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PFC J. Mollohan
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Bender, Stanley (MOH), S/Sgt.
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Contact Info
Home Town Carlisle, West Virginia
Last Address Oak Hill, West Virginia
Date of Passing Jun 22, 1994
Location of Interment High Lawn Memorial Park - Oak Hill, West Virginia
Army Serial Number: 06920404 After the war, Bender returned to West Virginia and worked for the Veterans Administration in Beckley, West Virginia
Stanley Bender’s heroic actions on August 17, 1944, would earn him the Medal of Honor. Bender was born in Fayette County West Virginia in 1909, the son of a coal miner and Russian immigrant. His family moved to Chicago in 1930, and Bender enlisted in the Army in 1939. During World War II, he saw action in North Africa and Italy. Following the Normandy invasion, the Allies were pushing eastward across France toward Germany. On August 17, 1944, Bender’s company encountered a German force near La Lande in southern France. Bender rushed through intense fire from German machine guns and grenades. He knocked out two German machine guns with rifle fire and inspired the rest of his company to take out a German roadblock. All told, Bender’s company killed 37 enemy soldiers and captured 26 prisoners that day. For his heroism, he was awarded the Medal of Honor in early 1945. After the war, Bender returned to West Virginia and worked for the Veterans Administration in Beckley. He died in 1994 at age 84. A bridge on the West Virginia Turnpike(I-77) in Fayette County iwas named in Stanley Bender’s honor. After construction of a new road on I-77(West Virginia Turnpike) at The Memorial Tunnel, that bridge was abandoned and demolished.
Additional Obituary:
Stanley Bender, 85, a highly decorated and publicized hero of World War II who won the Medal of Honor for knocking out two German machine-gun nests. Bender was an Army staff sergeant when, two months after the June, 1944, Normandy invasion, he stormed through a rain of bullets and grenades to take out the machine-gunners. His actions were credited with inspiring his troops to overwhelm the occupied town of La Londe, France. Bender also was awarded France’s highest award, the Croix de Guerre, as well as the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and seven battle stars. Two bridges on the West Virginia Turnpike were named in his honor, the first in 1954, and the second in 1987. Passed away in Oak Hill, West Virgina on Wednesday of cancer.
WWII - European-African-Middle Eastern Theater
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
September / 1945
Description The European-Mediterranean-Middle East Theater was a major theater of operations during the Second World War (between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946). The vast size of Europe, Mediterranean and Middle East theatre saw interconnected naval, land, and air campaigns fought for control of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. The fighting in this theatre lasted from 10 June 1940, when Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, until 2 May 1945 when all Axis forces in Italy surrendered. However, fighting would continue in Greece – where British troops had been dispatched to aid the Greek government – during the early stages of the Greek Civil War.
The British referred to this theatre as the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre (so called due to the location of the fighting and the name of the headquarters that controlled the initial fighting: Middle East Command) while the Americans called the theatre of operations the Mediterranean Theatre of War. The German official history of the fighting is dubbed 'The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa 1939–1942'. Regardless of the size of the theatre, the various campaigns were not seen as neatly separated areas of operations but part of one vast theatre of war.
Fascist Italy aimed to carve out a new Roman Empire, while British forces aimed initially to retain the status quo. Italy launched various attacks around the Mediterranean, which were largely unsuccessful. With the introduction of German forces, Yugoslavia and Greece were overrun. Allied and Axis forces engaged in back and forth fighting across North Africa, with Axis interference in the Middle East causing fighting to spread there. With confidence high from early gains, German forces planned elaborate attacks to be launched to capture the Middle East and then to possibly attack the southern border of the Soviet Union. However, following three years of fighting, Axis forces were defeated in North Africa and their interference in the Middle East was halted. Allied forces then commenced an invasion of Southern Europe, resulting in the Italians switching sides and deposing Mussolini. A prolonged battle for Italy took place, and as the strategic situation changed in southeast Europe, British troops returned to Greece.
The theatre of war, the longest during the Second World War, resulted in the destruction of the Italian Empire and altered the strategic position of Germany resulting in numerous German divisions being deployed to Africa and Italy and total losses (including those captured upon final surrender) being over half a million. Italian losses, in the theatre, amount to around to 177,000 men with a further several hundred thousand captured during the process of the various campaigns. British losses amount to over 300,000 men killed, wounded, or captured, and total American losses in the region amounted to 130,000.