Donald Eldon BROWN

Parents: Andrew J. & Anna Meinecke BROWN

Siblings : Léo, Percy et Donald & Lillian

Source : F Lavernhe

CEMTERY TEMPORARY of  -- N°--

Story of Cemetery Temporary 

Map of St James American Cemetery

On January 7, 1920, Donald Eldon Brown was born in Ventura, Iowa. He was the son of Andrew and Anna Brown. Though natives of the state, Brown and his parents had family ties to Germany and Denmark. His community was comprised of many immigrants who had ancestral ties to Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Russia, Sweden.

Brown was the youngest of the four children in the family. The Browns had three sons, Leo, Percy, and Donald, and one daughter, Lillian. Brown grew up on his parents’ farms in Iowa. Brown had a large extended family that counted as many as 17 aunts and uncles and many cousins.

Brown started school when he was five. His sister, Lillian, remembered rides to school: “we rode in a horse-drawn, green school bus. When the dirt roads were deep with ruts we sometimes had to go to school in a wagon. When there were big drifts or snow, we were picked up in a bobsled.”

When school was done, Brown and his brothers and sister helped their parents with chores or on the farm. He would sometimes have friends come over to their place. Like his mother, Brown got along well with everyone and never had problems making new friends. Growing up on a farm, he was always surrounded by animals, including goats, mules, and horses. He has a special appreciation for Beauty, a blind, black, fat pony.

One day, Brown called his mother from a neighbor’s farm, asking if he could bring a kid home with him. His mother said of course. About half an hour later, Brown returned home and hollered his mother to come outside. He was there, sitting on his pony Beauty with a little goat. This was the kid he had called her about!

Despite his family’s hard work on the farm, the Great Depression of the 1930s did not spare the Browns. In his community some farmers had their farms repossessed by the bank while others had to rent out their farmland. Andrew Brown was a good farmer, and the family worked on many farms owned by investors. The family moved frequently, living in Klemme, Hayfield, and Algona, Iowa. With all the travel, it became hard for Brown to keep up at school. He was a freshman at Hayfield High School, a sophomore at Algona High School, and a junior at Thompson High School. Instead of finishing his senior year, Brown helped his father with the farm until he joined the U.S. Army in April 1942. Several of his cousins had joined the U.S. Navy a few years prior, which had also influenced his brother, Percy, to enlist too.

Donald E

Source : Nhdsilentheroes.org

Frères & soeur de Donald

Source : Nhdsilentheroes.org

The U.S. Army deployed Brown’s unit overseas in March 1944, almost two years after he enlisted. He first embarked to England with the 745^th Tank Battalion, Company A, attached to the 1^st Armored Division. The battalion activated on August 15, 1942 at Camp Bowie, Texas.

During World War II, the U.S. Army used tanks to suppress strong points: bunkers, light artillery, and other tanks.

A tank battalion had about 750 men and officers assigned to the unit, and 59 Sherman tanks (the “M4 Sherman” was the most-used tank for the Americans). The battalion was divided into companies (17 tanks per company).

Each company had several platoons (five tanks per platoon) and each platoon was divided into several individual tank units with a crew of five men: commander, gunner, loader, driver, and assistant driver/bow gunner.

Brown remained in England until the Allied invasion of France. The 745^th Tank Battalion landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 at about 12:20 p.m., with the Reconnaissance Platoon in the lead. The initial assault on Omaha Beach had started at 6:30 a.m., with 96 tanks as a part of the force. The 741^st Tank Battalion supported the initial beach assault of the 16th Regiment Combat Team with approximately 76 medium tanks. The 741^st opted to use the concept of dual drive (DD) tanks that had the ability to “swim” ashore. Of the 32 DD tanks deployed off the coast, only five made it ashore.

Of the other standard tanks that came ashore on Landing Craft Tanks (LCTs), only ten contributed to the fight. The first tank company that came ashore for the 745^th Tank Battalion was Company B; they landed about 3:00 p.m. Company C was next ashore. They debarked at 10:00 a.m. on June 7. Company A also landed in the same morning.

It is unclear whether Brown’s took part in the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy or joined the unit at a later date.

Le 26 juillet, la1^er Division d’infanterie et le 745e Bataillon de chars ont commencé leur avance vers la front.

Les progrès ont été lents et le groupe n’a fait face qu’à une légère résistance ennemie.

Le 28 juillet 1944, l’unité de BROWN s’installe à Monthuchon, en France.

Toutes les unités ont subi des tirs d’artillerie lourde et de mortier de la 2^e Division panzer d’Allemagne.  

Finalement,  deux des chars ennemis  ont  été  détruits dans la bataille. En plus des quatre de  ses  chars  qui ont  été    abattus, deux officiers et six hommes enrôlés ont été blessés, et trois hommes ont été  tués.

   Bien que le rapport d’après-action du 745e Bataillon de chars n’ait pas mentionné les noms des hommes enrôlés, on  croit que le soldat Donald E. Brown faisait  partie   des personnes tuées  au combat.

   Le 28 août 1944, le ministère  de la Guerre a envoyé une lettre à M. et Mme Andrew J. BROWN pour les informer   que leur fils avait  été  tué au combat le 28 juillet.

Source : Nhdsilentheroes.org

Source : Nhdsilentheroes.org

By the end of World War II, several hundred temporary burial grounds had been established by the U.S. Army on the battlefield. In 1947, several sites overseas were selected to become permanent cemeteries by the Secretary of the Army and the American Battle Monuments Commission. In addition to grave sites, these cemeteries also commemorate by name U.S. service members who were missing in action, or lost or buried at sea during the war.

Donald E. Brown’s name was inscribed on the Wall of the Missing at Brittany American Cemetery, in Saint-James, France, along with the names of 499 other service members declared Missing in Action.

In July 1947, an investigation by the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) discovered a Private Brown’s dog tags by a set of remains. However, the nature of the remains made it impossible to accurately identify the soldier as Brown. The AGRC shipped the remains and the dog tags to the Central Identification Point (CIP) in Blosville, France. Brown’s remains were eventually declared to be non-recoverable by the Quartermaster General Office. On October 5, 1949, they were interred in plot A, row 2, grave 17 at St. Laurent cemetery, known today as Normandy American Cemetery, in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.

In August 2017, after receiving requests from the family and extensive research started in 2012, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) opened a case that led to the exhumation of X-452’s remains.

In June 2018, after months of investigation, the DPAA finally identified the remains of Private Donald E. Brown.

Of all the more than 72,000 service members who are still unaccounted for from World War II, approximately 26,000 are considered to be “possibly-recoverable.”

After being buried for several decades at Normandy American Cemetery under an anonymous headstone that read, “Here rests in honored glory an American comrade known but to God,” Brown’s family requested that his remains be repatriated to the United States for permanent burial in his hometown.

On October 6, 2018, a ceremony was held at Rose Hill Cemetery in Thompson, Iowa. Members of the Iowa National Guard laid 24-year-old Donald Eldon Brown’s remains to rest.

A bronze rosette was added to his name at Brittany American Cemetery.

Source : Nhdsilentheroes.org