PFC Stichtenoth served
in the 310th Combat Engineer Battalion
with
the 85th Division and his unit was assigned to support the infantry of
the 339th "Polar Bear" Regiment. He was a skilled artist.
This
might seem strange to some people but the engineers would probably need
a good artist to sketch drawings for their work.
The above photo is a unique casual portrait of him wearing a battle
jacket
that has the 85th "CD" patch. He is also wearing the DUI pin of
the
310th Combat Engineer Battalion on his cap.
Before
the War
Warren Stichtenoth was born on January 18, 1925 in Cincinnati, Ohio,
the
older of two children of George and Irma (Poetker) Stichtenoth.
Warren
has a younger sister named Betty. George Stichtenoth served in
the
Army during World War I. Genealogy records show George as being
in
the Army Signal Corps, but Warren remembers hearing about his father
being
a gunner on a Spad fighter plane. Warren’s grandfather was
Charles
Stichtenoth who died before Warren was born. Warren’s great
grandfather
was Louis Stichtenoth, a German immigrant and veteran of the Civil War,
having served with the rank of Corporal in B Company, 165th Ohio
Volunteer
Infantry Regiment in 1864.
His
experience in Italy in his own words
"Upon
graduation from Withrow High School in Cincinnati in 1943, the draft
awaited
me and the United States Combat Army Engineers was to be my life for
almost
three years. After training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and
learning
how to build and destroy bridges at Fort Belvoir, VA, I shipped
overseas
to join a combat battalion with the 85th Custer Division serving in
Italy.
However my first stop was a replacement depot in southern Italy.
"My art,
again,
came into play at this time, and actually saved my life in a most
unusual
way. It seems that a number of fellows coming into the
replacement
depot wanted to identify themselves with their home state, so many of
them
drew pictures of their state and lettered the state name on the back of
their combat jackets. I, of course, joined in and after lettering
and drawing on my jacket, I found myself doing the same for many other
buddies from all over the country. This practice led one of the
officers
to ask if I would draw a picture of his girl friend for him. In
order
to do this, I was allowed to miss the everyday drills, marches and
general
training we all were required to do. After roll call, I was
dismissed
and told to report to one of the officers for special duty. He
would
then send me to my tent and there I would work on the portraits.
Other officers followed the first and before long I was set up to do a
number of girl friends, wives, mothers etc, etc. Working from
small,
faded, cracked wallet size photos made the challenge even more
difficult.
The normal, average time a replacement remained in camp before
assignment
was about a week at the most. For me, one week ran into two, two
into three and I was still there drawing every day. The fellows
would
come into camp and ship out, but not until the fourth week did I get my
assignment to join the 85th Infantry Division, fighting at that time at
“Monte Cassino”.
"How
did the art I was doing save my life? Well, my name had come up
for
‘ship out’ on three different lists, but because I was still working on
an officer’s wife’s portrait, my name was removed from the list.
One of the shipments I was to be on went to the Anzio beachhead – and I
later found that the group I was to be with was completely wiped out
while
attacking the beachhead. All were lost.
"After
the
4th week in the replacement depot, my time had come, and I joined the
3rd
squad, 1st platoon, ‘C’ company, 339th combat battalion, 85th Infantry
Division (as part of the 310th Combat Engineers). There started
my
acquaintance with Italy and the long journey up the “boot”. In
order
to keep a record of this long trip, I kept a sketching log of many of
the
interesting encounters we experienced. Yes, and before long I was
doing sketches of some of my squad buddies. They sent them home
to
their families. One more way I was able to keep my hand in the
art
area.
"Italy,
being
a country known for its great art over the centuries, added real value
to my art experiences. Many of the master’s work had been removed
to hiding places to protect them from being destroyed. Florence,
Rome, Naples, Venice and many small villages still had much to offer
the
art student, even in those war years."
Quoted
from
an autobiography written in 1987. End of Quote.
|
DUI Pin of the
310th Engineer Battalion.
Pin is
worn on Warren's
hat in top photo.
The pin for
the 339th
Infantry Regiment also has a Polar Bear on it, which denotes their
service
in Russia in WW1.
|
Voyage
Home
Falling
two points short of going home, PVT Stichtenoth found himself in
Leghorn,
Italy, in early August. He boarded the USS
General M.B. Stewart (AP-140), which was bound for a destination in
the Pacific via the Panama Canal with more than 3000 US
Servicemen.
Departing from Leghorn on August 7, the ship headed first to Gibraltar
and then into the Atlantic Ocean. Word of an “atomic bomb” was
heard
on-board followed by news that the Russians had joined the war in the
Pacific.
The vessel and its passengers were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
on August 14 when news came of the Japanese surrender. The next
day
the ship’s captain received new destination orders and set a course to
the northwest for New York. The USS General M. B. Stewart,
full of happy servicemen, arrived in New York harbor on August 19, 1945.
As
Warren Stichtenoth tells the story, the troops on board heard that the
ship’s captain may have secured the help of a brother in the Pentagon
who
arranged the change in destination. The majority of the
servicemen
on-board were part of non-combat units, including the 715th
Railway Operations Battalion, the 31st
Ordinance Heavy Maintenance Company, the 576th
Signal Service Company, and
others.
As Stichtenoth recalls, the combat veterans had three days to teach the
non-combat units how to march and carry a rifle so as to appear like
battle-tested
troops when they arrived in New York.
