CLARENCE MICULKA
Posted Friday, March 1, 2013 08:00 AM

REMEMBERING
CLARENCE MICULKA

 

By Joe C. Fling

Just days after the death of Robert Shimek, another young soldier from the area was killed. Clarence J. Miculka was serving with distinction in the U.S. 7th Army when he was killed. He received the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC), the highest award that the Army can give for his heroism, in the fighting that resulted in his death. He was also the last southern Colorado County death in the European theatre; several more men were destined to die in the war against Japan.

Miculka was born June 30, 1916 on Ed McRee’s farm on the Colorado-Wharton County line. He received his education in the schools at Matthews, Nedra and Eldridge. He was farming when he was called into the service shortly after Pearl Harbor.

He entered the Army in the spring of 1942 and went overseas very soon. Milculka served overseas for two and a half years. He had seen action all over the European theatre. Going overseas in 1942, and serving in 7th Army, Milculka must have fought in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Southern France. While Patton’s Third Army got most of the headlines in 1944-45, General Alexander Patch’s veteran Seventh Army drove through southern Germany capturing Stuttgart and Munich. Eventually they reached the Danube River. It was here that Miculka would meet his fate.

Miculka had attained the rank of corporal and was serving as a gunner in the 441 Anti-Aircraft Automatic Weapons Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division. Miculka’s unit had received their commander’s extraordinary praise in a commendation issued in October, 1944.

As with action on the Rhine, once the Americans had captured bridges and made crossings of the Danube, the Germans desperately tried to destroy these bridges. They would use high explosives on the structures; or if they lost the bridge, the German Luftwaffe (their air corps) would try to bomb the bridge. Miculka was involved in some of this action.

High drama took place on the bridge at Dillengen en der Donau, a small town on the north bank of the Danube in Bavaria. On April 22, 1945 troops of the Seventh Army dramatically snatched fuses from demolition charges already set by German engineers to destroy the bridge. Failing to destroy the bridge before it was captured, the Germans turned to their airmen. The 441st Battalion took up positions to defend the bridge against air attack. Miculka died doing just that.

The posthumous award of the DSC relates how he fought and died:

“For distinguished heroism in action April 24, 1945 near Dillengen, Germany. When his battery was defending the only Allied controlled bridge over the Danube River, Corporal Miculka braved a strafing attack by two Messerschmitts. Although he received a fatal wound from the 20mm gun of an attacking plane which severed his right leg and shattered his arm, he continued to engage the hostile aircraft with his 37mm cannon. Bleeding to death and with his vehicle riddled in twelve places by German fire, he fought on to damage and destroy the enemy. He died a few minutes later after accomplishing his courageous, self-assigned mission.”

In February, 1946, the DSC was presented posthumously to Miculka’s father Charles Miculka. Clarence’s mother had died on January 3, 1945, just weeks before her son met his own death. News of Clarence’s death broke in the May 11, 1945 Headlight. The family had received the news on V-E Day; the very day that President Truman announced the end of the war in Europe and the whole country was basking in the joyous news.

In 1949, Miculka’s body was returned to the United States for burial. Services were held out of the Heights Funeral Home, and burial in Forest Park Cemetery in Houston. Clarence was survived by his father, four brothers, Charles, Jr., August (who was serving in the Seabees when Clarence died), Henry and Alphonse (U.S. Army, military police, in Ft. Worth). He also left four sisters, Mary Dittrich, Adrana Meyer, Ella Wilkins and Annie Bennett.

Clarence Miculka performed outstanding service and is worthy of our gratitude and remembrance. He served long and in the end laid down his life for ours. Chaplain Ronan Foley who conducted Miculka’s original burial in Germany wrote the family in May, 1945, “Clarence was a good soldier and popular with the men of the battery. He paid a great price that we as a free people might continue to enjoy all those things that make life worth living.”