Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
Branch: U.S. Army 
Unit: 11th Airborne Division (Quartermaster Company), 8th Supply and Transport Battalion, 8th Infantry Division
Military Honors: Silver Star, Bronze Star (3) Purple Heart (3)
Date of Sacrifice: December 16, 1967 - in Wiesbaden, Germany
Age: 44 
Conflict: No declared conflict

Albert Blithe was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 25, 1923. His father was a deliveryman and his mother worked in the garment district. According to Blithe’s son, Gordon, young Albert was constantly in trouble and often ran with a rough crowd.

After graduating from high school, Blithe took a job at Westinghouse Electric for a time. But he soon saw the need to break free of the streets of Philadelphia and friends who were a bad influence. With World War II (1939-1945) underway, Blithe enlisted in the Army in 1942 at the age of 19.

He trained as a paratrooper with Company E (“Easy Company”) of the 506th Infantry Regiment at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. As part of an Airborne assault Blithe and Easy Company dropped into Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6th, 1944.

Easy Company soon earned a reputation for its courage and relentlessness—accomplishing mission after mission, often against overwhelming odds. Their story is immortalized in Stephen Ambrose’s book and the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.

Band of Brothers recounts a brief but powerful scene where PFC Blithe suffers an episode of temporary hysterical blindness, after being immersed in the chaos and death of an intense battle. Major Dick Winters, who was in command of Easy Company and PFC Blithe while in France, comments about the depiction of Blithe in the book and TV series:

It’s a true story, no question about it. But the way it’s presented is unfair to the man…He had this problem that he was that frightened, he was that scared that he blanked out. And in the Aid Station—I had gone in there because I had been hit—and I took the opportunity to go down the line, along the wall…and check with each man to see how many I had wounded, and how they were doing…and I talked to him. It seemed to snap him out of it, and he was all right. Later on…he volunteered for a patrol outside of Carentan [Normandy, France] and he was wounded, and he was gone.

The story on Blithe since then is very, very interesting. After World War II he came home, and he volunteered for the Korean War. He went in the Korean War, he went in the Airborne…He was in the 187th Airborne Regiment in Korea. They had the mission of jumping over the line…they jumped right in the middle of a division of Chinese.…and in that action, Blithe was given a Silver Star. Later on he got the Bronze Star. So, it ends up, he has the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Silver Star—not too shabby. It speaks for itself.

There was confusion about what happened to PFC Blithe after he was shot. Even within Easy Company, some thought Blithe never recovered from his injury—thinking he had been shot in the neck (he was shot in the upper right shoulder). The errors are repeated in both the Band of Brothers book and the miniseries.

In reality, Albert Blithe was a career soldier who served in combat in both World War II and Korea and continued his service after both conflicts.

When Blithe returned home from WWII, he was on partial disability payment for a year but waived his status to return to the Army. He served in Korea with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. When hostilities ended, Blithe was assigned to the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Taiwan.

Blithe later achieved the rank of Master Sergeant and was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany with the 8th Supply and Transport Battalion of the 8th Infantry Division. In December 1967, he had just returned from ceremonies in Bastogne, Belgium commemorating Easy Company’s participation in the Battle of the Bulge when he fell ill.

Diagnosed with a perforated ulcer, Blithe went into emergency surgery at the Air Force Hospital in Wiesbaden. Complications after surgery caused kidney failure, and MSgt. Albert Blithe died on December 17, 1967, at the age of 44.

Blithe was buried with full military honors on December 28, 1967, at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. in Section 31, Site 7672.

In Marcus Brotherton’s book, A Company of Heroes, Albert Blithe’s son Gordon describes his father: “He was a true American paratrooper who put his life on the line for this country and for thousands of other people in this world. He fought for people he didn’t even know. I’m proud of him, so proud. That’s how I want people to remember Albert Blithe.”

Sources
Marcus Brotherton, A Company Of Heroes, Albert Blithe—Interview with Gordon Blithe, Son (3-10)
Military History Matters: Dick Winters and the men of Easy Company
Arlington Cemetery.net: Albert Blithe – Master Sergeant, United States Army
D-Day Overlord, D-Day and Battle of Normandy Encyclopedia: Albert Blithe
Together We Served: MSG Albert Blithe – Military Timeline
D-Day, Normandy and Beyond: Eyewitness Accounts of WW2: Albert Blithe
WW II Uncovered Educational Research Center
YouTube—Maj. Dick Winters on Albert Blithe SURVIVING World War II (Band of Brothers)
Burial Site: Find a Grave