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Business Administration major, Block C Club 1942-43, Standing Hop Committee 1942-43 (Source: Sphinx 1943)__________
CRESWELL GARLINGTON, Jr., of the Form of 1940, 2nd Lt., Inf., A.U.S., died
December 3, 1944, of wounds received two days before in action in Germany.
Creswell Garlington, Jr., entered S.P.S. [Saint Paul’s School, Concord, New
Hampshire] as a Third Former in 1936. He played on the 2nd Delphian football
team and he rowed on the 3rd Halcyon crew. Graduating in 1940, he went to
the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, where he elected the
business administration course. During his three years there, he took an active
part in intramural sports, in spite of his small size, and maintained a high
standing in his studies. He was a member of the Economics Honor Society.
After he was inducted into the Army, he was sent to Officers’ Training School
at Fort Benning, from which he was graduated first in his class, and was
commissioned 2nd Lieutenant, May 2, 1944. He was assigned to the 84th
Division at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana and there became platoon commander
of Company I, 335th Infantry. He went overseas in September, 1944.
The action in which Garlington was wounded on December 1st is described in
the following unofficial account:
“[Lieutenant Garlington’s] platoon was the only one of his company that
gained the objective as planned, having established itself in position quickly
and decisively. German SS Troops counterattacked on the morning of
December 1st. Lieutenant Garlington went back to check up on a group of
four men who had been left to protect his rear under heavy artillery fire. He
returned to his platoon command post and the artillery fire increased in
intensity. Again he returned to the four men and ordered them back to a
safer position. In getting back, one of the four men was wounded.
Lieutenant Garlington picked up the wounded man and took him to his own
foxhole. While getting the other three men into position, Lieutenant
Garlington received a penetrating wound in the right ankle. He refused to
be evacuated. When the ambulance arrived, he asked them to evacuate
the enlisted men first and refused to be evacuated until ordered to do so.
Although in great pain himself, he sang a song to try to cheer up the other
wounded men. The men of his platoon, both officers and enlisted, say that
he was the best Lieutenant in the division. The Sergeant who accompanied
him is convinced that he can never be replaced. Because of his consistent
courage, he had been cautioned many times about over-bravery. All who
knew him praised him for his courage and for the confidence which he
inspired in his men. For this splendid example of courageous leadership, he
is being recommended for a high
military decoration.”
Two days later, Garlington died in an evacuation hospital, during a blood
transfusion, December 3, 1944. He has been posthumously awarded the
Purple Heart and the Distinguished Service Cross.
Creswell Garlington, Jr., is survived by his mother, Alexandrine Fitch
Garlington, by his sister, Sally Garlington, and by his twin brother,
Henry Fitch Garlington, ’41 [Citadel ’45], 2nd Lt., A.C., A.U.S., prisoner of
war in Germany. His father, Creswell Garlington. ’06, Brig. Gen., U.S.A.,
died March 11, 1945.
(Source: Alumni Horae, 1945, Saint Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire)
__________
In the Second World War, Creswell Garlington, Jr. was one of two Alumni of St.
Paul’s to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
The posthumous citation follows:
“For extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an
armed enemy, as platoon leader, Company ‘I,’ 335th Infantry Regiment, from
29 November, 1944, to 1 December, 1944, Second Lieutenant Garlington’s
platoon was temporarily stopped during an attack by the fire of four enemy
machine guns approximately 300 yards away. He crawled forward and with
hand grenades eliminated two of the positions, while a member of his platoon
[PFC Michael Citrak] eliminated the other two. Later the same day, he and one
of his men broke up enemy patrols which tried to infiltrate through their lines.
On 30 November, 1944, during an enemy counterattack, he and four of his men
crawled to an advantageous point and killed or wounded 60 of the enemy. On
1 December, 1944, Second Lieutenant Garlington carried a wounded member of
his platoon through intense enemy fire to a place of safety. While directing the
fire of his men, an artillery shell hit approximately 10 yards away. While at the
aid station he insisted that others less seriously wounded be treated first and
tried to show his men the position of a concealed enemy machine-gun”
[HQ ETO USA, G.O. 24, 26 Feb 1945]
When Garlington died, his twin (and only) brother, 2nd Lieutenant Henry Fitch
Garlington, ’41, was a prisoner of war in Germany. A fighter pilot, he was shot
down and captured June 5, 1944, near Rome, and was released at the end of the
war. Creswell Garlington, Sr. ’06, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in
the First World War, served in this country in the second, and died at Savannah,
Georgia, March 11, 1945. [Click HERE for a complete list of Citadel Men who were
POWs during WWII]
(Source: St. Paul’s School in the Second World War, The Alumni Association, 1950,
pp. 66-67)
__________
The Germans had dallied too long in attempting to eliminate the two lieutenants
[Carpenter and Garlington] and their hundred men. During the night of
29 November and through the next two days, they tried to remedy the situation,
first with contingents of the 10th SS Panzer Division and later with a Kampfgruppe
recruited from the 9th Panzer Division and the 506th Tank Battalion. This
Kampfgruppe was an Army Group B reserve controlled by the XLVII Panzer
Corps.32 For several days the Americans had to supply their troops in Lindern
along a route the tankers christened the “Blue Ball Express.” But for all the violence
of their reaction, the Germans were too late. They had lost Lindern to alittle band of
intrepid infantrymen who had gone where they had been told to go and had stayed
there. The entire German position in this sector had been weakened materially.
(Source: The Siegfried Line Campaign, Charles B. MacDonald, 1990, p. 570 |
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