Grandfather's War – Clifford A. “Kip” Christensen in World War II

November 21, 2019 is the 100^th anniversary of the birth of my maternal grandfather, Clifford Alvin “Kip” Christensen. This seems a good moment to recount what we know about his service in World War II. All who knew him agree that his service in Europe marked him profoundly. The horrors of war shook a young man who was intelligent and charismatic, but who had a dark turn of mind, and a weakness for drink that brought out a mean streak in his character. 

When my grandparents, Kip Christensen (1919-1972) and Audrey Radloff (1921-2000), married in Chicago in May 1941, the future must have seemed bright for them. A handsome couple with movie star looks, of which they were more than a little bit vain, they had come through the worst of the depression trusting that hard work would see them through.

Wedding photo, May 1941, Chicago, IL

Less than one year later, the young couple suffered the hard blow of a son born to live only one week. The infant Rodney died on April 16, 1942. Kip traveled by train from Chicago to Waupaca with a small white coffin on his lap, taking his son home to be buried.

Possibly looking for a fresh start, Kip and Audrey moved to Detroit, Michigan in the summer of 1942, along with thousands of others, as the city and its automobile industry transformed itself to become America's wartime manufacturing powerhouse. Ford Motor Company's gigantic Willow Run Plant alone would employ more than 40,000 at one time and would produce 8,865 heavy B-24 Liberator bomber aircraft by the end of the war. Tensions in the crowded city exploded into violence between blacks and whites for about 24 hours in June 1943, until federal troops enforced order. 

February, 1943, Detroit, MI

On November 29, 1943, Just over a week after Kip's twenty-fourth birthday, he reported to the Recruit Reception Center at Fort Sheridan in Lake Forest, IL. Just a few days later, he was shipped out to the Field Artillery Replacement Training Center at Camp Roberts, CA. He spent several months there, qualifying to be a Cook and to operate the Army's field artillery pieces.

Fort Sheridan, Lake Forest, IL, November, 1943

Camp Roberts, CA, 1944

Training as a Cook earned Kip a Technician, 4^th Class (or Tec-4) Rank, allowing him to be paid as – and addressed as – Sergeant. The Tec-4 patch (see inset in photo with overalls) has three chevrons and a letter “T”.

Artillery Training at Camp Roberts, CA, 1944

In April, 1944, Kip was assigned to the 97^th Infantry (Trident) Division, 365^th Field Artillery Battalion, and ordered to report to Fort Leonard Wood, MO by May 10, 1944.

Kip's assignment to the 97^th Infantry Division at Fort Leonard Wood, MO.

Here is the uniform shoulder patch of the 97^th Infantry Division – the Trident:

The 97^th Infantry Division crossed the submarine-infested Atlantic Ocean during the final week of February, 1945, arriving at Le Havre, France on the first day of March. After staging at Camp Lucky Strike, France, the Trident Division crossed into Germany on March 28, 1945, passing near the devastated town of Aachen.

The 97^th arrived in time to participate in one of the last major battles of the war in Europe – The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket. During the first two weeks of April, 1945, German Army Group B, with about 350,000 troops under the command of Field Marshal Walther Model, was encircled and defeated. Seventeen American divisions, including the 97^th, were part of this climactic effort.

 Trident Division Campaign Maps, April 1-18, 1945

With German forces dissolving between the 16^th and the 18^th of April – more than 300,000 German troops surrendered to become POWs – the battle of the Ruhr Pocket was over, and the 97^th Infantry Division was redeployed. The Trident Division was moved to the German-Czechoslovakian border to hold down the left flank of the U.S. Third Army as it moved south and east through Germany and Austria. The 97^th Division's first objective was to take the city of Cheb, Czechoslovakia.

As preparations for invading Czechoslovakia went forward, the Flossenburg concentration camp was discovered within the Division's sector of control. When troops of the 90^th Infantry Division discovered the camp on April 23, 1945, approximately 2,000 weak and ill prisoners remained in the camp, and unburied corpses lay on the ground. The Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel), which ran the camp to house political prisoners, Jews and others, had been evacuating the camp as U.S. Army forces closed in during April, 1945. They forced prisoners on a 125-mile death march south to a German-controlled camp near the village of Posing. 

According the U.S. Army's website history of the camp's liberation (link below):

The 97th Division performed many duties at the camp upon its liberation. They assisted the sick and dying, buried the dead, interviewed former prisoners and helped gather evidence against former camp officers and guards for the upcoming war crimes trials.

