The Story of the Century ... Continued (Association History)

Among the men of the 100th Infantry Division honored for heroism
were three who earned the Medal of Honor: Lieutenant Edward A. Silk,
398-E; Technical Sergeant Charles F. Carey, 397-HQ 2nd Bn; and Private
First Class Michael Colalillo, 398-C. In addition, Centurymen earned 36
Distinguished Service Crosses, over 500 Silver Stars, and well over 3,500
Purple Hearts. In all, in 185 days of uninterrupted ground combat, the
100th Infantry Division liberated and captured over 400 cities, towns, and
villages; defeated major elements of eight German divisions; and took
13,351 prisoners. In doing so, it sustained 916 soldiers killed in action,
3,656 wounded in action, and lost 180 men missing in action.
Perhaps the story of the most recently accounted for of the Division’s
MIAs is illustrative of the spirit of the Century Division during WWII.
While doggedly defending his position during Operation Nordwind on
January 1, 1945, Pfc. Maurice Lloyd, Company L, 399th Infantry
Regiment of Rock Island, Illinois, fired his Browning Automatic Rifle
(BAR) against the onrushing grenadiers until he was shot through the
head. By the time the Americans recovered their lost ground later in the
winter, new snow had fallen, concealing Pfc. Lloyd’s body, and he was
listed as missing in action until 1976. In that year, a French hiker taking
a cross-country route through the woods in the Low Vosges near Lemberg
found Pfc. Lloyd’s remains still in his foxhole . . . still clutching his BAR
with which he had so defiantly spat death at the attackers over 31 years
before. The remains of this soldier of the Century, which remained “face
toward the enemy” for over three decades, were finally laid to rest in
honored glory amongst his comrades in the US Army’s Ardennes
Cemetery.
Born in war, manned by many of America’s best, trained to high standards
and consistently victorious in battle, the legacy of the 100th Infantry
Division is one of singular excellence as its soldiers: earned the first EIB,
were the first to ever fight their way through the Vosges Mountains, seized
the Citadel at Bitche for the first time in its 250-year history, and was the
only unit to hold its ground during the last German offensive in the west
of World War II.
[The late LTC (Ret.) Keith E. “Kit” Bonn was an infantryman and military
historian whose father, Keith J. Bonn, was a medic in the 397th. Kit
is the author of When the Odds Were Even, a history of the Vosges
Mountains campaign of 1944–45.]
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