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Personal info

Full name
DEW, Robert Glenn
Date of birth
17 January 1921
Age
23
Place of birth
Grundy Center, Grundy County, Iowa
Hometown
Grundy County, Iowa

Military service

Service number
17067016
Rank
Sergeant
Function
Operations Sergeant
Unit
I Company,
3rd Battalion,
504th Parachute Infantry Regiment,
82nd Airborne Division
Awards
Bronze Star,
Purple Heart with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters

Death

Status
Killed in Action
Date of death
27 September 1944
Place of death
Den Heuvel farm, also known as the "Den Heuvel Woods", along the Wylerbaan
Groesbeek, the Netherlands

Grave

Cemetery
American War Cemetery Margraten
Walls of the Missing

Immediate family

Members
Glenn Dew (father)
Caroline H. (Ellison) Dew (mother)
Glenn Dew (brother)
Leroy E. Dew (brother)
Kenneth L. Dew (brother)

More information

Sgt Robert G. Dew graduated from Grundy Center High School where he was on the football team and earned letters. He was an amateur taxidermist, having mounted hawks, ducks, horned owls and foxes and worked on a farm.

He volunteered for the Army of the United States at Fort Des Moines, Iowa on 14 April 1942. He was sent overseas in May 1943 and saw action in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. In Italy he was reported wounded in action for which he was awarded one of the Purple Heart Medals.

He was wounded in the chest by shrapnel. As two medics were carrying him away from the Den Heuvel farm on a stretcher, a German armoured vehicle closed in. The gunner fired a 20mm shell that ripped through the middle of the stretcher and killed Sgt Dew instantly.

Source of information: Peter Schouteten, Terry Hirsch, www.wwiimemorial.com, www.archives.gov - WWII Enlistment Record, www.ww2-airborne.us, www.ancestry.com - 1930 Census / WWII Bonus Case File

Photo source: Peter Schouteten, www.newspapers.com - The Waterloo Daily Courier