After
the War
Warren Stichtenoth enrolled at the University of Cincinnati’s College
of
Applied Art in January, 1946, thanks to the GI Bill. While at UC
he became a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and the National Honor
Society, and was the first UC student to serve as editor of the UC
yearbook,
and President of Student Council. He earned a degree in
Industrial
Design and began a career in commercial art and advertising in
1949.
He married a longtime childhood friend, Suzanne
Bailey in November, 1949. Warren’s
first
job was as an advertising layout artist for the Mabley & Carew
department
store. After a year and a half, he had the opportunity to join a
nationally
ranked advertising agency. Warren worked for sixteen years with this
agency
which became known as John L. Magro Advertising, Inc., with offices on
the 45th floor of the Carew Tower in Cincinnati.
Warren was an active member of the Cincinnati Men’s Art Club, and by
the
early 1960’s, Warren was becoming a recognized local artist. He
was
featured in one-man shows and multi-artist shows over the years and
became
known for his scenes and skylines of Cincinnati. He
developed
a lasting relationship with the Greene Line Steamer Co., owner of the Delta
Queen Steamboat, which for many years
was the last remaining paddle wheeler carrying overnight passengers
plying
the inland rivers of America. Warren designed a number of
promotional
items to help celebrate the river boat company’s 75th
anniversary.
He held a one-man art show on the Delta
Queen in 1965, with all the paintings
depicting scenes of the steamboat. The art show went on a tour of
American
river cities and was featured in cities like Louisville, Memphis, St.
Louis,
New Orleans, and others, earning a special national public relations
award
for the Delta Queen.
This led to two similar art shows, one commissioned by the governor of
Kentucky to promote tourism throughout the state, and one for the city
of St. Louis with a similar objective. The Kentucky project
involved
traveling the entire state with his family for a year, resulting in a
collection
of 40 paintings and sketches titled “A Neighbor Discovers Kentucky”
that
became a traveling art show in 1967 that visited many cities and towns
throughout the Midwest. For the St. Louis project that was
initiated
the following year, Warren painted a number of pictures that featured
St.
Louis’s Gateway Arch, which at that time was still under construction.
Warren left the Magro agency in 1965 and started his own commercial art
and graphic design business. However in 1970, Warren accepted a
marketing
position with one of his major clients, SteelCraft Manufacturing
Company,
which later became a part of American Standard Corporation.
During
those years, Warren continued to pursue a number of interesting art
projects
as well. These included producing a series of limited edition
prints
of famous Cincinnati landmarks and scenes. Then there was “The
Queen
City”, a full color limited edition print available in two sizes, which
showed a skyline view of downtown Cincinnati, as seen from the Kentucky
side of the Ohio River. In 1976, Warren created a series of eight
special drawings to commemorate the bicentennial celebration of Delhi
Township,
the part of Cincinnati where Warren and Suzanne lived with their two
sons.
In 1977, he did the art for the first of a series Christmas cards for
the
Business and Professional Women’s Club of Cincinnati. This series
of cards, featuring historic winter city scenes, continued for eight of
the next ten years. Larger limited edition prints of four of the
cards were later made available to local businesses through the
Cincinnati
Chamber of Commerce. Throughout the years, there were many other
special projects and commissions too numerous to mention here.
Warren retired
from Steelcraft
in 1990, yet he continued his series of special art posters saluting
SteelCraft’s annual participation in the annual NSDJA convention until
1995. That series of 12 pieces, featured convention cities such
as
Boston, San Antonio, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Nashville and
others. Warren
and Suzanne became residents at Maple
Knoll Village, a retirement community in Cincinnati. For
a number of years, Warren
taught an
art class for seniors at Maple Knoll, in association with the University of Cincinnati’s
Institute for Learning in Retirement. For
many years Suzanne taught a yoga class.
Warren’s last
major piece of
original art was a tribute to the history of Maple Knoll
Village on the
occasion
of its 150th anniversary in 1998. That piece, entitled “Visions
Reflected”, won local and regional awards and went on to earn the
People’s
Choice Award at the Ohio Statewide Art and Writing Exhibition in 2000
sponsored
by the AOPHA. Warren
passed away on November 26, 2005, and his
wife
Suzanne passed away on April 12, 2006. The Warren Stichtenoth Art Gallery,
containing twenty five of the artist’s paintings and drawings, many
showing
historic scenes of the Cincinnati area,
was
dedicated on August
12 2006
in the Breese Manor section of Maple
Knoll Village,
11100 Springfield Pike, Cincinnati,
OH
External
Links to sites mentioned in above text: Maple
Knoll Village & AOPHA
Sketch
Book
Photos of two
drawings
from a battlefield sketchbook that PFC Stichtenoth used from December,
1944 through March 1945. The two scenes photographed here
were
inked in, while the remaining scenes in the sketchbook were in pencil.
This sketch
was
entitled “Home Sweet Home” across the top. Below the picture reads
“about 18 miles
north
of Florence, 12/11/44”.
This sketch was
entitled
“One of Our Hard Days” across the top.
Below reads “Somewhere
in Futa Pass, 12/14/44”.
Two
examples of portraits drawn by PFC Stichtenoth. These
sketches
were given to his buddies, who mailed them home to their families. PFC Stichtenoth's
buddies contacted him later and sent copies of his drawings to him.
Portraits are of Rusty
Draper, a truck driver with the engineers, and Tom
Harrison.
