05/24/10
On Monday May 24, 2010 the Columbia County Honor-A-Veteran Committee honored PFC Wendell Everett
Chamberlin.
Wendell Everett
Chamberlin was born in Abington, MA on July 8, 1925 to Harlan and Ruth Chamberlin. He grew up in Columbia County where he
attended Roeliff Jansen Central School in Hillsdale, NY.
PFC Wendell Everett Chamberlin was assigned to Headquarters Company, 289th Infantry,
75th Division, 9th Army in the European Theater of Operations. The 289th Infantry was constituted
on 24 December 1942 and assigned to the 75th Infantry Division, which was then activated on
15 April 1943 at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It embarked from New York Port on November 14, 1944 with a brief stop in England;
it then landed in France on December 13, 1944. The 289th Infantry was engaged in several major campaigns in the
Rhineland, the Ardennes-Alsace and Central Europe including: the Ardeenes, Salm River, Colmar Packet, Rhine
River and the Ruhr. In an excerpt written in the Stars and Stripes, the fighting was characterized:
“Christmas Eve 1944: In the biting, stinging cold
of the Ardennes, men who never before had seen a German soldier camp to grips with the Nazis in a slashing bayonet duel. There
were green troops---fresh from the States---these men….suffered many casualties. But their hold was tenacious.
Another writer characterized the conditions
as, “strong resistance, poor visibility, snow, and extreme cold.”
On April 25, 1945, while participating in combat operations in Germany, PFC Wendell Everett
Chamberlin was killed in action. PFC Wendell Chamberlin was awarded posthumously the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. He was
19 years old.
