Happy 100th to Arthur Squires, Royal Navy WW II Vet

From April 17, 2021, North Norfolk News  "Happy Birthday, Arthur!  100 up for Second World War naval hero" by Kate Wolstenholme.

At age 19, he was on track to work in the building industry, but then the war broke out.  In 1940, he enlisted in the Royal Navy to be a signalman.

"It was from my scouting days, I always like semaphore ... and I saw a signalman, he was up on the bridge ...and I thought,  it's healthier up there, but it meant reading Morse Code and semaphore at a very fast rate," he said.

Beginning his naval career on the North Atlantic convoys, Arthur went on to win honors  in Minesweepers on operations at Dieppe, North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and South France.

He was then promoted to leading signalman and joined C in C Mediterranean in Naples.  Once back in the UK to the Naval Air Station Belfast.

--GreGen

Medal of Honor Recipient Robert Maxwell Dies in 2019-- Part 2: Strung Phone Wire

Maxwell had seen action a long time before the occasion he received the Medal of Honor for.  The onetime Colorado timber worker served as a "wire man," scaling roofs or trees to hang phone lines that enabled his battalion to communicate quickly on the battlefield.  

In North Africa, he had carried an M1 rifle before being classified as a noncombatant.  With his heavy wires and tools, his load was too heavy for a rifle.  Instead he was given a .45-caliber pistol for the invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy.

At Anzio, where Allies secured a beachhead for the liberation of Rome, Maxwell too shrapnel in both legs while repairing communications wires.  For several months afterwards, he was hospitalized in 1944 before rejoining his unit, the 7th Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division, for the invasion of Southern France dubbed Operation Dragoon.

By September, Maxwell's battalion had reached the city of Besancon, near the Swiss border.  He was stationed with a few GIs at an old pockmarked farmhouse on the outskirts of town, stringing wire on the observation post's when a German platoon suddenly opened fire with machine guns and 20mm antiaircraft weapons.

Next?  --GreGen