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Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Harold Gaston Jr
Photograph date and location presently unknown
Lt. Col. Frederick Harold Gaston Jr commanded the 24th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron.
An elite officer, he graduated from West Point - United States Military Academy (USMA) - in 1936.
He transferred from Infantry to Cavalry in 1939 - the role that would bring him to Normandy with his squadron.
Lt. Col. Gaston Jr received a Purple Heart for wounds sustained on July 29 1944. Shellfire was received on the squadron command post, including his command halftrack, near Le Mesnil-Herman, in France. Five men were injured and evacuated but Lt. Col. Gaston Jr remained on duty.
On April 14 1945 he was evacuated from the front line in Germany with acute appendicitis, returning to his post on May 10, two days after Germany’s surrender.
He was decorated by his own country with the Bronze Star Medal and received the French Croix de Guerre with palms - one of France's highest military honours. Palms are added to signify additional citations for acts of exceptional bravery.
Post-war he served in Washington as commandant of the War Department's Strategic Intelligence School and later, in England, as an assistant military attache assigned to the Joint American Military Assistance Group, JAMAG, from 1949 to 1951.
Frederick Harold Gaston Jr died in 1977 and now rests in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia.
We are glad to be in contact with Ty Gaston, who kindly provided these photographs in memory of his father.
“Pop was pretty ‘tight-lipped’ about the war. He loved serving but at the same time, I think he abhorred war. It is so devastating.”
Photograph dated 1942/43
