Private First Class Clifford A. Judah (September 14, 1925 – January 15, 1945)
315th Infantry Regiment, 79th Infantry Division
by Yizelle Fernandez and Elizabeth Klements
Early Life
Clifford Albert Judah was born on September 14, 1925, to Margie and Elijah Judah, at Natchitoches, LA.1 The Judahs had two children: Clifford, and his older brother Cecil (1916).2
Elijah Judah was born in Alabama but grew up Holmes County, FL, on his parents’ farm. He married his wife, Margie, and they had their oldest son, Cecil, before moving to Natchitoches, LA, sometime between 1916 and 1920. There, Elijah followed his father’s footsteps and set up a farm.3 In 1936, the family moved back down to Florida, to establish a farm in Plant City, Hillsborough County.4
The Judahs may have been strawberry farmers, because Plant City was the “Winter Strawberry Capital of the World,” and the 1940 census listed Margie’s occupation as “berry packer.”5 Cecil married Alma Lanier in 1938, and set up his own farm, next-door to his parents.6 Clifford finished one year of high school before entering the work force as a sales clerk at the Rogers & Middlebrooks department store in Plant City.[7] He registered for the draft in 1943, as soon as he turned eighteen years old, and the military called him into service later that year.8
Military Service
Judah arrived at Camp Blanding, FL, on November 2, 1943. After a period of training, he became a private in the 315th Infantry Regiment of the 79th Infantry Division.9 The 79th Division first saw action in June 1944 when it participated in the liberation of France. After training in England, it landed at Utah Beach on June 12 – 14, 1944, about a week after the initial D-Day landings. Through the summer and the fall of 1944, the 79th and other Allied troops pushed inland and eastward toward the Franco-German border.10 In November, the 79th reached the Lorrain region and faced the German forces which had established a defensive line along the foothill of the Vosges Mountains. Through severe combat, it liberated the town of Blamont and its surroundings, then continued to push eastward, passing through the Saverne Gap on November 24. During this month of November, a land mine injured Judah’s hand, but he returned to service after a short hospital stay.11
From the end of November until mid-December, 1944, the 79th division continued to fight north of Alsace, a French region that Germany had de facto annexed in the summer of 1940. By mid-December, the 79th Division liberated the town of Haguenau, Bischwiller, and crossed the Moder river. It continued to move northeast rapidly, crossing the German border into the region of Lauterbourg on December 15, 1944. Because of the German push in the Ardennes, however, the US command redirected the European war effort to what became the Battle of the Bulge. In consequence, the 79th Division widened its control area, halting its advance on the Lauter River, and switched to a defensive position.12
On December 31, 1944, the fighting intensified as German troops launched Operation Nordwind to retake possession of the Alsace region and prevent an Allied invasion of Germany. The 79th Division withdrew to the French Maginot Line defenses, near the villages of Hatten and Rittershoffen. This initiated a fierce, eleven-day engagement, as German troops almost broke through the Division’s lines near Hatten. Judah’s 315th regiment bore the brunt of their onslaught. Enemy forces cut off its Second Battalion from the rest of the Allied forces for five days, while its Third Battalion, also outnumbered and under-supplied, repulsed repeated tank attacks from German Panzer divisions. Both battalions later received Presidential Unit Citations praising their actions in this engagement.13 Richard Engler, a veteran of the Rainbow Division, fighting side by side with the 315th Regiment in Hatten, recalled that on January 15, the Germans “…seemed intent on burning Hatten to the ground. Tanks hammered holes through houses with machine guns and cannons, then flame throwers spurted fire through the apertures while tracers from the tank and infantry guns set fire to the hay in barns. By afternoon, there was little cover left beyond “the bend” where the Americans continued to hold.”14 It was on this day, that Judah went missing in action. He was nineteen years old.15
Legacy
The US troops withdrew from Hatten-Rittershoffen on January 21, 1944, regrouping on the Moder River after eleven days of ferocious combat. The village of Hatten was entirely destroyed, and an estimated 3,000 soldiers (Germans and Americans combined) and eighty-three civilians died during this engagement.16 Judah’s remains were never recovered. He is commemorated in the Tablets of the Missing at the Epinal American Cemetery in France.
At the time of his death, he had risen to the rank of Private, First Class. The US Army awarded Judah a Purple Heart for his first injury and posthumously added an Oak Leaf Cluster for his death in combat. At some point, Judah also received a Bronze Star, which the Army awards for “heroic or meritorious achievement or service.”17 Judah left behind his brother Cecil and his parents, Elijah and Margie, who died in 1962 and 1979, respectively.18 A memorial incorporating fragments of destroyed tanks and armor pieces stands at the entrance of Rittershoffen, reminding visitors of the role Judah’s 79th Division played in this battle.19
1 “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 25, 2021), entry for Clifford Albert Judah.
2 “1930 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 25, 2021), entry for Clifford and Cecil Judah.
3 “1910 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 25, 2021), entry for Elijah Judah; “1920 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 25, 2021), entry for Elijah Judah.
4 “1940 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 25, 2021), entry for Clifford Judah; “Obituaries: Judah, Margie,” The Tampa Tribune (Tampa, Florida), February 6, 1979.
5 “Plant City,” Visit Florida, https://www.visitflorida.com/en-us/cities/plant-city.html: accessed May 25, 2021; “1940 U.S. Census.”
6 “1940 U.S. Census,” entry for Cecil Judah; “Florida, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1823-1982,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 26, 2021), entry for Cecil Judah and Alma Lanier.
7 “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men;” “U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 25, 2021), entry for Clifford A. Judah.
8 Ibid.
9 “U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946;” “U.S., Headstone and Internment Records for U.S. Military Cemeteries on Foreign Soil,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 25, 2021), entry for Clifford A. Judah.
10 “79th Infantry Division – Cross of Lorraine,” US Army Divisions, https://www.armydivs.com/79th-infantry-division: accessed May 25, 2021.
11 US Army, The Cross of Lorraine: A Combat History of the 79th Infantry Division, June 1942 – December 1945 (1946), 83-88, https://issuu.com/79thdivision/docs/ww2-history_of_the_79th; ” U.S. WWII Hospital Admission Card Files,” database, Fold3 (www.fold3.com: accessed May 25, 2021), entry for Clifford A. Judah, November 1944.
12 US Army, The Cross of Lorraine, 89
13 US Army, The Cross of Lorraine, 100 – 103.
14 Engler, Richard E, The Final Crisis: The Combat in Northern Alsace, January 1945. Aberjona Press, 200, 195.
15 “U.S., Headstone and Internment Records,” entry for Clifford A. Judah.
16 Guillemette Jolain “Douze jours en enfer,” Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, last modified January 09, 2015, https://c.dna.fr/edition-de-wissembourg/2015/01/09/douze-jours-en-enfer: accessed November 9, 2022.
17 “U.S., Headstone and Internment Records,” entry for Clifford A. Judah; “List of Bronze Star Recipients,” American War Library, http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/personnel/bronze.htm: accessed May 26, 2021.
18 “Florida, U.S., Death Index, 1877-1990,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 25, 2021), entry for Elijah Damascus Judah; “Obituaries: Judah, Margie,” The Tampa Tribune (Tampa, Florida), February 6, 1979.
19 Commune de Rittershoffen, “Historique : Monument commémoratif de la bataille de janvier 1945,” https://rittershoffen.fr/histoire/: accessed November 9, 2022.