Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
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208048
Pfc. Richard M. Rairdon
US Army Co. C 314th Infantry Regiment
from:DeGraff, OH
My father, Richard M. Rairdon, PFC., was captured in November of 1944 and spent much of the time he was a POW at Stalag 12A, Limburg. He was nearly starved to death and received a second Purple Heart for the damage he received to his feet as a result of the severe frost bite he also suffered.
He also related to me the story of the Dec. 24, 1944 bombing which killed the officers in their barracks. He was assigned the next day, Christmas, to removing the remains of the dead officers. He also helped remove the only two who survived and carried them out. He was reunited with those two men in the 1990's after I recognized an account of this same story in the Catholic Digest, written by one of the men! Amazing coincidence that I found the story.
Dad was liberated on April 14, 1945 from prison camp by an American tank unit.