Photo By Staff Sgt. Anthony Jones | (second from left) Charles Giddons, a member of the 45th Infantry Division...... read more read more
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OKLAHOMA CITY — Members of the Oklahoma National Guard and the 45th Infantry Division Association unveiled a new memorial plaque at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site on April 29, honoring the Soldiers of the 45th Infantry Division who liberated the camp 80 years ago.
Dachau was established in 1933 shortly after the Nazi Party took power in Germany and served as a model for all concentration camps that followed. During the camp’s 12 years of operation, it housed more than 200,000 prisoners before being liberated by Soldiers of the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division on April 29, 1945.
The ceremony included current Soldiers from the Oklahoma National Guard, the 157th Infantry Regiment, the 7th Army Training Command and the 42nd Infantry Division, along with a Dachau survivor, a World War II veteran from the 20th Armored Division who took part in the liberation, and representatives from the 45th Infantry Division Association, and representatives of the Bavarian Memorial Foundation and the Comité International de Dachau.
“It is so important that we remember and never forget what happened here at Dachau,” said Maj. Gen. Thomas H. Mancino, adjutant general for Oklahoma - the parent unit for the then-45th Infantry Division, now the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
“[The Soldiers who liberated Dachau] were from Oklahoma, Colorado and New Mexico,” Mancino told those attending the unveiling ceremony on the 80th anniversary of the liberation. “They were all Citizen-Soldiers. They fought 511 in combat and sustained 20,000 casualties before they got here and liberated Dachau.”
On April 29, 1945, Soldiers of the 45th Infantry Division, a multi-state National Guard division made up of units from Oklahoma, Colorado and New Mexico, fought through the Nazi SS troops defending the camp while other units of the U.S. 7th Army advanced on the camp.
During the ceremony, Mancino revealed a deeply personal connection between Oklahoma and Dachau that extended beyond the camp’s liberation on April 29, 1945. He shared the story of 20 Polish priests who had been imprisoned at Dachau and, after their liberation, settled in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. There, they founded a Catholic school, one Mancino himself would later attend.
“After World War II, 20 of [the priests] came back and formed the dioceses in Broken Arrow where I grew up,” Mancino said. “I knew these priests, I did not know they were from here. They were quiet, somber, religious, and did wonderful work in my hometown.”
Mancino urged those in attendance to honor the memory of Holocaust victims, like the priests who had personally impacted him, and the bravery of the Citizen-Soldiers who helped liberate the camps, sharing that he drew strength from the courage and sacrifice of the World War II Thunderbirds during his own combat deployment to Afghanistan more than half a century later.
“When I found myself in combat and close combat with the enemy, I would often wonder ‘What am I doing here? Why am I here?,’” Mancino said. “I would tell myself ‘I represent those that came before me,’ and I think it's incredibly important that we continue that honor and lineage.”
While the 45th Infantry Division was disbanded in 1968, the 45th Division’s lineage and honors is now carried by the Oklahoma National Guard’s 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, whose Soldiers still wear the iconic Thunderbird patch. The lineage of the 157th Infantry Regiment that led the liberation lives on through the 3rd Battalion, 157th Field Artillery Regiment and 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment of the Colorado National Guard.
| Date Taken: | 05.26.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.29.2025 10:57 |
| Story ID: | 499168 |
| Location: | OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA, US |
| Web Views: | 32 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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