Raymond E. Selah

CORPORAL RAYMOND E. SELAH was born in New Jersey on January 26, 1920 to Joseph L. and Helen M. Selah. Joseph Selah worked as a caulker in one of the many shipyards in Camden NJ, more than likely the Noecker, Rickenbach, and Ake Shipyard, which specialized in the construction and repair of wooden ships and boats, and which was short walk from the family home of 1201 North 28th Street, in Camden's Cramer Hill section. By 1930 Oldest son Joseph L. Jr. was working alongside his father at the shipyard. Besides Joseph L. Jr. and Raymond, the other children in the family as of 1930 were Ella, Catherine, Margaret, Eleanor, Helen, Esther, and Louis C. Selah. Oldest sister Ella was married to William Dixon, a power house operator, and the couple lived with the Selah family.

Raymond E. Selah had been a member of the New Jersey National Guard. Assigned to the 111th Field Artillery Battalion, 29th Infantry Division, he went overseas in the fall of 1943. The 29th Infantry Division was based at Tidworth Barracks in southern England, and trained there and in Devon and Cornwall in preparation for D-Day.

The 111th Field Artillery landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944. From the outset, things went very badly for this unit. Of the twelve 105 mm howitzers of the battalion, four were lost when a DUKW landing craft hit a mine, and seven of the eight remaining artillery pieces failed to come ashore as their DUKW amphibious trucks swamped in the water approaching the beach. All of the thirteen DUKWs assigned to the 11th took hits. The dazed survivors struggled ashore near Les Moulins at 8:30 AM and were told by commanding officer Lt. Col. Thornton Mullins "To Hell with our artillery mission, we're infantrymen now". A sniper soon killed the colonel, but his troops were active in the drive inland.

Private Raymond E. Selah was severely wounded during the landing, and died of the wounds he suffered later that day, on June 6, 1944. His body was returned home after the war, and he was interred at Beverly National Cemetery in Beverly NJ on December 8, 1947.

December 8, 1947

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