Kelley, Noah, PFC

    PFC Noah Paul Kelley is my wife's Grandfather he was a Fire Control Radio Telephone Operator with HQ, 1st Battalion attached to "E'' Company 119th Infantry Regiment, 30th Infantry Division "Old Hickory" from approximately 28 June 1944 to 16 October 1945. After arriving in England on 20 December 1944 he participated in the Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe Campaigns where he was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge, Silver Star, Good Conduct Medal, European/African/Middle Eastern Campaign Medal(3 Campaign Stars), the WWII victory medal, The French Croix de Guerre(two awards) and the Belgian Fourragere. After VE-Day and several months of occupation duty PFC Kelley boarded USS General Black bound for the US on 11 August 1945. 
     On 16 October 1945 PFC Kelley was honorably discharged from the Army at Fort George Meade Maryland.



COMBAT HIGHLIGHTS: The 30th came ashore in Normandy on 10-15 June 1944, spearheaded the St Lo breakthrough and kept in the forefront all the way into Belgium, Holland and into Germany. It was the first unit of the Allied troops to enter Belgium and Holland. Its first mission on landing in France was to secure the high ground north of the Vire et Taute Canal. The small community of La Ray soon fell before the rolling 30th and the mission of clearing the north bank of the canal was completed by 17 June. On 7 July the Division moved forward again, crossing the Vire River and penetrating as far as St Jean-de-Day. Beginning 25 July the 30th took part in one of the war's most memorable actions, the St Lo breakthrough. Advances were slow in July, but by 6 August the 30th relieved the 1st Infantry Division near Mortain. Suddenly the Division was attacked by five armored divisions of the enemy, the German's purpose being to drive to the sea at Avranches and split the American First and Third Armies. The 2nd Battalion of the 120th Infantry Regiment and the 1st Bn. of the 117th Infantry Regiment, bore the brunt of the assault and were so hard-pressed, that all available personnel of the 30th Division were thrown into action. The Battalions held fast. In a week the Nazi spearhead was broken and the enemy thrown back. In August 1944. the town of Reuilly fell to the 30th and the Seine River was soon crossed. In September 1944, an offensive was started near Tournai and Brussels. In mid-September after the Albert Canal and the Meuse River were crossed, the 30th took objectives near Horbach, Germany and completed plans for the assault on the Siegfried Line. This attack opened on 2 October 1944 and a breach was made the following day. Contact with the 1st Infantry Division was made 16 October 1944, and encirclement of Aachen was completed. The 30th then continued on their offensive into Germany. When Von Rundstedt attempted his breakthrough in December, 1944, the 30th was rushed to the Malmedy-Stavelot-Stoumont area. Here the 30th gave such a mauling to some of Hitler's best troops, that the Germans called the Division "Roosevelt's SS Troops." After helping to stem the German winter drive, the Division moved to the Vielsalm.-Sart-Lierneux areas. Back in Germany, the Roer River was crossed in February and the unit headed for the heart of Germany. In March 1945, when the Rhine River was crossed, the 30th was one of the first divisions to break out from the bridgehead and it led the dash encircling the Ruhr and trapping thousands of Germans. At war's end the Division was stationed at Magdeburg, Germany. Arriving in the US late in August, the Division trained at Ft Jackson SC under V Corps until inactivatedon 25 November 1945

SPEARHEAD TROOPS ON RHINE TENSE
BY ERNEST LEISTER, Stars and Stripes Staff Writer WITH NINTH Army, March 24

Easy Company, 119th infantry spilled out of the cellars and shadows and scuff down the road in single file toward the Rhine. Many were going to cross in the first wave of storm boats.

A dough up front said, "All I hope is that those guys on the other side know they're supposed to be losing".

As he spoke, 1,250 field and self-propelled artillery and mortars out loose in a cyclone of sound. And nobody bothered to talk any more.

Over the shoulders of Capt. Warne Parker's  men you could see the bursting of shells painting the skyline red, and silhouetting the doughboys in their life jackets.

Slowly, they moved up and reached the boats, 300 yards from the river. The engineers, who manned the assault craft, were waiting.

Seven men to a storm boat, 15 to an assault boat. In a long row, they dragged the craft 300 yards that seemed more like 3,000. When they rested, they could see the far bank pounded to powder.

At 0155 the boats in the first wave were at the water's edge. Five minutes to wait and they crouched, panting, sweating, tense.

H-Hour ..... and the crash of artillery along the opposite shore lifted, softened in the distance.

At the tiller of one boat, Pvt. Chester Dabrowski, of Minneapolis, Minn., fiddled with the outboard motor. It sputtered and died. The men paddled. If stuttered again, then caught.  We pulled our paddles in and The boat veered left, right, then straight across. In the bow, T/5 James Sorbet, of Westchester, Pa., flashed signals to Dabrowski with a fluorescent lamp.

As the boat headed across, we were swallowed in the smoke screen laid down on the river, as the moon disappeared. The passengers - 2/Lt. Stanley Das, battlefield commissioned officer from Methuen, Mass., Pfc Earl Barefoot, of Erwin, N.C, Pfc James C. Winters, of Sarasota, Fla., Pfc George Yokell, of Lewiston, Ma., Pfc Noah Kelley, of Clarksburg, W.Va., and INS correspondent Frank Conniff hugged the bottom and ducked the spray.

Machine-Gun Tracers

The boat headed in, its motor was cut, and we scraped the bank. Tracers, from two machines outlined the crossing boundaries, and the ripping noise of a burp gun answered their staccato.

The doughs hopped out and headed toward the dike 100 yards from the bank with Sorber yelling after them, "Take it easy, guys."  But no one turned to answer. They kept on going, over the dike, past the cringing Germans, who popped out of a stone cistern, crying, "Nichts, Nichts, kamerad", across the flat at a dead run. They were heading east when we saw them last---clue east.

The following Silver Star citation was recently(15 December 2013) found by the 30th Infantry Division historian
Private First Class Noah Paul Kelley; 35845283, Infantry United States Army, for gallantry in action on 21 January 1945, in Belgium; When the enemy charged with superior numbers of infantry, supported by three tanks, and he was not able to get clear reception on his radio, private Kelley gallantly moved out into an exposed position where the enemy fire was falling in great fury to receive fire messages from the forward observer. By his heroic action, such intense and incessant mortar fire was placed on the enemy that they became completely disorganized and withdrew.    Entered military service from West Virginia.

G.O. 171, dated 27 June 1945, Major General L.S. Hobbs, Commanding