Clarence H. Knutson

Marengo, IL.

Date of Birth: 8 December, 1920

Date of Death: 7 January, 1945

Branch of Service: United States Army

Rank: First Lieutenant

Unit: Company G, 401st Glider Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Place of Death: Vicinity the Hamlet of Grand Sart, Lierneux district of Wallonia, Belgium

First Lieutenant Clarence H. Knutson

By early January 1945, the war in Europe had entered its final brutal phase. Nazi Germany, surrounded and desperate, fought with savage determination to defend its remaining territory. In the snow-covered hills and forests of Belgium, American forces pressed forward against fierce resistance. Among them was First Lieutenant Clarence Harold Knutson of the 401st Glider Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division—a twenty-four-year-old medical corpsman from Harvard, Illinois, who had already survived years of combat and a near-fatal shrapnel wound just months earlier.

Clarence Harold Knutson was born on December 8, 1920, in Harvard, McHenry County, Illinois, to Roy Chester Knutson and Elsie Nell Lasch Knutson. In December 1940, he enlisted in the Army, beginning what would become five years of military service. He married Lillie Joyce Draper in 1941, and the couple would have a daughter, Karen, born in 1943.

Knutson participated in the European theater’s most demanding campaigns, including the liberation of Holland. During this service, he was wounded in September 1944 when shrapnel tore through his body. He spent over a month hospitalized, recovering from injuries that would have ended many soldiers’ combat careers. After his recovery, he transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division to serve as a medical corpsman with Company G, 401st Glider Infantry Regiment.

On the morning of January 7, 1945, Lieutenant Knutson’s unit departed from Arbre Fontaine, Belgium, with orders to secure high ground approximately three-quarters of a mile north of Grand Sart, Belgium. The company had just reached its objective and begun digging defensive positions when the 3rd Armored Division launched an attack on Grand Sart parallel to their positions. The assault drew enemy anti-tank fire directly into the American positions.

First Sergeant Harold L. Christensen was digging a slit trench with Lieutenant Knutson when the enemy barrage began. Knutson had moved about fifteen yards from their position when three enemy armor-piercing shells landed in the vicinity. One struck him just below the waist, killing him instantly. His body remained at the location where he fell when the unit withdrew on the morning of January 9, 1945. Several inches of snow fell during the period between his death and the withdrawal, covering the battlefield in white.

On Friday afternoon, February 23, 1945, Mr. and Mrs. Roy Knutson of Marengo received two telegrams from the War Department. Their eldest son, First Lieutenant Clarence Knutson, had been killed in action in Belgium on January 7. Their younger son, Private First Class Charles H. Knutson, serving with the Fifth Marine Division in the Pacific, had been killed in action on Iwo Jima on the same date. It was the first time a family in the area had lost two sons on the same day.

Lieutenant Knutson’s remains were eventually recovered and returned to the United States under the Return of World War II Dead Program. His widow, Joyce, living in North Little Rock, Arkansas, with their daughter Karen, requested that his remains be interred at Quincy National Cemetery in Quincy, Illinois. On February 25, 1949, First Lieutenant Clarence Harold Knutson was laid to rest in Section A, Site 364. His brother Charles was buried beside him in adjoining graves, the two brothers united in death as they had been separated by war in life.