From the Susquehanna to the Rhine: The Military Career of Daniel Strickler in Two World Wars

Col. Daniel Strickler, as commander of the 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Division, 1944.
Pennsylvania State Archives, MG-356

“Hold at all costs.” It’s an order no commander wants to give. It is certainly unwelcome — and perhaps even terrifying — to the subordinate who receives it. The phrase was used on the morning of December 16, 1944, at the headquarters for the 28th Infantry Division in Wiltz, Luxembourg. Maj. Gen. Norman Cota (1893–1971), the commander of the 28th, issued the order during the initial phase of the German Ardennes Counteroffensive, commonly known as the “Battle of the Bulge,” during World War II. Receiving the order was Lt. Col. Daniel Strickler (1897–1992) of the division’s 110th Infantry Regiment. A longtime veteran of the Pennsylvania National Guard and combat veteran of World War I, Strickler was going to have to draw on his experience and a good deal of luck to bring himself and his men through this severe test.

Formative Years

Daniel Bursk Strickler was born on May 17, 1897, to hardware store owner Calvin Strickler and his wife Harriet (née Bursk) in Columbia, a borough in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County. In his self-published 1972 memoirs, he describes an idyllic childhood with family and friends in Columbia and at a family farm across the river in York County. He claimed to be ambitious, wanting to excel academically and in sports.

From an early age, young Daniel was influenced by several men with military backgrounds. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Daniel Bursk, who had served as a commissary sergeant in Company C of the 122nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. Although the 122nd was recruited for a rather brief period of nine months, the regiment had seen some action at the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville in Virginia between late 1862 and mid-1863. Maj. Joseph W. Yocum, who had been an officer in the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War was the Sunday School superintendent of the Presbyterian Church of Columbia and the editor of the local newspaper. Yocum worked with his students to build character and instill a spirit of citizenship, while also teaching reading proficiency. Perhaps most influential of all was Col. Edward C. Shannon (1870–1946), the Stricklers’ next-door neighbor and commander of the 4th Infantry Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard. A veteran of the Spanish–American War, he was “every inch a soldier” in the eyes of his young neighbor. “He was my hero,” Strickler stated plainly.

In 1913 Strickler got his first experience with the Army, taking a dollar-a-day job setting up tents at Gettysburg for the observance of the 50th anniversary of the Civil War battle. After the accommodations were set, Strickler and his companions served as escorts and helpers for the elderly Union and Confederate veterans who attended the event.

Strickler was a senior in high school in January 1916 when Columbia native Reginald W. Kauffman presented a lecture on his experiences as a newspaper correspondent for the Philadelphia North American. Kauffman recounted what he had seen as the German army moved through Belgium during the first phase of World War I and expressed the opinion that the United States would eventually be drawn into the war. Concurrently, Strickler’s hero, Colonel Shannon, was actively recruiting for additional young men to join the National Guard. On January 31 Strickler joined the National Guard at the Company C armory in Columbia. Over the course of the next six months, he demonstrated the ambitious and enthusiastic aspects of his personality, receiving a promotion to corporal in Company C before graduating as the valedictorian of his high school class. Strickler’s friendship with Shannon had lowered the risks that were associated with the commitment of enlistment. Strickler wanted to enroll in college for the autumn semester of 1916, and Shannon had promised him a release from duty to make that possible. National events, however, dictated a different course for Strickler.

Sergeant Strickler in the 4th Infantry Regiment at camp near El Paso, Texas, 1916.
Pennsylvania State Archives, MG-356

Mexican Border Campaign

Since 1910 revolution in Mexico had caused tension along that country’s border with the United States. After a raid on Columbus, New Mexico, by rebel leader Pancho Villa in March 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered U.S. Army units under the command of Gen. John J. Pershing to pursue and capture Villa. Wilson also federalized some state National Guard units to increase the force available to Pershing and to bolster the American defenses along the border. On June 15, 1916, the Pennsylvania National Guard was called up, and a week later they mustered at their Mount Gretna training ground for mobilization into federal service.

