100th vet CZ 27 bring back

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  • Vietnam1965

    Active Member
    Sep 26, 2021
    354
    Sergeant Melvin Matchinski of Engadine Michigan was born on September 24, 1916. He entered the service on August 5, 1942 and was assigned to the 100th Division 66th Medical Regiment 325th Medical Battalion 565th Ambulance Company. After the war, he was stationed at the 130th Station Hospital in Heidelberg Germany where he maintained and help operate the Ambulance Company. General Patton was brought to the same hospital after his serious accident and one of Melvin’s ambulances most likely would have been used. He served in the Rhineland and Central Europe Campaigns. His awards and decorations includes: the American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal w/2 Battle Stars, Good Conduct Medal, World War II Victory Medal, 1 service stripe and 2 overseas Service Bars.

    The 100th Division was under the 7th Army at varying times in Germany as indicated below.

    Germany

    In a lead role in Operation Undertone, the Seventh Army fought its way across the Rhine into Germany, captured Nuremberg and then Munich. Finally it crossed the Brenner Pass and made contact with Lieutenant General Lucian Truscott's U.S. Fifth Army at Vipiteno - once again on Italian soil.

    In less than nine months of continuous fighting, the Seventh Army had advanced over 1,000 miles and for varying times had commanded 24 U.S. and Allied divisions, including the 3rd, 36th, 42nd, 44th, 45th, 63rd, 70th, 100th, and 103rd Infantry Divisions.

    The medical collar device makes be believe that Melvin was assigned to the 130th Station Hospital. That, and also the fact that the pistol certificate you have is signed by Captain Lloyd W. DeLauter of the 130th Station Hospital.

    Also, training for the 130th Station Hospital was held at Camp Barkeley, Texas. The cap you have of Melvin’s shows Camp Barkeley, Texas.

    On 15 July 1945, the 130th Station Hospital, then at Camp Lucky Strike, Le Havre, France, was assigned to the 7th Army for duty with the Army of Occupation. It arrived at Heidelberg, Germany, on 1 August 1945, and proceeded to Rohrbach, Germany, a small village about three miles south of Heidelberg.



    The pistol certificate you have is dated November 28, 1945 and was signed by Captain Lloyd W. DeLauter of the 130th Station Hospital. The date is interesting because it’s just before the famous General George S. Patton’s accident in which he was taken to the 130th Station Hospital in Heidelburg and subsequently died. Makes me wonder if Melvin was there at the same time as General Patton.



    Accident and death



    Patton's grave in Luxembourg City

    On December 8, 1945, Patton's chief of staff, Major General Hobart Gay, invited him on a pheasant hunting trip near Speyer to lift his spirits. Observing derelict cars along the side of the road, Patton said, "How awful war is. Think of the waste." Moments later his car collided with an American army truck at low speed.



    Gay and others were only slightly injured, but Patton hit his head on the glass partition in the back seat. He began bleeding from a gash to the head, and complained that he was paralyzed and having trouble breathing. Taken to a hospital in Heidelberg, Patton was discovered to have a compression fracture and dislocation of the cervical third and fourth vertebrae, resulting in a broken neck and cervical spinal cord injury that rendered him paralyzed from the neck down.



    Patton spent most of the next 12 days in spinal traction to decrease the pressure on his spine. All nonmedical visitors, except for Patton's wife, who had flown from the U.S., were forbidden. Patton, who had been told he had no chance to ever again ride a horse or resume normal life, at one point commented, "This is a hell of a way to die." He died in his sleep of pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure at about 18:00 on December 21, 1945. Speculation as to whether the collision and Patton's injuries and death resulted from mere accident or a deliberate assassination continued into the twenty-first century.



    MORGUE



    U.S. ARMY 130TH STATION HOSPITAL



    HEIDELBERG, GERMANY



    DECEMBER 21, 1945



    7:00 P.M.

    George Patton’s body is wheeled down to a makeshift morgue in the hospital basement. The room was a horse stall back in the days when this building was a German cavalry barracks. It might have made more sense simply to keep Patton in Room 110, where he died, but the humiliation of his body being stored in a stall is nothing compared to the grisly spectacle that will unfold if a photograph of the dead general’s body is splashed across front pages of newspapers worldwide. Hiding Patton in the basement is the best way to avoid the horde of journalists that has descended upon this tiny military hospital. Sergeant Meeks makes the concealment complete by bringing Patton’s personal four-star flag to the hospital, where he shields the general’s body by draping the flag over his corpse.
     

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    Vietnam1965

    Active Member
    Sep 26, 2021
    354
    More of Melvins group!
     

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    Vietnam1965

    Active Member
    Sep 26, 2021
    354
    More info
     

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    Vietnam1965

    Active Member
    Sep 26, 2021
    354
    Nice pic of your Dad! Here is a pic of my Dad in occupied Japan. After the war he ended up at Iwo Jima as a member of the 604th Graves Registration Company.
     

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