103rd Cactus Division

 RAYMOND J. OBERDECKER

2^ND Platoon

Ray after being assigned to

 the 2^nd ID in fall of 1945

squad leader Sgt. Paul Hiser

(on the left) and Raymond Oberdecker,

in Bieber, Germany in April, 1945.

Ray Oberdecker in

Freezing, Germany, July 1945

Ray Oberdecker in  Innsbruck, Austria, June 1945

CIB

Ray  took basic training at Camp Blanding in Florida from 7/6 - 11/44. 

From there he went to Fort Meade for about 2 month. He embarked from NY on 1/13 on the

Santa Rosaand arrived in Le Havre, France on 1/15/45.  After traveling in box car trains for two weeks,

he joined the 103^rd, D-Company. He was a member of the machine gun crew.  His first major action

was taking part in the battle for the Siegfried Line.  He took part in operations in the Rhine Valley

in Germany. They then moved on to Innsbruck, Austria in May. His sergeant was Manning who initially

picked him for his platoon, the squad leader Hiser, platoon leader Lt. Rees and platoon sergeant

Max Irwin.

 

He remembers going over the Alps and being loaded onto tanks for the entry into Innsbruck. He also

has some darker memories of passing by a concentration camp that had been liberated.  He was the

company clerk for a week in Innsbruck.  In July, 1945 he was attached to the 45th Infantry division and

performed occupation duties in Freising Germany. He then was sent back to France and then spent a

short time in England as a clerk. (He knew how to type!)  He arrived in NY in September, 1945, and he

was attached to the 2nd Infantry Division and he was sent to Texas.  He actually arrived home ahead of

his brother Barney who had been in the Army for 3 years.  Ray was certain that he was going to be sent

to Japan, when luckily for him and probably a lot of other guys Japan surrendered. 

He was discharged in April 1946