This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this siteplease consider making a donation.
Site Home
WW2 Home
Add Stories
WW2 Search
Library
Help & FAQs
WW2 Features
Airfields
Allied Army
Allied Air Forces
Allied Navy
Axis Forces
Home Front
Battles
Prisoners of War
Allied Ships
Women at War
Those Who Served
Day-by-Day
Library
The Great War
Submissions
Add Stories
Time Capsule
TWMP on Facebook
Childrens Bookshop
FAQ's
Help & FAQs
Glossary
Volunteering
Contact us
News
Bookshop
About
224386PFC. Charles Edgar Van
United States Army H Coy. 310th Infantry Regiment
from:Somerville, New Jersey
My uncle Charles "Ed" Van Lieu was a machine gunner in company H, 310 infantry regiment. A few days before the regiment helped take the bridge at Remagen, he and his assistant gunner were sent in a jeep to set up their gun in a town which was believed to have been abandoned by the German Army. On reaching the town they parked and were looking around for the best place to put their MG when a German 88 started to fire on them. A round landed well down the street, then started to move towards them. Uncle Charles thought there was a spotter somewhere directing it onto them.They both broke for the nearest door, my uncle in front. It was locked. As they pressed on it, a shell hit the eaves of the building over their heads. A piece of shrapnel went through his assistant (killing him), then through my uncle's pack, and into his butt. At the same time he was blown through the door.
He awoke in a cellar with ersatz coal, and some stairs going up to a door into the house. He crawled over to the door, and heard someone on the other side. He drew his .45 and knocked. The door opened, and there in front of his face were German army jackboots. Without looking up, he fired his pistol, hitting the man between the eyes, and driving the German back, where he ended up sitting on the stove, dead. Then he saw the man must have been a deserter or invalided, because he was in civilian clothing except for the boots.
He awoke again sometime later being carried out to a jeep by medics. He was taken to an aid station in a low building, part of a farm. After his wound was given treatment, he was put onto a Weasel, a jeep-sized tracked vehicle with racks for six stretchers. As they drove away, a German 88 shell hit the aid station and destroyed it.
Then the shells were directed down the road after the Weasel. My uncle was on his stomach facing the rear, watching as the shells got closer... then the road turned, the shells went straight, and his adventures for the next several weeks were over.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
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.
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:
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.