ROBERT SHIMEK
Posted Friday, March 1, 2013 07:57 AM

REMEMBERING
ROBERT SHIMEK

 

By Joe C. Fling

Sixty years ago this month the war against the Nazi Germans was rushing to its climactic end. After the German Army’s last gasp Ardennes offensive was stopped in the Battle of the Bulge, the Allies pushed on to the Rhine River. The Allies crossed that river and entered Germany on March 7, 1945.

The end of the war in Europe was near, but Eagle Lake and Colorado County were destined to lose several more men before the fighting came to an end in May. Robert Shimek was one of these young men. He was born September 3, 1925 in Rosenberg. He was the only child of John and Betty Shimek.

The Shimeks moved to the Garwood-Nada area in 1933 where Robert graduated from Garwood High School after World War II started. He entered military service on December 14, 1943. He received training at Camp Fannin, Texas and was shipped to Fort Meade, Maryland for deployment overseas, and would have probably taken part in the Normany invasion except for his youth.

When his officer learned that he was only eighteen, Shimek was sent to Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi for further advanced training. He was then shipped overseas in November, 1944, soon after his nineteenth birthday.

Shimek was in the army infantry and was trained in the use of the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). The Browning was a potent piece of hardware, and those who carried them were held in high regard. Robert served in the 254th Regiment, 63rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. The 63rd division entered combat in Europe on February 6, 1945 and suffered over eight thousand casualties.

As we have said before, the casualties after the D-Day invasion of Normany in June, 1944 caused many men to be rushed into the line. Many of these were our youngest recruits, and some have expressed that they did not feel adequately prepared for their duties. Shimek wrote to his parents on April 1, 1945 and told that he was delighted that he had just received a double battlefield promotion from private first class to sergeant. This indicates two things: Robert showed ability in the field, worthy of trust and commendation; and the casualty rate in his unit must have been high.

Two days after he wrote that letter, and certainly well before his parents received it, Shimek was killed in action. Reports are that while Shimek’s patrol was retiring from the front, a straggling German soldier threw a grenade into the group of men, killing Robert. At age nineteen, Shimek was among the youngest to die from the county.

The Eagle Lake Headlight, in its April 20, 1945 edition, reported that the Shimek family had received a telegram on April 17, which stated Robert was missing in action since April 3. The news that their only child had in fact been killed in action arrived by telegram the first week of May, and was reported in the newspaper on May 11.

Robert Shimek was buried in the field, but eventually interred in the Lorraine American Cemetery in St. Avold, France. This is the same cemetery that Jerrald P. Evoritt is buried in.

The story of Robert Shimek is special to me. He was from Garwood, where I grew up. Today, His picture hangs in the Garwood Veterans’ Memorial Library, along with Leon Kallina, William Foster and Norman Lanier, others from the community who gave their lives in World War II. But his story is also the impetus to the research and writing that I have done on our war dead.

For years I had thought this would be a worthy thing to do, to remember those who gave their lives for our freedom. Then in 1993, wearing my lawyer hat, I had the opportunity to handle the estate of Betty Shimek. In doing so, I became aware that her only child had died in World War II, and that his name was on our courthouse plaque in Columbus.

Robert’s mother had died, and I had lost any opportunity to talk to her about her son. Before long no one would be alive who knew these honored dead. I knew then, that it was time to tell their stories.