WW2 Fallen 100: WW2 POW Fallen - Charles Holt, 106th Infantry Division

Saturday, March 7, 2020

WW2 POW Fallen - Charles Holt, 106th Infantry Division

Pvt. Charles Holt, 106th Infantry Division, was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and died as a POW.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/103751060/charles-edward-holt
http://www.indianamilitary.org/German%20PW%20Camps/Prisoner%20of%20War/PW%20Camps/Stalag%20XII-A%20Limburg/History.htm

Charles Edward Holt never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

If you have enjoyed reading the stories of the WW2 fallen, I invite you to help write some!

Announcing "The Stories Behind the Stars", see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org

This crowd-sourced national project has the goal of compiling stories of all 400,000+ of the US World War 2 fallen in one free-to-access central database.

Anyone visiting a war memorial or gravesite will be able to scan the name of the fallen with a smartphone and his story will appear on the phone.

He was born on March 7, 1920 in Arkansas. His parents Charles and Lelia were born in Missouri and Texas, respectively. His father worked as a railway mail clerk. Charles had two younger brothers and one younger sister. By 1940 Charles was still living at home and had completed two years of college.

He was drafted into the army in March 1944. He became a private in Company L, 3rd Battalion, 423rd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division. The 106th ID arrived in Europe in early December 1944. It was sent to the Ardennes Forest to relieve the 2nd Infantry Division on December 11, 1944. Five days later the unit was outnumbered and encircled by Germans advancing on the north end of their Battle of the Bulge offensive. The Americans surrendered on December 19 resulting in 6,000 prisoners. One of them was Pvt. Holt who was transported east to Limburg, Germany, the location of Stalag 12A.

Pvt. Holt arrived a Stalag 12A on December 23, 1944. That evening errant bombs dropped by RAF bombers hit the prison camp resulting in 62 prisoners being killed. Pvt. Holt was seriously wounded in the leg. He died eight days later, in hospital, on December 31, 1944.

His grave is at Woodland Cemetery in Texarkana, Arkansas.

Thank you Pvt. Holt for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Charles.

Last year on this date I profiled Torger Tokle, 10th Mountain Division. You can read about Torger here.

On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!

I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.

Follow on Twitter @ww2fallen100
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100