263037 PFC. Wallace Bruce "Allport" Bruce US Army 180th Infantry Regiment 45th Infantry Division from:Detroit, Michigan, USA My Dad, Wallace Bruce never talked about the war but spent his life after the war staring at the floor and mostly being in a bad mood. He died in 1970 at the age of 52.
In the war, he was a medic in a front line infantry unit. In February 1945, his unit was attacked while retreating and he was shot 4 times in the lower stomach while lying in a foxhole. When a young German soldier went to shoot him again, he put his leg up for protection and the shot tore most of his thigh muscle away. Being captured, he spent the last 3 months of the war in a POW camp Stalag 7b in Moosburg, Bavaria. The camp was liberated in April 1945.
After he died, I had to identify his body and saw that his thigh had never healed completely, there was still a scab on the wound. I don’t know why that's never left my thoughts. It must have bothered him, but he never complained, at least not to me or my 6 brothers and 3 sisters. Before he died, I was the oldest at home and I had just returned from Vietnam 3 months earlier, I tried to talk with him about being in the war, thinking that since I was just back from my war we would have something in common. But he never spoke about his time in hell.
So I can just tell what I know about his war experience, his 2 Purple Hearts and other medals, including the POW medal. His military records have gotten lost in the Army's central record repository in St. Louis.
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