Edward Gildner
Age: 99
Born: May 28, 1911
Hometown: Longmont, Colo.
Residence: Sky Valley
Military branch: U.S. Army; 1st Army; 69th Infantry Division; 272nd Infantry Regiment; 2nd Battalion, Service Company
Years served: 1934-1954
Rank: Captain; retired as lieutenant colonel
Family: Wife Marjorie Gildner (deceased); two children, Kären Stahl of Delano and Marcia Lang of Denver; two grandchildren; two great-grandchildren.
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Edward Gildner, 99, was wearing an Army uniform years before the U.S. officially entered World War II.
Graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1934, he began serving as a reserve officer after receiving a commission as second lieutenant.
During the war, Gildner, who turns 100 on May 28, served overseas with the 69th Infantry Division — known as the “Fighting 69th.”
“We were the ones who met the Russians at the River Elbe,” Gildner said.
According to historic accounts, on April 25, 1945, elements of the 69th Infantry Division linked up with the Soviet 58th Guards Division near Torgau, Germany.
The link up — the first meeting between these Allied troops — split the German Army in two and hastened the end of the war in Europe.
While training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, Gildner appeared in a photo in the June, 1941 issue of Life Magazine along with hundreds of other soldiers, clad in World War I-era uniforms — most of them sitting in jeeps lined up in rows across a huge field.
From Fort Sam Houston, he was sent to Camp Shelby in Mississippi, where the 69th was forming. The division was activated on May 15, 1943.
There, with the new rank of captain, he entered active duty with the 272nd Infantry Regiment. Nicknamed the “Battle Axe Regiment,” it was one of three regiments assigned to the division.
After nearly 18 months of intense training, the regiment was called to action, and on the night of Nov. 15, the group began its voyage across the Atlantic, traveling in a 30-ship convoy, bound for England.
Arriving in England on Dec. 1, 1944, Gildner and the troops settled in, but before long, the regiment was called to action.
The news came down that the Germans had broken through the Allied front lines in Belgium, triggering the start of the Battle of the Bulge.
Traveling across the English Channel in a blizzard in mid-January, 1945, the regiment landed in Le Havre, France, journeyed by box car to Belgium, then moved to the front lines.
“I was the personnel officer in the 272nd Regiment,” he said. “I had charge of all the records. When a man was killed, I wrote out the record and it went back with the man.”
Gildner, in his role with the 2nd Battalion, service company, was in charge of the personnel records of more than 900 men.
After pushing the Germans back, the regiment moved rapidly through Europe.
The regiment moved to the the front at the Siegfried line — a string of defensive forts along the German border.
Gildner remembered his regiment attacking the enemy holed up in these forts.
“We'd pop 'em off,” he said.
The regiment made its way through Germany, crossing the Rhine River, doing battle in the city of Leipzig, and ultimately joining up with the Russians at the Elbe River.
Gildner saw many horrors of war — including bodies of GIs and Germans scattered over the battlefields — but one sight in particular remains seared into his memory.
“The worst thing I saw was a truckload of Germans — 16 feet sticking out of the back end of the truck. They were all dead.”
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II on Sundays. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@ thedesertsun.com
