I decided I should look up a soldier who died under the command of my father 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken. The first soldier on the list was Private Dean Bergeron from Rhode Island. He died March 29, 1945 which is shortly after C-Company of the 75th Infantry Division had crossed the Rhine River into Germany. They had been assigned to clear the area between the Lippe River and the Lippe Canal. The 75th was in a battle to take Dorsten Germany in the north of the Ruhr Pocket. They would have had to cross the Lippe Canal to enter the city of Dorsten. The straight, man made canal, is wide enough for two large barges to pass one another going east and west. The Germans blew a bridge to further slow the advance towards Dorsten.
The 75th Infantry was bogged down on the approach to Dorsten Germany. There were many Enemy Anti Aircraft gun encampments that were well dug in and well defended. Each had to be aken out with infantry action. That would mean running straight into German small arms fire or machine gun fire.
Fighting was house to house south west of Dorsten. The Intense enemy fire was worst at night, and caused an M7 Priest to ignite. The M7 carried a 105 mm Howitzer. The British gave it the Priest nickname because of the pulpit like machine gun ring. The fire from that ignited vehicle made the other vehicles easily visible to the Germans. The fire had to be put out to allow for some camouflage that night. Somewhere in the chaos of this fight, Dean Bergeron lost his life.
Dorsten was needed to bridge the Lippe River and supply armor northward. Troops north of the Lippe River were working on sweeping around the Ruhr Pocket to the north to encircle it.
Dean Bergeron was born 13 February 1920, in Quebec, Canada. He was the son of Antoine Joseph Bergeron and Lydia Laprade. He emigrated to the United States to Vermont under the name of Aldille Joseph Dean Bergeron on 6 October 1920. He later settled in the area of Providence, Rhode Island and enlisted in the US Army on 31 July 1944 at Fort McClellan in Alabama. My father was born in 1920 so he and Dean were very close in age.