They Fought in the Bloodiest Battles of World War II
By Nick Lamberto
Many of them came from Iowa communities; some had never traveled beyond the next farm or a neighboring city or town before they joined the Army.
But before the end of World War II, these same men – members of the U.S. Army Rangers – had participated in seven invasions, leaving a trail of bravery and blood from the sands of North Africa and the scraggy cliffs of Normandy to the jungle trails of Luzon in the Phillippines.
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Rugged Training.
. . . . Some received early training in the swamps of Louisiana before America entered World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941.
Iowa’s 34th Infantry Division, originally a National Guard unit, and the First Armored Division furnished cadre members for the newly formed Rangers when they started training at Achnicarry, Scotland, in the summer of 1942. At least two men died in training there.
Killed in Italy.
The Rangers trained under the British commandos with intensive schedules laid down by Col. William O. Darby, a West Point graduate credited with organizing the First Ranger Battalion in Northern Ireland June 19, 1942. Darby was killed in Italy in 1944, two days before all enemy forces in Italy surrendered.
Source: The DesMoines Register, Sunday, July 27, 1975 p. 21 (photo included)
Royal Hayden Wells was born Mar. 24, 1921 to Charles Henry and Sara Bell Banning Wells. He died Feb. 11, 1981 and is buried in Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, IA.
Source: ancestry.com