Shannon was true to his word and offered Strickler release from his enlistment. Strickler, however, was not about to miss out on the adventure. A short time later he was promoted to sergeant. On July 8 the soldiers moved from Mount Gretna to nearby Colebrook and boarded Pennsylvania Railroad cars for the trip to El Paso, Texas, arriving on July 13. Fort Bliss, the Army base located at El Paso, was fully occupied by regular Army units, so the Pennsylvania guardsmen had to build their own camp in a vacant area.

While Pershing was pursuing Villa in Mexico, and with no other cross-border problems in the area, there was little for the men to do other than to turn the operation into a training exercise with hikes through the arid countryside and nearby mountains. The soldiers also honed their marksmanship by hunting jack rabbits to supplement their rations. After six months, the units were ordered back to their respective states; the Pennsylvanians made the trip between January 8 and 17, 1917.

The Borough of Columbia welcomed Company C home with celebration and ceremony. As the Mexican Border Campaign pushed back Strickler’s academic schedule by a year, he took a temporary job at the A. M. Byers pipe mill near his home. Within a few months, his plans were overtaken again by national events.

The Great War

World War I was in its third year in Europe, and Germany was planning to escalate its submarine blockade of shipping to England and France, a move that was likely to provoke the United States into entering the war. To mitigate that possibility, the German government approached the Mexican government with a proposed alliance and a promise to return some of the territory lost to the United States in the Mexican–American War of 1846–48. Notified by British intelligence of the German proposal and still irritated over the problems on the southern border, President Wilson requested a declaration of war against Germany, which Congress enacted on April 6, 1917.

Strickler in Company B, 109th Machine Gun Battalion, the youngest captain in the U.S. Army during World War I.
LancasterHistory, Lancaster, PA

Although the Preparedness Movement had been active on the political scene prior to the declaration of war — including Wilson as one of its late converts — this was offset by the fact that the president had won his 1916 reelection campaign with the slogan, “He kept us out of war.” The fact of the matter was that the United States was terribly unprepared for the war that had just been declared. The United States Army was comprised of approximately 128,000 officers and enlisted men, with another 80,000 in the state National Guard divisions. Given that a minor operation like the Mexican Border Campaign had required a mobilization of the National Guard, participation in a world war was going to demand the formation of an army, the size of which had not been seen since the Civil War. Subsequent legislation authorized the expansion of the Army and provided for conscription to fill the ranks.

On April 10, four days after the declaration of war, Company C of the 4th Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard elected Sgt. Daniel Strickler as its second lieutenant. The guard mobilized at the local armories on July 15 and was mustered into federal service three weeks later. Federalization also meant reorganization, as the various old units were rearranged to form the new National Army. Part of the reorganization was designed to make better use of the technological advances in weaponry that had already been proven by the European armies, such as the machine gun. Company C of the 4th Infantry Regiment was designated as Company B of the 109th Machine Gun Battalion (MGB), assigned to support the 56th Infantry Brigade within the 28th Infantry Division. The division was sent to Camp Hancock near Augusta, Georgia, on September 10, 1917 (see “Keystone Men of Iron: The 28th Division in the Great War,” Winter 2018).

As an officer, Strickler was sent for specialized training in machine guns and the tactics for their use on the battlefield. Some of the training was conducted by British instructors with the objective of preparing the American officers as instructors for their own units. Strickler was promoted again on September 27 to first lieutenant but shortly thereafter hit a bureaucratic snag. War Department policy required commissioned officers to be at least 21 years of age. Fortunately, Gen. Charles Muir (1860–1933), the division commander, arranged for a waiver of the policy, and Strickler retained his commission, making him the youngest officer in the Army at that time.

