'H' Battery, 136th
Field Artillery, Camp Shelby, Ms. April 1941.
Pvt. Demkowicz is second row from the top,
second from the right. (Picture courtesy of Mr.
Bryan Demkowicz)
Sgt Nick
Demkowicz became
part of A company, 506th Parachute Infantry
Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.
Sgt. Demkowicz was
part of a party that was to cross the Rhine
River in a night attack on the town of
Himmelgeist on April 12, 1945.
The action is described as follows
in Rendezvous With Destiny(1), the history of the
101st Airborne Division:
At this time, the 101st was stationed on the
west side of the Rhine, in the Ruhr area, just
south of Düsseldorf. This was a time of relative
quiet for the division.
"What fighting there was occurred when the
patrols from the line regiments slipped across
the river at night - the once-thought
impregnable Rhine, now vulnerable to any squad
with a boat- and bumped into still dangerous
defenders.
Map of the
operation in which Pfc Robert Morneweck was
Killed
(map from the book
Rendezvous With Destiny)
(...)The other large raid of the campaign was
carried out on the night of April 11-12 by
Company A of the 506th. One Hundred twenty-six
members of the company and four of the 321st
Artillery Battalion crossed the Rhine in sixteen
assault boats just after midnight and attacked
the river-bank village of Himmelgeist. They ran
in to a scattering of small arms fire, killed
two defenders, and entered the town. In
Himmelgeist they captured seven civilians
suspected of having taken part in the defense of
the place and then withdrew, getting back to the
far shore by 0415. The raid cost the company
three killed and four wounded, mostly from small
arms fire, though there was some flat-trajectory
shelling during the withdrawal. Two boats
capsized in midstream under enemy artillery fire
and eight men were missing, believed drowned."
Ray Boscom
was also in this party. He was a friend of
Robert Morneweck, who was also killed in this
action. Ray wrote Robert's
family on 30 June 1945, when he was at Berchtesgarden,
about what happened :
"The raid Bob
lost his life, he was loaded with extra
ammunition and grenades. The raid we pulled
across the Rhine. It was below Düsseldorf
and about five miles from Nienenhiem.
It was at that
time of the Rhine-pocket, so you see what we
were up against. We started across about
midnight to load in the boats, three 88's
opened up and everybody instantly tried to
hop into the nearest boat to where they
were. As a result, four boats overturned and
we lost 18 men. What few did get out said
that it was impossible to swim in the
current. Our boats picked up some but it was
so dark that we couldn't see over 5 feet in
front."
Three in this
picture were killed on the April 12 river
crossing: Standing, left to Right:
Demkowicz
(KIA), Weckesser, ? , Parrish, Wasburn,
Morneweck (KIA), Barnes.
Kneeling: Hanzalik,
Thaler, Caivano (KIA) (picture courtesy of Mr.
Art Morneweck via Marion Chard)
Don
Burgett, squad leader in A company, wrote:
"I
was squad leader of the 2nd squad, 2nd platoon,
A Co. at that time, 12 April 1945; the night
President Roosevelt died. Alex Abercrombie died
along with Syer, Santillan and Floyd Roberts by
German artillery fire; all of whom were buried
by the Germans in a common grave. Their bodies
were recovered by a patrol led by Jack Bram a
couple of days later and brought back across the
Rhine River in a rowboat.
Pfc Corgan was in my squad as were two other new
replacements. Corgan was seriously wounded in
both arms, the medics bandaged him and bound his
arms to his body in an attempt to stop the
bleeding. Corgan's boat was overturned by a
close artillery round as we were returning to
the American side of the Rhine from Himmelgeist.
Corgan drowned as a result.
I did receive two new replacements the morning
of 12 April 1945 but didn't have time to get
their names on our roster. Both of them also
drowned as a result of overturned boats in heavy
artillery fire. I do not know their names and as
far as I know, there is no way I can find out
now."
Sergeant 