I do not know what duties my grandfather was called upon to perform. As a child, I was told or came to understand that he had taken part in the liberation of a German concentration camp, and that it gave him nightmares for the rest of his life.

One more quote from the U.S. Army website history of the liberation:

One eyewitness U.S. Soldier, Sgt. Harold C. Brandt, a veteran of the 11th Armored Division, who was on hand for the liberation of not just one but three of the camps, Flossenburg, Mauthausen, and Gusen, when queried many years after the war on his part in liberating them, stated that "it was just as bad or worse than depicted in the movies and stories about the Holocaust. . . . I can not describe it adequately. It was sickening. How can other men treat other men like this'"

With operations in Czechoslovakia between April 25 and May 7, 1945, the 97^th Infantry Division was involved in some of the final hostile actions to take place in the European Theater of war. The Division met uneven resistance – at times almost none at all; at times, quite determined – as it drove to take Cheb from April 26^th through 28^th, 1945 and Pilsen on May 6, 1945. On May 7, all forces were ordered to halt offensive actions in expectation of the acceptance of the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany's forces on May 8, 1945, known now as V-E Day (Victory in Europe). 

Trident Division campaign map – final days of war in Europe

Kip Christensen, Camp Old Gold, France, June, 1945

After a brief stay at Camp Old Gold, near Yerville, France, the 97^th Infantry Division sailed on the S.S. Brazil troopship. They arrived at Camp Shanks, near Nyack, NY on June 24, 1945 and were granted thirty-day furloughs. The Division was to be redeployed to the Pacific for the expected invasion of Japan, but the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic weapons led to Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945. Elements of the 97^th Infantry Division did participate in the occupation of Japan, but Kip Christensen was not among them. He was given an honorable discharge from Division Headquarters at Camp San Luis Obispo, CA on October 22, 1945. 

 

Military Service Milestones for Clifford A Christensen:

29 NOV 1943 – Enlistment – Recruit Reception Center, Fort Sheridan, Lake Forest, IL.

DEC 1943 – Field Artillery Replacement Training Center, Camp Roberts, CA for training on cook duties and in use of 105mm howitzer artillery.

MAY 1944 – Assigned to 97^th Infantry Division (Trident Division), 365^th Field Artillery Battalion, Special Services Battery, Fort Leonard Wood, MO.

JUL 1944 – Earmarked for assignment to the Pacific Theater, Division relocated to Camp San Luis Obispo, CA for training in amphibious landing operations.

SEP 1944 – Division relocated to Camp Cooke, CA for further amphibious training.

DEC 1944 – Heavy losses to American forces in the Battle of the Bulge cause Division to be reassigned to European Theater.

1 MAR 1945 – Division arrives Le Havre, France; proceeds to Camp Lucky Strike staging area.

28 MAR 1945 – Division crosses into Germany west of the city of Aachen.

1 APR – 18 APR 1945 – Battle of the Ruhr Pocket.

23 APR – 30 APR 1945 – Troops of the 90^th and 97^th Infantry Division liberate the Flossenburg Concentration Camp near the border of Germany and Czechoslovakia.

23 APR – 6 MAY 1945 – 97^th Infantry Division redeployed to German-Czechoslovakian border to hold left flank of U.S. Third Army's drive into southeastern Germany and Austria.

7 MAY 1945 – All American forces in Europe ordered to halt offensive action.

8 MAY 1945 – Allied forces accept unconditional surrender of its armed forces by Nazi Germany (Victory in Europe, or V-E Day).

Late MAY to mid-JUN, 1945 – Camp Old Gold, near Yerville, France.

24 JUN, 1945 – Division arrives at Camp Shanks, near Nyack, NY on the troopship S.S. Brazil; granted thirty-day furlough.

22 OCT 1945 – Honorable discharge; Camp San Luis Obispo, CA 

Internet resources consulted in researching this post: 

The 97th Infantry Division During World War II (http://www.97thdivision.com/historyp1.html) Accessed 9 NOV 2019.

Dabrowsky, John R., Colonel, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center. “U.S. Army Liberates Flossenburg Concentration Camp.” U.S. Army. https://www.army.mil/article/8441/us_army_liberates_flossenburg_concentration_camp. 11 APR 2008, Accessed 10 NOV 2019.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Encircling the Ruhr.” The Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/encircling-the-ruhr. Accessed on 9 NOV 2019.