The 28th Division trained at Camp Hancock through the winter months and into spring 1918. At the end of April, it was transferred to Camp Upton in New York in preparation for transport to England. A week later, the 109th MGB and the 112th Infantry Regiment embarked on the British liner RMS Aquitania for the transatlantic crossing. The Aquitania was armed with six deck guns, and the American troops were assigned to rotating four-hour watches during the voyage. As an officer, Strickler was placed in command of one of the gun crews. Upon docking in Liverpool, the troops were sent to temporary quarters near the English Channel. On May 17 Strickler observed his 21st birthday while being transported to the French channel port of Calais. That night the officers were billeted in a hotel in the city, with a warning from the French that there would likely be an air raid due to the moonlight. As predicted, the air raid arrived in the early morning hours and the American officers took shelter. In the aftermath, they found that the hotel had been hit by a bomb, which they considered their baptism of fire and first close call.

During the next several days, the battalion was transported to a training area near the town of LeWast. Here they received their primary weapons, the French Hotchkiss machine guns. A detachment from the British 15th Royal Scots provided instruction in operation and care of the equipment. On June 9 the division was ordered to the American reserve area east of Paris, where the battalion received additional training, this time from the French. On June 29 they were ordered to the front, entering an entrenched position along the Marne River near LaNoi. The following day, Strickler and several other officers were sent to forward units to gain experience and acclimate in combat areas. Strickler was assigned to the 5th MGB in the 2nd Division, then engaged in the battle of Belleau Wood.

The U.S. Army trained its machine gunners with various domestic and foreign weapons. Strickler’s company was issued the French Hotchkiss model seen in the center of this photo with the five large heat sinks on the barrel.
The State Museum of Pennsylvania

In his memoirs, Strickler describes his experience in terms that have become synonymous with the First World War: continuous shelling that splintered the trees and filled the air with poisonous and blistering gases requiring the wearing of gas masks for hour after hour with numerous wounded and dead scattered about. He learned a valuable lesson when dealing with an officer making an oddly timed “inspection” of the machine gun positions and inquiring as to the ammunition reserves. Wisely, Strickler detained him and contacted the battalion intelligence officer who escorted the officer to the rear with a contingent of military police. It turned out he was a German infiltrator who was dressed in an American officer’s uniform.

Strickler came through this first combat experience unscathed and returned to 109th MGB headquarters on July 10. He was placed in command of Company B the following day as his former commanding officer had been relieved because of his inept deployment of the company. Within the next few days, the 109th defended the Marne during the last German attempt to cross the river. Advancing to the area of Château-Thierry, Strickler had another close call when the blast from an artillery shell blew him off his horse, killing the animal. In early August, another near miss sent him to the hospital with a shell fragment injury to his left shoulder and facial swelling and blistering that rendered him temporarily blind. After a week of recovery in the hospital and then several days of transit and bureaucratic maneuvering, Strickler managed to get back to the 109th and regain command of Company B in time to participate in heavy fighting between Fismette and the Aisne River. Having reached the Aisne by early September, the 28th was withdrawn and redeployed into position for the Meuse-Argonne Offensive (see “Pennsylvanians at Meuse-Argonne,” Spring 2018).

Capt. Daniel Strickler and younger brother Pvt. Jacob Harold Strickler, USMC, pose with their grandfather, Civil War veteran Daniel Bursk, after World War I.
LancasterHistory, Lancaster, PA

In the early morning hours of September 26, the 28th Division attacked along the east side of the Argonne Forest toward the town of Varennes, then continued north in the Aire River Valley to Apremont. During this time the 109th provided fire support for battalions of the 111th Infantry Regiment, with the 28th Division continuing its advance to Grandpré, where it was relieved by the 82nd Division on October 9. After repositioning south and east, they returned to the front line on October 15 in the area of the towns of Jaulny and Xammes and prepared for an assault on the German fortress at Metz.

On October 29 Strickler received orders to return to the United States as a machine gun instructor. Two days later came notification of his promotion to captain, and at the age of 21, the youngest officer of that rank in the Army. He sailed for home on the Great Northern on November 11, the day that the armistice took effect, ending all combat operations at 11:00 a.m. Strickler arrived in Columbia to a tumultuous welcome home parade on November 18 and enjoyed two weeks of leave before reporting to Camp Hancock, where he mustered out of federal service on December 23 and took a commission in the Reserve Corps as a captain.

