Posted by Allan Wilford Howerton Link: Dear Captain, et al.
on September 17, 2009, 4:56 pm, in reply to "Todd S.Foster-December 4,1944"
98.163.77.119
S/Sgt. Todd S. Foster (ASN: 34516475) of Greer, South Carolina was the second of forty-two Company K, 335th Infantry fatalities during the company’s six months of combat from early November 1944 to May 8, 1945. He was killed in action during an attack on Lindern, Germany, a major German strategic stronghold in the Geilenkirchen salient of the Siegfried Line, which commenced November 29, 1944.
S/Sgt. Foster was a member of the original cadre having entered the company at Camp Howze, Texas December 1, 1942. He was appointed Sergeant May 12, 1944 and Staff Sergeant July 18, 1944 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana..
The Company Morning Report, filed at Waubach, Holland December 4, 1944, notes: “KIA vicinity Lindern, Germany 4 Dec 44.” By this time the company had been off the line for two days. December 4 is most likely the date his body was recovered from the battlefield.
Eyewitness accounts indicate that S/Sgt. Foster was killed in action during the morning of November 29, 1944. He was leading a squad of the Second Platoon that became lost in the darkness and missed a crucial turn during the early stages of the attack. Instead of moving directly toward the objective the platoon veered off toward a different segment of the German lines where they were pinned down by enemy fire. When S/Sgt. Foster stood up to try and determine what was going on he was apparently hit by machine gun fire. He was the platoon’s only fatality. The rest, including one and possibly two men who were wounded, became German prisoners.
Chapter Nine of my Memoir, “Dear Captain, et al.: the Agonies and the Ecstasies of War and Memory” (pages 185-236) contains a detailed description of the Battle of Lindern including a first-hand account of the Second Platoon’s capture and S/Sgt. Foster’s death.
S/Sgt. Foster is buried at Netherlands American Cemetery, Margraten, Netherlands (Plot N Row 20 Grave 14). Tall, slender, and soft-spoken, he is remembered as a young Southern gentleman of quality and as a well-respected noncommissioned officer of Company K. His loss and that of his platoon, occurring during our first offensive action, was a shock to those of us who participated in and survived the successful capture of Lindern that later enabled the crossing of the Roer River and the drive to the Rhine.
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