Pvt. Peter Spoganetz 

Mil#: 42011161

 Enlisted: 24 August 1943, Newark, NJ

A-Company, 119th Infantry Regiment, 30th Infantry Division

 

 

Peter photographed just before he on August 24th, 1943

was shipped to Europe.

 

  

 

Born: 29 Juni 1923  Place: Carteret, Middlesex, NJ

Last known address: 47 John Street, Carteret     

Died: 17 Sep 1944   Place: Koulen, Voerendaal (The Netherlands)

 

Temporarily Buried: 19 September 1944  Place: Klimmen

Temporarily Buried: 16 Januari 1945  Place: American Military Cemetery Margraten, The Netherlands

 

Final Buriel: 16 December 1948  Place: Rosehill Cemetery, Linden, NJ

 

Parents: Michael and Catherine 

Siblings: Joseph, John, Anastasia, Mary, Anna and Pauline

 

 

Awards

 

Purple Heart

 

                                               

 

 
It was September 17th, 1944 during the liberation of the area between Valkenburg and Heerlen. Peter Spoganetz died in front of one of the few houses at the junction of the hamlet Koulen. Dismayed inhabitants asked for his name and when it was applied to them by one of his comrades it was told more or less phonetically to them and misspelled, Thus he became later also chiseled into the marble plaque which to this day recalls the young hero from New Jersey.

The plaque on the wall of this house is a tribute to the young American Private Peter Spoganetz.

 

 

 

Bčr and Roos Simons in front of there house

Placing the white marble plaque was an idea of Bčr and Roos, Peter Spoganetz had been lying dead on the sidewalk in front of there home on September 17th, 1944

 

 

 

Text on plaque :

P. SPOGENETS usa
KIA September 17th 1944, as a Friend and Hero for God and Country

 

In the hamlet Koulen hell broke loose again  "A tank that accompanied the infantry turned in the morning of September 17th ’44 on the intersection from Walem left towards Klimmen,  soon from the direction Termaar/Klimmen came in grenade fire and a soldier sitting on that tank was hit in his shoulder". The strange thing was that the grenade didn’t exploded, but rolled into my carpentry workshop. There was the grenade later gingerly removed. But by the power of the grenade the shoulder of that soldier was shattered. Mortally wounded he fell from the tank in front of the Simons house. The soldier was Peter Spoganetz. He was later covered with a sheet and laid in front of the Simons house door, later that day Americans had him removed. A few years after the liberation the family of soldier Spoganetz came to visit the place where Peter was killed.

Story Harrie Kickken (right), resident of Koulen.

 

 

(Following message is never formally confirmed or proven and has I think some incorrections, I'm now trying to figure out what happend exactly with Peters body, I personel think that he's first been transferred to the Temporary Cemetery Fosse, Belgium and later to Margraten Cemetery The Netherlands. I hope his IDPF gives some more additional information)

Peter Spoganetz was on 19 September 1944, together with 6 German soldiers buried in a meadow behind the patronaat building in the Houtstraat. (Picture) Members of the Order Police gave last respect to the dead.
Begin 1949, the remains were exhumed and elsewhere entombed. Peter was repattriated back to The States and reburied. The Germans are probably reburied on the German Cemetery in Ysselsteyn, the Netherlands.
 

 

 

Peter's gravestone on Rosehill Cemetery in Linden, NJ where he on December 16th 1948 was finaly buried.

Unfortunately, here again a minor error occurred, date on his gravestone says Sept. 16th while he was KIA on the 17th

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter's gravestone and Family monument

This is the plot for both Peter Spoganetz and Catherine Spoganetz-Olasin (1889-1974). The inscriptions are for "Son Peter" and "Mother Catherine Olasin"

 

 

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