John Peirson was a proud American. Raised in upstate New York as the only child of Grace and Ray Peirson, he was a writer, even in his early years. Following his graduation from The Mercersburg Academy and Yale, he joined the Editorial Department of Fortune Magazine in New York, where he spent several years before being enticed to return to his beloved prep school to head Enrollment Development and PR.

My Mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Frost, was a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, and was selling advertising for Parents' Magazine in New York, and though she couldn't have known it, she was on a collision course with Mercersburg, and my Dad. As one fine day, in his PR capacity, Dad found himself showing my Mother around the campus -- on a four-hour tour!! Sparks flew, and Dad began spending weekends in New York.

They were married in Pittsburgh in September of '42 -- and three weeks later, Dad was in Army Boot Camp, which then led to Officer Training at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he earned his commission, and an assignment to the 75th Infantry Division, then just forming at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

I came along in August of '44. Dad was there to see us shortly after I was born (though I have no recollection of this), then shipped out from Camp Shanks, New York on the USAT Brazil in October, bound for La Havre, France. After several weeks of staging in Wales, the 75th, originally slated for action in Aachen, was diverted -- and rushed to a hill called La Roumiere, on the Northern shoulder of the Belgian Bulge.

Nearly 400 men from Task Force Hogan (later called Hogan's Heroes by some) were trapped in the Bulge, 10 miles to the South. In a Christmas Eve attempt to reach the safety of allied lines, they had destroyed their vehicles and were moving North, as La Roumiere was their only route of escape. So in the moonlight-on-snow conditions of Christmas Eve, without winter uniforms, proper maps, briefings, or air support, and with less than a normal combat load of ammunition, three companies of the 75th, including Dad's Company "L," were ordered to take La Roumiere -- at any cost -- from combat-experienced Panzer units and Volksgrenadiers who were well-dug-in at the top. And the cost would be high.

It took three frontal attacks on La Roumiere to win the hill -- one on Christmas Eve and two more on Christmas Day. By the time they watched Hogan's men tramp safely through their positions late that afternoon, the 75th had lost more than 250 officers and men, 1LT Peirson among them.

The walking wounded included Mom, who got The Telegram some time later in Pittsburgh, when I was four months old. Dad was buried with many of his men at Henri-Chapelle, in Belgium.

The 75th went on to distinguish itself in the Colmar Pocket, and in the Ruhr Valley. But La Roumiere will never be forgotten. CPT David Claggett, a West Point Officer and Company Commander of Dad's Company "L" was badly wounded in the fight, captured by the Germans, and recaptured by the 75th when the hill was taken. He wrote the grim lessons of La Roumiere as a training case for the Infantry School at Fort Benning. Then when I found AWON in '95, and started looking, I "found" CPT Claggett -- in Pittsburgh, less than four blocks from where I grew up! Sadly, I found him nine months after he had passed away. He could have told me everything.

Mother was a one-man woman, she always said, and that was that. She never remarried, and was more than glad, I know, to join my Dad in '81. She always told me what she could about him, about the kind of man he was, his sense of humor, and his deep sense of duty to his country. The reason he'll always be my hero.

I went to Mercersburg myself, in part to know my roots. I must have had a continuing need to do as he had done, as I got my own Army commission, was an Intelligence Officer, and was proud to take Infantry training at Fort Benning. That training got me through Vietnam, where I was chasing the tiger that Dad had found, in a barely conscious effort, I can see now, to know him in the only way I could.

It was a satisfaction to me when I finally learned what Dad really "did" in the war, as I had known him only as an Infantry Officer, after all, in the 75th Infantry Division. But from records that surfaced in 1998, I smiled to learn that he had been the S-2 (Intelligence Officer) of his Battalion Staff -- long before I followed close, and even longer before I ever knew I had.

AWON has lifted the well-known cone of silence from around us. Now we can ask our questions without apology, and honor these men to whom we owe so much. We can now share stories about our Fathers, their war, and what it was like growing up without a Dad -- and with Victory everywhere, it seemed . . . though it never came to our house.

Through AWON, and through each other, we've found ways to understand and in some ways reconcile a lot of what happened back there -- of all we never knew, but finally came to learn.

So on this page and on the other pages here, our Fathers proudly stand, shoulder to shoulder, boot to boot, wingtip to wingtip, and port to starboard bow, in a long, proud line, though row on row, to represent the human cost of freedom.

Now we can openly celebrate the men they were -- and recognize the incredible price they paid. As each of them, in one shining moment in history, made a choice and made it right, without question or pause, and on behalf of all of us, stepped up to change the world.

Thanks, Dad. Thanks to all our Fathers. We miss you deeply, especially now. We'll always be proud to be your sons and daughters.

– Richard Frost Peirson –

© 2019 • by Rik Peirson and the sons and daughters of AWON • All rights reserved.

For a favorite story by WWII Journalist, Ernie Pyle, Click Here.