The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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210025 Tech4 Edward William Gruss United States Army 46th Tank Battalion from:Baltimore, Md. USA (d.18th Apr 1945) This is the story of my great uncle Edward W. Gruss who died of wounds and is buried in the Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten. He served with the 46th Tank Battalion, 13th Armored Division I've spent the past few weeks honoring both his sacrifice and memory by telling his story to historians and people dedicated to making certain, the soldiers lost will never be forgotten. If we forget our mistakes, history is bound to repeat itself. Edward lost his father at a very early age, 6 years old. Edward had an older brother, James. They were very close. James died at 14 of complications due to rheumatic fever, Edward was about 10. This was about 4 years after losing his father. His mother tried to give him extra attention during this time and because of this, she became extremely close to him. Edward was dating a woman named, Betty, before he joined the service in 1941 and would most likely have married after his discharge. When Edward was killed, Betty was pregnant with his child. Upon learning of his death, she lost the child. To quote from my family history: "He lost his father when he was 6 years old, his big brother when he was 10, fathers a child, who he may not even have known about, serves heroically in the was which goes unnoticed, his child is miscarried, he is killed in battle in Germany, his body remains buried in Holland and his family members cannot mention his name." It further mentions that the family should recognize his sacrifice for his country and his rightful place in our family. He died for me and for America. He doesn't deserve to have given his life without at least some acknowledgement. Please, if you can help me I would be most appreciative. Thank you. Julie Aschenbrenner Add to this record.  Related Content: Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.