbird” Division. Originally a National Guard unit from Burlington, a small farming community on the plains of eastern Colorado, Company I mobilized at roughly half strength, lost many of its original members to transfers to other branches, including airborne units and the US Army Air Corps, and then endured almost two years of continuous combat, from initial commitment in the invasion of Sicily in 1943 to being the first company-sized unit to reach the horrific concentration camp at Dachau in April 1945. When the company came ashore in Sicily in July 1943, most of the platoon sergeants were still original members of the company, but by February 1944, after the unit’s virtual destruction repelling a German counterattack against the beachhead at Anzio, the company had to be rebuilt almost from scratch. In January 1945, during the German Nordwind offensive in Alsace, the company was again cut off and destroyed near Reipertswiller, with only two men in the entire 3rd Battalion surviving the battle, necessitating another rebuild. Few of the men who entered Dachau in April had been with the company for more than three months, and only a handful of the men who mobilized with the company in 1940 were still in uniform when the war ended. It is a testament to the Army’s WWII-era training and replacement policies that the unit survived the war and continued to perform as effectively as it did, but any narrative of the company would suffer from a lack of primary group cohesion within the original cohort, making for a less interesting, albeit more accurate, story. 

Roots in Burlington, Colorado

In the mid-1930s, the high plains were in the midst of a global economic depression that left many farm boys eager to supplement their earnings by any available means. The National Guard company in Burlington attracted men from both the town and the surrounding communities in eastern Colorado and western Kansas. Once a month, they gathered at the “new” armory, built in 1924, to practice close order drill, attend classes on weapons familiarization, and conduct training on a variety of topics. On August 31, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt mobilized four National Guard divisions, including the 45th, into federal service for 12 months.2 The division, comprised of units from Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, spent a year training, gaining valuable experience for the existing members, and providing an organizational framework for men mobilized under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. On September 16, the men reported to their local armories where they received equipment, much of it of World War I vintage, completed administrative tasks, and suffered through medical examinations, which included immunizations updates.3  

In Burlington, Company I inducted 52 men into federal service. The normal strength of an infantry company was 187 men, so even if all 52 men remained, the Guardsmen would have comprised only 28 percent of a full-strength company. Provisions were already in place for men below the rank of captain with dependents to resign, and for the discharge of all men under 18, which further depleted this number.4  As the division moved by rail—first to Fort Sill, near Lawton, Oklahoma, then, in February 1941, to Camp Barkeley, outside of Abilene, Texas—more men left the company, either because they were overage (initially defined as over 28) or through transfer to other branches, with the Army Air Corps among the more popular. Men who earned promotion to noncommissioned officer rank, but for whom there were no vacancies in Company I, found themselves reassigned to other companies in the division. Men selected for Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, usually reported to other units after graduation.5 

During 1941, the unit remained near half strength but participated in the grueling Louisiana Maneuvers, where it generally gave a good account of itself.6  By the end of December 1941, only 22 of the original 52 inductees remained in the company, and they now comprised less than 25 percent of the unit. However, 14 of the 18 noncommissioned officers in the company were from the initial group, including several who had advanced from the rank of private, preserving the ties to the prewar unit and strengthening unit cohesion.

The division then transferred to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and conducted amphibious training at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod while receiving an infusion of new men, mostly from the eastern seaboard.7 The shift to Fort Devens marked the beginning of a period of rapid transfers for the 45th that included moves to Pine Camp (now Fort Drum), New York, in November 1942; Camp Pickett, Virginia, in January 1943; and finally Camp Patrick Henry, near Norfolk, in May. At these stops, the division trained in both amphibious and mountain warfare.8  On June 10, 1943, the 45th embarked for the Mediterranean theater and a final period of workups in North Africa in preparation for Operation Husky, the amphibious invasion of Sicily. By the end of June, only 10 of 52 original members remained, and they now comprised less than 5 percent of the full-strength unit. Still, seven of 22 noncommissioned officers were prewar men. 

