WW2 Battle of the Bulge Fallen - Gordon Jackman, 99th Infantry Division

1st Lt. Gordon Jackman was an artilleryman in the 99th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105606005/gordon-wayne-jackman
https://www.eucmh.be/2015/10/16/393rd-infantry-regiment-99th-infantry-division-battle-babies-1944-1945/ 

Gordon Wayne Jackman 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, Can you help write some stories? It's a big project. The more help, the better.  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.

Gordon was born on May 18, 1920 in River Falls, Wisconsin. His parents William and Alma were also both born in Wisconsin. Three of his grandparents were from Norway. His father worked as a flour mill laborer and later as a grill work laborer. Gordon had two older brothers, one older sister and one younger sister. By 1940 Gordon had completed one year of college and was working as a farmer. He was still living at home. He married Lois Webb on December 21, 1942.

He enlisted in the US Army in September 1938 via the Wisconsin National Guard. He reached the rank of first lieutenant in Battery B, 370th Field Artillery Battalion, 99th Infantry Division. The 99th did not get to France until November 1944 and it was still a pretty green unit when it found itself directly in the path of the 6th Panzer Army on the north end of what became the Battle of the Bulge. Beginning on December 16, the 99th ID continued to thwart the German plans day after day, despite being greatly outnumbered. 

Any chance the Germans would be able to break out were pretty much stopped for good on December 19, although attacks would not end for days. The Americans would not be dislodged from the Elsenborn Ridge, but loses numbered in the hundreds, including Lt. Jackman. He was reported missing for over two weeks but it was later determined that he was killed on December 20, 1944, the day before his second wedding anniversary.

His grave is at Greenwood Cemetery in River Falls, Wisconsin. I don't know what happened to his widow.

Thank you Lt. Jackman for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Gordon. 

Last year on this date I profiled Charles Shisley, 26th Infantry Division. You can read about Charles 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.

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