John Burwell Schenk was born 13 September 1916 in Bedford, Bedford, Virginia to George Winston and Bessie Buford (Kasey) Schenk; he had one brother and two sisters. His mother died shortly after he was born. His father later remarried. John enlisted 3 February 1941 in Bedford as a private with the Bedford National Guard indicating he had four years of high school. He married Ivylyn Camack Jordon on 24 August 1942 in Bedford; he left shortly after their honeymoon.

John was a Staff sergeant (S/Sgt) with Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division when it went to Omaha Beach on 6 June 1944. Company A came in six assault boats straight into the designated landing point in the first wave. They saw unblemished beach, unimpacted by artillery or bombing and wholly barren of shingle or any other cover even though there was a barrage from rocket boats about 1000 yards off. Within 700-800 yards of the beach, enemy artillery and mortar fire began to fall among the assault boats. The ramps dropped into waist high or deeper water when the enemy opened fire, instantly laying a cross fire of heavy, accurate automatic fire from both sides of the beach; the safest way off the boats was to dive into the water. Company A became leaderless and almost incapable of action with no officers left and few sergeants. The Germans seemed to locate and target those in leadership. Machine gun fire came from along the cliff directly ahead and firing straight down onto those on the beach. Only 18 of 230 men avoided becoming casualties. There were 32 soldiers from Bedford county, Virginia Army National Guard assigned to Company A, 21 of them did not make it home.

At home Ivylyn was listening to the radio when she heard that “Eisenhower’s Headquarters announced an Allied landing on the coast of France” which so excited her that she began a letter to her husband anticipating his arrival. Unfortunately, it was all a mistake; a young teletype operator was practicing on what she thought was a disconnected teletype. The message went world-wide in a matter of minutes. Ivylyn did not learn of her husband’s death until mid-July.

S/Sgt. Schenk is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery. He was awarded the Purple Heart, Combat Infantryman and Marksmanship badges, WW II Victory, American Campaign and Good Conduct medals, Army Presidential Unit Citation and European-African-Middle Eastern campaign ribbons. He gave his all for freedom – let us never forget.

*This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see *www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen’s name and read his/her story. If you notice anything missing in this profile, you may contact the author. Click on the author’s name located at the bottom of the story page next to the words “added by”.

SOURCES:

Find-a-Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56649679/john-burwell-schenk

HonorStates.org: https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=118660

American D-Day.org

Ancestry

John B Schenk