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Afterwards, soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Felix L. Sparks, approaching the sprawling Dachau complex from the southwest, found 39 railway boxcars containing some 2,000 skeletal corpses parked on rail tracks just outside the complex itself. Brain tissue was ...
The 45th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the United States Army, most associated with the Oklahoma Army National Guard, from 1920 to 1968.Headquartered for most of its history in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the guardsmen fought in both World War II and the Korean War.
Assigned to the 45th Infantry Division, Sparks served with the division's 157th Infantry Regiment throughout the war, from its arrival in North Africa through combat in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. Near the end of the war, Sparks was commander of the 157th Infantry's 3rd Battalion, which he led during its participation in the liberation ...
After the Dachau concentration camp was liberated on 29 April 1945 by units of the 42nd and 45th Infantry Divisions of the Seventh United States Army, the liberators found 3,000 corpses and several thousand people vegetating.
Maroney, originally from Chicago, was part of the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division. Shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve in 1944, German forces launched a major offensive in ...
Dachau was the concentration camp that was in operation the longest, from March 1933 to April 1945, nearly all twelve years of the Nazi regime. Dachau's close proximity to Munich, where Hitler came to power and where the Nazi Party had its official headquarters, made Dachau a convenient location. From 1933 to 1938, the prisoners were mainly ...
The 157th Infantry was relieved 10 May 1946 from assignment to the 45th infantry Division. It was reorganized and federally recognized 8 January 1947 with headquarters at Buckley Field; the location of headquarters was changed 3 September 1947 to Denver. The regiment was broken up on 1 August 1955, and elements were converted and redesignated ...
His 2012 book, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau, tells the story of Texas-born Felix Sparks, an officer in the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division, who participated in four amphibious invasions in Europe and commanded the Thunderbird unit that liberated ...