Henry Augustus Creitz

Aniline Village is a little neighborhood in Claymont, New Castle County, Delaware and within shouting distance of the Pennsylvania state line. That was Henry’s official place of birth but within a few weeks his family moved a few blocks north to the “Viscose Village” in Marcus Hook. It was a nice “mill town” for employees at American Viscose Company where a new fiber, rayon, was being hailed as “artificial silk.” 

Henry’s  father, Garnell, was a machinist who had just been hired there as a spinner at the end of 1919. He and wife Anna had another son, William, two years older than Henry, and they lived with her family, several of whom also worked at the mill. Unfortunately, Garnell died in 1928 at age 34, so Anna eventually remarried.

 The boys attended school in Marcus Hook where, as a teenager, Henry worked with his great uncle at the Post Office. Before he was drafted in 1941, he was employed as an apprentice molder at Penn Steel Castings Corporation. 

 His basic training was at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland, followed by additional stateside assignments. His obituary says Henry participated in the North African campaign, followed by  the Allied invasion of Palermo, Sicily and Salerno in Italy. He was then attached to Company M, 115th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division for training in England. 

 On D-Day, June 6 1944, the 115th was part of the second wave of the assault force that landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy.  It was during the fighting through northern France, at the age of 24, that Henry was killed in action on August 11, 1944. It was exactly three years, three months, and three days from the day he enlisted.

 In 1948 his body was returned home, and funeral services were held on October 23 in Chester, Pennsylvania, where his mother was living. Full military rites were provided by the Boothwyn Post No 951, Veterans of Foreign Wars. 

At the time of his burial, brother William was an Army Sergeant, serving from 1946-49 and happened to be home on furlough from Japan. Henry was the only member of his family buried at Mount Moriah.