Honoring the Men of the 362nd
Behind every line in a morning report was a man with a name and a story. This page collects profiles of soldiers of the 362nd Infantry, contributed by their families. We hope it will grow into a lasting tribute to the whole regiment. The first profile is the soldier whose records began this project.
Pvt. Egon Josef Salmon
HQ Company, 2nd Battalion · later HQ Company, 1st Battalion, 362nd Infantry
Born 4 June 1924, Rheydt, Germany · Died 7 September 2022
Egon Salmon's road to the 362nd Infantry was unlike almost any other man's in the regiment. He was born in Germany to a Jewish family. After the rise of the Nazis—his father arrested during Kristallnacht and briefly sent to Dachau—the family fled. In May 1939, Egon, then fourteen, sailed with his mother and sister aboard the MS St. Louis, the ship of refugees famously turned away from Cuba and the United States and forced back to Europe. They found refuge in Belgium and finally reached the United States in April 1940, weeks before the Germans invaded Belgium, settling on Staten Island.
Just a few years later, Egon was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent back across the Atlantic to fight the regime that had driven his family out. He joined the 362nd Infantry in Italy in September 1944, serving in the Headquarters Companies of the 2nd and then the 1st Battalion through the mountain fighting of that winter and spring. After the war concluded, Egon was transferred to the Military Intelligence Services in Austria to serve as a translator for those interrogating many of the highest ranked Nazis who had been captured.
His complete service record, assembled from discharge papers, V-Mail, morning reports, and family documents, is part of this project's research files.