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On 29 Oct 1944, just north of Heitrak, Netherlands, men of the 7th Armored Division's 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion and 434th Armored Field Artillery Battalion were hit by friendly artillery fire - rounds that fell short of the enemy positions. The origin of the fire was never determined, but 434 AFAB did determine that it did not come from their battalion. This web page brings together the records of this event from the different battalions, since men from both battalions became casualties of this friendly fire. |
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Since the three men killed were not recovered until July 1945, their Individual Deceased Personnel Files have the map of where they were recovered, which is presumably the area where they were killed. This version of the map is from the IDPF of Henry Roan. 
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51°23'06.7"N 5°51'26.1"E (51.385180, 5.857240)
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Although it has the wrong date (the action took place 29 Oct), the After Action Report of 434th Armored Field Artillery Battalion has the best identification of what happened.
The Morning Reports of Battery A date the wounding of Lt. Jones on 29 Oct 1944. His Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) was 0600, Motor Transportation Officer. Tec 4 Hyden initially showed as Missing in Action, but the fact that the After Action Report (above), which was normally turned dated by the 2nd of the following month showed him KIA so that even though the Morning Report showed him MIA, his death was known. Thus far, I have found no Morning Report to correct the MIA report to KIA. Tec 4 Hyden's MOS was 041, Automotive Mechanic (Second Echelon). It is my understanding that Lt. Jones was the A/434 Motor Officer and T/4 Hyden the A/434 Motor NCO. So, it appears that they were together when they were hit. Since T/4 Hyden's remains were later recovered with those of two 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion men killed the same day, it seems likely that all four were in the same place when the rounds hit, killing three and wounding one. (I have not thus far found any other 23 AIB men wounded in this event.) The A/434 Headquarters location was 1.5 miles east of Asten while the location (see map above) where the remains of Hyden and the two 23 AIB men were later recovered were near Heitrak -- about 4.5 miles further east. The fact that the Motor Officer and Motor NCO were distant from the A/434 Headquarters and that the A/434 Headquarters was not colocated with the 434 AFAB Battalion Headquarters apparently accounts for the author (at Bn HQ) of the After Action Report stating that the events happened 30 Oct, even though the A/434 Morning Report clearly shows them happening 29 Oct: he did not learn of the events until the next day 30 Oct. The Record of Events on the 29 Oct 1944 A/434 Morning Report provides important additional information:
That the events happened 29 Oct 1944 and not 30 Oct 1944 had further confirmation in the records of the 53rd Field Hospital that showed Lt. Jones admitted 29 Oct 1944, as the last admission of the day. He also shows up on the 30 Oct Report (page 1) transferred to the 91st Evacuation Hospital, this time with "WIA (Shell) Traum. amp rt foot FC lt arm". So it is not clear just which foot was traumatically amputated by the shell explosion, but he did have a compound fracture (FC) of his left upper arm.
The 434 AFAB records, of course, do not include casualties of other units from the same short artillery shell friendly fire incident. The remains of T/4 Hyden, T/Sgt Kapusta and Pfc Roan were not recovered until July 1945. The reason that they were not recovered immediately even though Lt. Jones was able to be evacuated appears to be because the action happened very late in the day, and the next day they were relieved by British forces and moved about 30 miles to the south. Thus the remains of the three men killed were left behind and not recovered until 9 months later. The location was at or very near the front lines, which is why the artillery round hit where it did. The enemy forces were very close. These were positions of 23 AIB, which is why the 23 AIB men's presence is not surprising. It is the presence of the two men of 434 AFAB that is forward of where the rest of A/434 was located and thus makes them the ones who were at a location where normally one would expect an artillery forward observer. It is not clear why the Motor Officer and Motor NCO were at this location. The most likely conjecture is that all of the forward observers were at other locations during this complex spread-out attack by the Germans so that Lt. Jones and T/4 Hyden may have been doing duty as forward observers. As shown on the map in the Location section above, the Graves Registration team (from the 603rd Quartermaster Graves Registration Company, based at the temporary US military cemetery at Margraten, Netherlands) who recovered the remains actually found four bodies. They were able to identify Roan and Hyden, but Kapusta was initially recovered as Margraten Unknown X-1229 and only later (October 1948) identified. The fourth set of remains had a GI helmet but was determined by the Graves Registration team -- with no evidence stated for their reasons in the records I have found -- to be a German soldier. There is a possibility that must be explored that he was in fact an American soldier. But there is nothing in the IDPFs of Kapusta or Roan about the fourth man other than the map. T/Sgt George Raymond Kapusta was the platoon sergeant for one of the platoons of Headquarters Company. He had risen very rapidly from the rank of Corporal to Technical Sergeant in just 26 days:
I do not yet know the company and MOS of Henry Roan. His IDPF clearly shows him as 23 AIB, and the inventory of his personal effects (10 Jan 1945, PDF p 26) was signed by 7AD's Capt. Sam B. Plyler. Even the 7AD General Orders authorizing his award of the Combat Infantryman Badge has him in a separate group of 23 AIB MIAs receiving the badge with no designation of his company. So he was definitely 23 AIB. But his IDPF never shows his company. And I can find no Morning Report August-November 1944 for any element of 23 AIB that includes him, although I do not have the A/23 Nov 1944 MRs. So, I do not yet have his company and thus also do not yet have his MOS. I am carrying him as tentatively A/23, pending obtaining the A/23 Nov 1944 MRs -- which could take years to obtain. Here are the 29 Oct 1944 Morning Reports for both Headquarters Company (Kapusta) and Company A (Roan?), showing where they were that day and what happened. Also, the 2 Nov 1944 Headquarters Company MR shows Kapusta as MIA. As noted above, a fourth man was buried with the three who were recovered in July 1945. Although this fourth man had a GI helmet, Graves Regsitration somehow determined he was German so that his remains were eventually turned over to the Germans after the war. I was part of the team who worked to identify the remains of a presumed German who turned out to be Lawrence Gordon of U. S. 3rd Armored Division. So, I know all too well that Graves Registration did in fact mis-identify some GIs as Germans and then turned the remains over to the Germans after the war. Was this fourth man recovered actually an American soldier? At this point, I have no records that mention him other than the map of the recovery. Were there other men who may have been casualties of this errant friendly artillery shelling? It is possible that there were. As can be seen on the same 2 Nov 1944 HQCo/23 Morning Report (above) that reported Kapusta as MIA, he was one of 5 who were missing. It is possible that one or more of those other four HQCo/23 men were casualties of the shelling. Three (Farmer, Guitreau, O'Neill) of the four survived the war. They do not appear in any subsequent Nov 1944 MR so that they were probably captured. However Sgt. Frederick Konecek was already dead by the time the 2 Nov 1944 MR listed as MIA. He was a squad leader (MOS 653). I do not have his IDPF. So, I do not know the circumstances of his death or recovery of his remains. He is buried at the U. S. Military Cemetery at Margraten, Netherlands -- not far from where he died. Since Lt. Jones and T/4 Hyden were apparently the only members of the 434th Armored Field Artillery Battalion in the area where the shells hit, it appears that they were the only casualties from 434 AFAB. |
Active overview of all pages at the 7th Armored Division web site
T/4 James F. "Frank" Hyden - KIA - 014 (Automotive Mechanic (Second Echelon)) - Btry Motor NCO