College, Law and Politics

In January 1919, nearly three years — and many thousands of miles — after graduating from Columbia High School, Strickler enrolled at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Having been an Army officer, he had some difficulty accepting his diminished status as a college freshman and target of heckling by upper classmen. His Army rank and experience did enable him to obtain a waiver for Cornell’s military training requirement, and he became an instructor for the Reserve Officer Training Corps program. Quickly settling upon a degree and career in the legal profession as his objective, he approached his higher education with the same ambition and enthusiasm he had displayed in his high school and military endeavors. Active in sports, fraternal organizations and student government, he capped his academic career as student council president and senior class president for 1922. Along the way, he met Caroline Bolton from Oil City in Pennsylvania’s Venango County. They married in October 1924.

Strickler passed the Pennsylvania State Bar Examinations in June 1923 and began practicing estate law in Lancaster, at first in established firms before opening his own office in 1930. Having entered the local political arena a few years before, he was elected to the state House of Representatives as a Republican in November 1930. His time there was limited to one term, however, when he lost his re-election bid during the Democrat wave election of 1932.

The troop transport Aquitania that took Strickler to England in 1918 and again in 1943.
Pennsylvania State Archives, MG-356

World War II

Throughout his years in college and in civilian law practice, Strickler remained active in the Army Reserves, progressively rising in rank. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor and American entry into World War II, Strickler was a full colonel commanding the 313th Infantry Regiment in the 79th Reserve Division. Knowing that reserve colonels and generals got pushed into desk jobs and wishing to return to the Pennsylvania National Guard in a combat command, Strickler came to an agreement with Edward Martin (1879–1967), the state adjutant general. Strickler resigned his colonelcy of the 313th Reserve Infantry, and Martin requested his transfer to the 28th Division as the lieutenant colonel commanding the 1st Battalion of the 112th Infantry Regiment. Upon his completion of special training for battalion commanders at Fort Benning, Georgia, Strickler was reassigned to command the 1st Battalion of the 109th Infantry Regiment.

The 28th Division was given two years of extensive training for everything from amphibious landings to mountain climbing in preparation for the invasion and liberation of France. During the summer of 1942, Strickler developed a plan to train his battalion as a “swimmando unit,” his term combining swimming with commandos to describe a group that could cross rivers to provide reconnaissance, infiltrate enemy positions, and disrupt communications. The tactics proved successful during a training exercise in November 1942, as the battalion captured an “opposition” commanding general and division headquarters.

Strickler’s “swimmandos” did more than swim. In this case they put together an improvised raft during training in 1942.
Pennsylvania State Archives, MG-356

In October 1943 the 28th Division was ordered to England and created a situation that gave Strickler a pause for reflection. Years later he recalled the event in his memoirs: “I could hardly believe my eyes as I approached the big liner, ‘The Acquitania.’ Here was the same ship which I boarded in the same way just twenty-five years before during World War I. With pack on back, carbine in hand, and blanket roll around my shoulder, I walked up the gang plank, wondering if it was a dream. I also pondered on the thought of whether or not we had learned anything about how to maintain peace after we became victors in that first World War.”

Training continued in England but with a change in plan by mid-1944. Instead of being one of the leading units for the invasion, the 28th would be used either for a diversionary landing or as a reserve force. Consequently, it wasn’t shipped to France until July 22, over a month after the initial D-Day landings. Progress inland off the beaches had been slowed by the hedgerows that bordered the local farms. The limited opening in the hedgerows had been zoned for defensive machine gun and artillery fire by the Germans. The solution to the hedgerow problem came in the form of a forklike attachment mounted on the front of American tanks that allowed them to rip new openings into the hedgerows. The innovation was facilitated by modifying the steel obstacles that the Germans had put on the Normandy beaches into the tank attachments. Coupled with a massive aerial carpet-bombing attack, the way was opened for an accelerated advance across northern France.