Destruction in Italy

On July 10, the company landed on Sicily and soon suffered its first casualties. On July 14, near Licodia, Corporal William Hogate was the first original member of the company to be killed in action. Hogate had transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division during training, but now fate placed his unit and the 45th in the same sector on Sicily. The units were so close that William’s brother George, still in Company I, was able to participate in the retrieval of his body.9 On August 14, the front page of the Burlington Call announced his death, and today, the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Burlington is named for William Hogate.10

From Sicily, the company moved to the mainland, backstopping the landings at Salerno and fighting its way inland towards the German winter line. On September 13, near Salerno, Germans captured Lieutenant Gene Senti, an original member of the company, and held him for 27 days before he was able to escape. Senti’s National Guard experience was undoubtedly a factor in his career—he joined Company I when he was only 15.11 Two other original members were not as lucky as Senti. On November 12, near Venafro, a single German shell killed Sergeant George Kenefake and wounded Sergeant Wilbur Youtsey, both original members of the company. After recovering from his wounds, Youtsey returned to his unit, only to be killed in the breakout from Anzio on May 30, 1944. The Burlington Call eulogized both men on the front page.12

Defending the Anzio beachhead resulted in the first destruction of Company I but also proved to be its finest moment. On February 15, 1944, German forces launched a counterattack designed to split the Allied-controlled area in two and drive the attackers into the sea. The Germans aimed their counterattack at one of the few significant landmarks on the almost featureless beachhead—a bridge over an intersecting road and railway that became known to veterans as simply “The Overpass.” On the night of February 16, division headquarters ordered Company I to defend this vital feature. For five days, the defenders endured ceaseless barrages and numerous combined infantry and armored force assaults with minimal resupply but held their ground. For his efforts, First Sergeant Willard Cody, who mobilized with Company I as a private in 1940 and later led a platoon in Germany as a First Lieutenant, received one of two Legion of Merit awards presented to men from Company I, and the survivors earned the highest unit honor, the Distinguished Unit Citation. On October 5, the Burlington Record reproduced the full text of the citation under a large headline in for the proud folks back home.13  The citation read, in part:

Despite heavy enemy fire and constant enemy-pressure, exposure to inclement weather, and, at times, insufficient water, rations and ammunition, the officers and men of Company I held their positions to eliminate a threat to the solidarity of the beachhead.

After the battle, Company I needed over 150 replacements to bring it back up to its full strength of 187 men.14 

Units on either flank of Company I also had a rough time. In Company E, only two men of an original strength of over 100 survived the battle uninjured. One was Technical Sergeant Leon Siehr, an original member of the company. After becoming separated from his unit, Siehr fought on for several days alongside a British unit sent to relieve the 157th before returning to his unit in a bivouac area.15  Siehr’s good fortune ran out several months later when he too died during the breakout from the beachhead on May 28, the fourth original member of Company I to lose his life in combat. Siehr’s obituary listed him as one of only six of the original men remaining with the company at the time, two of whom were still in Italy, two others who had been evacuated to the States, and Siehr and Youtsey, who had been killed.16  If the information is accurate, after almost one year of combat, the few remaining original members of the company would have all been either transferred, wounded, or killed in combat, severing the ties between the unit and its roots. In the last surviving company roster, for December 1943, only nine of the original 52 members were still with Company I.17

Sgt. Leon M. Siehr's Grave at Fairview Cemetery.

Liberation of Dachau

The numbers of original men in Company I continued to decline, especially after Germans surrounded and virtually annihilated the unit in a counterattack near the Alsatian village of Reipertswiller in January 1945. In the entire battalion, only two soldiers, both from Company I, returned safely to American lines.18  Again the entire company had to be rebuilt from replacements and transfers from other units. Only a handful of the original members who had been home on furlough rejoined the 45th for its final drive into Germany. In late April, as German resistance collapsed, division headquarters assigned the 3rd Battalion of the 157th Infantry to a sector containing the concentration camp at Dachau. Initially, Companies K and L took the lead, but when they encountered resistance in the village of Dachau, Company I moved to the front and entered the camp. The sights and smells encountered there made a lasting impression on the men and contributed to a brief breakdown of discipline, when soldiers opened fire on a group of captured SS guards. The men killed at least 17 before officers could restore order.19  When the war in Europe finally ended the following week, the 45th Division prepared for movement to the Pacific but was still in France when news of the Japanese surrender arrived. Instead of going to fight the Japanese, the Thunderbirds were instead finally headed home. Upon reaching Boston, the men received furloughs while the headquarters reported to Camp Bowie, Texas. When the War Department officially inactivated the unit at Camp Bowie on December 3, 1945, the regimental adjutant, Lieutenant Joe Meis, an original member of Company I from Burlington, delivered the final inactivation papers.

Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, C.G., 7th Army, inspecting 1st Platoon, Co I, (157) Infantry. September 28, 1944. Behind Gen. Patch is Lt. Van T. Barfoot, holder of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and Maj. Gen. William W. Eagles, C.G., 45th Division." 45th Division Command Post. Photo by Katz, 163rd Signal Photo Company. National Archives. 45thdivision.org

The experiences of the original members of Company I demonstrate that a stable corps of personnel was a rarity in most Army infantry units during World War II. Promotion, transfers, and especially attrition wore units down, and new men arrived and had to be quickly integrated before the next operation. These new levies formed their own bonds and effectively battled the Nazis to the final liberation of Europe, but the prewar bonds established in peacetime and early mobilization training did not endure, at least not in Company I. Though the 52 men inducted with Company I in 1940 rendered excellent service, their “band of brothers” did not endure much past their first months in combat. Today, the largest gathering of Company I veterans is in Fairview Cemetery, outside of Burlington, where 12 of the original members are buried. Over the course of the war, 90 percent of the men who went overseas with the 45th Division were killed, wounded, or captured, and the division received replacements that numbered seven times its initial strength.20  It was this steady flow of trained volunteers and selectees who filled the empty places and sustained the unit, enabling it to help achieve the final victory in Europe.

• 1

  Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau. (New York: Crown, 2012), 329. 

• 2

  Leo V. Bishop, Frank J. Glasgow and George A. Fisher, editors, The Fighting Forty-Fifth: The Combat Report of an Infantry Division. (Baton Rouge, LA: Army and Navy Publishing Co., 1946), 6.

• 3

  Denver Post, Sep. 16, 1940, pp. 1, 6.

• 4

  Denver Post, Sep. 16, 1940, 6.

• 5

  Emajean Buechner, Sparks: The Combat Diary of a Battalion Commander (Rifle) WWII. (Metairie, LA: Thunderbird Press, 1991) 59.

• 6

  Flint Whitlock, The Rock of Anzio from Sicily to Dachau: A History of the U.S. 45th Infantry Division. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998) 24.

• 7

  Buechner, Sparks, 61; Whitlock, The Rock of Anzio, 26.

• 8

  Buechner, Sparks, 60.

• 9

  Robert Franklin, Medic!: How I Fought World War II with Morphine, Sulfa and Iodine Swabs, (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2006) 56. “Doc” Franklin was a medic assigned to I Company just before the invasion of Sicily. His memoir is the definitive history of Company I’s time in combat.

• 10

  The Burlington Call, Aug. 19, 1943; https://www.facebook.com/people/VFW-Post-6491/100083366145272/ accessed on Apr. 17, 2025.

• 11

  The Burlington Call, Nov. 4, 1943

• 12

  The Burlington Record, Jun. 22, 1944.

• 13

  The 157th Infantry Regiment, History of the 157th Infantry Regiment (Rifle): 4 June ’43 – 8 May’45 (Baton Rouge: Army and Navy Publishing Company, 1946) 182-3; The Burlington Record, Oct. 5, 1944.

• 14

  Franklin, Medic!, 101. 

• 15

  Bishop, et al., The Fighting Forty-Fifth, 77. The other man was the company commander, Capt. Felix Sparks, the subject of Kershaw’s The Liberator.

• 16

  The Burlington Record, Jun. 29, 1944.

• 17

  Pay Roll of Company I, 157th Infantry for Month of December, 1943. National Personnel Records Center. Records from 1944 and 45 were destroyed in a fire at the NPRC on 12 July 1973.

• 18

  Buechner, Sparks, 108; “The 157th Infantry Regiment,” 135-6.

• 19

  Kershaw, The Liberator, 288.

• 20

  Kershaw, The Liberator, 329.