**Private First Class William W. Schon, ** **#39919751 **

William Wilhelm Schoen was born to Gustav Reinhold Schoen and Helma Pauline Schutz Schoen in Erfurt, Germany, 23 January 1914. Certain sources document his name as Wilhelm Willie Werner Schoen. When he was 12, his family emigrated in 1926 to the United States through the port of New York. They moved to the Salt Lake City area later that year.

The Schoen family had four children: Arthur, Edith, Ida and the youngest son, William. As a Salt Lake City resident, William was a graduate of West High School. After high school, he worked as a stock clerk for the Utah Woolen Mills.

On 23 May 1940, William married Elaine Harriet Kmetzsch. The couple made their first home in Salt Lake City. They had celebrated their third anniversary when William received word of his induction into the United States Army.

On 3 September 1943, Schoen, #39919751, reported for transfer and training at Camp Fannin, Texas. He also received training at Fort Meade, Maryland. Private Schoen was assigned to Company F, 13th Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division. Schoen was promoted to Private First Class during his duty tour. Known as the “Pathfinder Division,” the 8th was deployed overseas in early April 1944.

After training in Ireland, the Division landed on Utah Beach, Normandy, 7 July 1944. Three days later, the unit was in combat, fighting through the hedgerows of northern France. The regiment spent ten months in combat in northern France, the Rhineland and central Europe. Pushing through French towns toward the German border, the Division attacked Brest, France in September 1944 under Deputy Commander U.S. Brigadier General Charles Canham.

Having secured their French objectives, the Division turned east toward Germany where they encountered heavy combat during the Battle of Hurtgen Forest in November 1944. Hurtgen was cleared by 28 November and then Brandenburg on 3 December. The Division continued its forward movement, crossing the Roer River on 23 February 1945.

As they moved farther into the Rhineland, the Division attacked northwest to aid in the defeat of enemy forces in the Ruhr Pocket on 6 April 1945. As a battle of massive encirclement, American forces surrounded the Ruhr Pocket For 13 days, the enemy forces resisted. Their eventual defeat was clear. On 15 April 1945, Field Marshall Walter Model, the German commander dissolved his Army Group B. American forces took prisoner some 317,000 German troops.

The victory was a costly conquest, though. Americans suffered 10,000 casualties including 2,000 killed or missing. During the initial Division action in early April, PFC Schoen was wounded. He was transferred from frontlines in Germany to a military hospital in England to receive care.

The nature and scope of PFC Schoen’s wounds was not recorded in available sources. Did he know that the 8th Infantry Division went on to liberate the Neuengamme Concentration Camp on 2 May 1945? One month after PFC Schoen was taken from the battlefield, the world celebrated Victory in Europe, V-E Day, on 8 May 1945. Was he aware of the lasting impact of these events? Such questions cannot be answered with certainty.

For a combat soldier, V-E Day signaled an expectation of going home, of life after battles. He likely would have felt a warrior’s pride in defeating the enemies of peace. As a Jewish man encountering the Neuengamme Camp, Schoen would have confronted an evil that eliminated more than six million people as Hitler’s so-called “Final Solution.”

But, like thousands of others, he did not live to experience the joy of peace or returning to his family. PFC Schoen’s wounds proved fatal. He died 15 July 1945 while in the hospital. He was 31 years old.

William Wilhelm Schoen was buried initially in American military cemetery in Cambridge, England. His body was returned aboard the USAT Lawrence Victory for overland transport to Utah and reburial in California on 16 August 1945, San Bruno, California. William was survived by Elaine Schoen, his widow, his parents, Edith, his sister and Arthur, his brother.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This national effort of volunteers is writing the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen servicemen and women here on Fold3. **Can you help write these stories? **Related to this work, a smart phone app will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen individual’s name and read his/her story.

References:

1920 United States Federal Census.

1930 United States Federal Census.

1940 United States Federal Census.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)#World_War_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)

http://mahoney-8th-infantry.com/assets/eighth-infantry-division-a-combat-history-by-regiments-and-speci.pdf

Utah, Military Records, 1861-1970.

William Wilhelm Schoen, Ancestryinstitution.org.