An American tank carrying troops through the German defenses of the Siegfried Line. The pyramidal structures in the background are concrete tank obstructions called “dragon’s teeth.”
Pennsylvania State Archives, MG-356

By late August, the Germans had withdrawn from Paris while the 28th Division was at Versailles, just to the west, with orders to move around the city and continue advancing east. French general Charles de Gaulle requested a show of Allied strength to reassure the Parisians that the Germans would not return. A hurried change of orders sent the 28th Division parading through the center of the city, an event that Strickler later recounted during the presentation of the division’s flags to the State Museum of Pennsylvania: “May I remind you of a personal experience in France when for the first time in the history of modern warfare an infantry division, the 28th, while engaged in battle and while advancing in its zone of action, unfurled its flags and colors, and in close battle marching formation, marched by the Arch de Triomphe and through the streets of Paris on August 29, 1944. They were greeted and cheered by frenzied Parisians on their liberation, only to go into full-scale battle beyond Paris the next day.”

The period of rapid advance continued across France but came to an end as the German forces took shelter in the Siegfried Line, a defensive series of tank traps, minefields and fortified machine gun emplacements along the western border of Germany. Having crossed northern France and portions of Belgium and Luxembourg, Strickler and his battalion entered Germany briefly on the night of September 10 as a reconnaissance force; however, the Allied supply lines were stretched, and a period of reorganization was needed before the advance could continue. The 28th Division moved to relieve the 9th Division of the task of pushing the German forces out of the Hürtgen Forest.

Soldiers of Company E, 110th Infantry Regiment in the Hürtgen Forest near Vossenack, Germany.
Pennsylvania State Archives, MG-356

The 28th enjoyed initial success with its attack on November 2, 1944, but with little activity on the rest of the front, the Germans were able to concentrate their forces for a counterattack. Familiarity with the difficult terrain and thick vegetation, along with defensive installations, gave the German defenders a distinct advantage. In late November and early December, the 8th Division was rotated into the Hürtgen, while the 28th was sent to a quiet sector in another forested area, the Ardennes. During this same period, Strickler was elevated from the command of the 1st Battalion and temporary regimental command of the 109th Infantry to executive officer of the 110th Infantry Regiment. In his 1990 narrative history of the 109th Infantry, The Regiment, Col. Harry Kemp gave a concise summary of Strickler’s leadership with the unit: “Strickler had done a fine, professional job in guiding his First Battalion and later the regiment. He had been especially adept at detailed planning for the regiment’s attack in the Huertgen Forest, coordinating all available firepower to its maximum.”

Around 5:30 on the morning of December 16, a massive German artillery barrage hit the lines of the 28th Division and the 110th Infantry in particular. With the telephone lines out and the radios jammed, Strickler took a jeep to the division headquarters in Wiltz, Luxembourg. It was there that Gen. Norman Cota, the division commander, told him, “Strick, we don’t know how big this thing is or what the enemy objective is, but my orders are to hold at all costs.”

Flag of the 110th Infantry Regiment.
The State Museum of Pennsylvania

With that, Strickler headed for the town of Consthum and the command post of the 3rd Battalion of the 110th Infantry. There, the news coming in from the companies was grim. They were all in desperate fights and the onslaught was overwhelming. Holding at all costs meant that entire units were being overrun and captured. The 1st and 2nd battalions of the 110th suffered this fate and when the regimental command post was captured and the commanding colonel with it, command of what remained of the regiment devolved to Strickler.

One small intelligence success shed light on the situation. A map taken from a captured German officer showed that the 28th was being hit by the 47th Panzer Corps of the German 5th Panzer Army. The overall German objective was to capture the port of Antwerp, Belgium, and sever the Allied supply lines. Speed of advance was the key feature of the German plan and to keep the attack moving, isolated units would have to be taken care of later. Strickler and the remnants of the 3rd Battalion were in danger of becoming one of those isolated units. With the division headquarters at Wiltz under attack, Cota ordered Strickler to pull back and then placed him in command of a rearguard force. Cota then set out to relocate headquarters to the Belgian town of Sibret by way of Bastogne. The Germans bypassed Wiltz, and continued toward the road junction of Bastogne.

