Hometown: Gibbsville, WI
Branch: U.S. Army 
Unit: Company F, 302d Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division
Military Honors: Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: January 28, 1945 - KIA in Sinz, Germany
Age: 23
Conflict: World War II, 1939-1945

Abram and Johanna (Mentink) Heinen operated a dairy farm near Gibbsville, Wisconsin—some 50 miles north of Milwaukee. Their son Donald joined the family on July 2, 1921, as the nation and the world recovered from the “The Great War” (World War I, 1914-1918) and the devastating Spanish Flu.

During Donald’s childhood, peace and prosperity followed, the nation coming into its own as a cultural and manufacturing powerhouse—in what was later referred to as the Roaring Twenties. On the dairy farm outside of Gibbsville, likely the only thing “roaring” was the amount of work required to tend to the herd and supply milk to the Gibbsville Cheese Company.

Donald, his older sister Delilah, and younger brother Norman attended the three-room Gibbsville School. Donald later went to high school at the Cedar Grove Academy.

The small unincorporated community of Gibbsville consisted of the school, a general store, and a Dutch Reformed Church which the family attended. As a young man, Donald was a member of the church and the Christian Endeavor Society.

After the economic boom of the 1920s, Heinen’s later childhood and teen years would be marked by the struggles of The Great Depression (1929-1939) and America’s entry into another global war (World War II, 1939-1945).

He was inducted into the United States Army on December 2, 1942, and left for Basic Training at Camp Phillips in Salina, Kansas.

Donald married Ruth Buhk of Sheboygan in April 1943 and the two welcomed a son, Roger, in April 1944. Three months later, after more training at Camp McCain in Elliott, Mississippi, Donald was sent overseas to the European Theater of Operations in July 1944, as the Allied forces were turning the tide of the war against Germany.

He was assigned as a mortar section ammunition bearer in the weapons platoon of Co F, 302d Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division. Following Operation Overlord—the D-Day invasion of Europe, which began a month earlier—PFC Heinen’s unit arrived for the what the Allies hoped would be the decisive push of the German army out of western Europe. At its peak in late 1942, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime controlled nearly all continental Europe and much of northern Africa.

To defend against invasion from the west, the Germans had constructed a formidable line of pillboxes, bunkers, and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles along its borders with the Netherlands, Belguim, Luxembourg, and France. Stretching 390 miles, the Siegfried Line provided an imposing barrier for western Allies in their campaign to reach Berlin.

The fighting along the Siegfried Line was intense, particularly in the Saar-Moselle Triangle—a key battleground along Germany’s border with Luxembourg and France. PFC Heinen’s 302d Infantry Regiment was there in late January 1945.

Fellow “mortar man” George J. Morris of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, described PFC Heinen in a 2011 note to Heinen’s family:

Don and I were bunk mates. Don was a quiet man, and we became very close. We shared pup tents and even foxholes. While in training, I was always awakened prior to reveille by the smell of cigarette smoke wafting up from his lower bunk.

On January 28, 1945, at age 23, PFC Donald Heinen and four other members of his 15-man mortar team were killed in a failed attack on the German village of Sinz, in the Saar-Moselle Triangle.

Two others who served with PFC Heinen, twins Dick and Dave Leffler of Massillon, Ohio, recalled:

…he was one of the nicer guys in our platoon. Seemed to be a sound, solid kind of guy who you’d like to meet your mother and someone who could be counted on in a pinch. He was a good, brave and trusted soldier and a man of honor as attested to by those who knew him under trying times. [He] was a great fella, really a fine nice man, never swore and was a God-fearing gentleman.

PFC Heinen’s son Roger was just 9 months old when his father gave “the last full measure of devotion” for his country. According to Don’s grandson, Andrew Heinen, Don was given the nicknames “Daddy” and “Papa Heinen” by those who served in his unit—because Don had a new son.

Sources
Details and original card photo submitted by Andrew Heinen, PFC Heinen’s grandson
The Sheboygan Press, April 9, 1943: Marriage Licenses
The Sheboygan Press, April 16, 1945: Memorial Service For Pfc. Heinen Held On Sunday
The Sheboygan Press, March 27, 1945: Pfc. Heinen Is Awarded Medal
The National WWII Museum: XIX Corps Breaks through the Siegfried Line
Warfare History Network: The Saar Offensive: Patton Breaks Through the Western Wall
Burial Site: Find a Grave