Colonel Strickler shaking hands with Pennsylvania governor Edward Martin, who traveled to Boston to greet the returning troops of the 28th Division.
Pennsylvania State Archives, MG-356

Strickler and his group were cut off and their only objective was to avoid capture and rejoin the division. They broke into small groups and began to make their way to the southwest, toward Sibret. Over the next four days and with little food, Strickler and his men dodged German units, stayed under cover during the day, and made their way 35 miles southwest, mostly at night. Arriving in the town of Vaux-les-Rosiers, only to be “captured” by American troops, Strickler found that they had successfully met the 28th Division headquarters since it had been relocated there from Sibret. Battlefield-commissioned a full colonel, Strickler took the remnants of the 110th and other stray units south and set up a defense of Neufchâteau, Belgium, until they were relieved by elements of Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army.

The 28th moved back to eastern France to rest, replenish and reorganize. At the end of January 1945, the division moved south to deal with a remnant of German resistance known as the Colmar Pocket. They liberated the city of Colmar on February 2. The division’s advance continued south, finally reaching the Rhine River on February 8, and operations continued in that area until mid-April. During the last weeks of the war, the 110th Infantry became the occupation force in the Saarland district of Germany. As military governor of the region, Strickler had to keep the peace between German civilians and the resentful French to the west. He also had to contend with 40,000 displaced persons, mostly Russians taken prisoner by the Germans on the Eastern Front, awaiting repatriation. That unpleasant duty ended in early July, as the division was ordered to return to the United States. Landing in Boston on August 2, they were greeted by their former commander, Edward Martin, who was by that time governor of Pennsylvania.

This 1946 campaign broadside depicts the Republican candidates for statewide offices: Edward Martin for U.S. senator, James Duff for governor, William Livengood for secretary of internal affairs, and Daniel Strickler for lieutenant governor. All four candidates were elected.
The State Museum of Pennsylvania

Postwar

Still aligned politically with Governor Martin, Strickler capitalized on his military experience and veteran status in 1946 as the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. Elected along with Gov. James H. Duff, Strickler eventually found himself in an uncomfortable position between contentious factions within the Republican party. Having maintained his connection with the National Guard, he was promoted to major general commanding the 28th Division in December 1947. When the division was federalized in 1950 to reinforce Europe during the Korean War, Strickler took a leave of absence for the remainder of his term as lieutenant governor. When the division was returned to state control in 1952, Strickler remained in the Army serving in staff positions in Europe and Asia until his retirement in 1957 at the age of 60. The Pennsylvania National Guard recognized Strickler’s long service as a citizen soldier through four mobilizations, including the two world wars, on February 8, 1960, with an honorary promotion to the rank of lieutenant general.

Further Reading

Bradley, Omar N. A Soldier’s Story. New York: Henry Holt, 1951. / Ent, Uzal W., and Robert Grant Crist. The First Century: A History of the 28th Division. Harrisburg, PA: 28th Division, 1979. / Eisenhower, Dwight D. Crusade in Europe. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948. / Kemp, Harry M. The Regiment: Let the Citizens Bear Arms! Austin, TX: Nortex Press, 1990. / Strickler, Daniel B. The Memoirs of Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant General Daniel Bursk Strickler. Lancaster, PA: Self-published, 1972.

Robert D. Hill is curator of the Military and Industrial History section of The State Museum of Pennsylvania. His previous articles for Pennsylvania Heritage are “Stockings, Cap Braids and Bomber Turrets: Wyomissing Industries Mobilizes for World War II” (Fall 2018) and “Keystone Flagship: USS Pennsylvania Leading the Navy through Two World Wars” (Fall 2016).