2LT Emerson Marvin Visch

home on leave before OCS

2LT Emerson Marvin Visch was born 11 Nov 1915 in Zeeland, Michigan. He was the only child of John Garrett and Carrie (Riemersma) Visch. His father worked as a foreman in a furniture factory operated by the Zeeland Furniture Company and, beginning in 1927, for the Wilcox-Gray Corporation in Charlotte, Michigan. Emerson lived with his family at 503 Lovett Street and 404 Warren Avenue in Charlotte while attending Charlotte High School. He graduated in 1934. He also worked for Wilcox-Gray before he found work at Miller-Jones Shoe Store in Charlotte and became an assistant manager there. Unfortunately, his mother had heart disease and died in January 1936. Emerson reported a 1939 income of $400 and was still living with his father in 1940. 

Emerson was drafted in January 1941 and initially went to Fort Custer, Michigan. He was then assigned to Jefferson Barracks in Missouri where he was promoted to SSG in the US Army Air Corps. He was assigned there when the photo shown here was taken while he was home in Charlotte on leave. SSG Visch had been identified as a possible officer and was sent to the officer candidate course from which he successfully graduated and he was commissioned as a 2LT. After several stateside assignments he was sent to England in April 1944. We don't know where he was in the interim but 2LT Visch was transferred from the replacement depot to I Company 116th Infantry to serve as a platoon leader. He was wounded in action on 13 Jul 1944 and evacuated to hospital in England. 2LT Visch was returned to his unit, transferring from the replacement depot on 30 Oct 1944 to again serve as a platoon leader. 2LT Visch was killed in action on 24 Nov 1944 at Koslar, Germany. 2LT was reportedly posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for "extraordinary heroism" on 24 Nov 1944 in staving off a German counterattack while armed only with a sub-machine gun. The citation says that "so vicious were his actions that 50 of the enemy threw down their arms in surrender." European Theater of Operations, US Army, General Orders No. 52 dated April 5, 1945. From 29 Let's Go - A History of the 29th Infantry Division in World War II had this to say about the incident in the muddy of trenches before Koslar:

"Lt. Emerson M. Visch, of I Company, had one of these normally operating guns - a submachine gun. When his company became engaged in a fire fight with the enemy in the trenches, the small-arms fire the men were able to deliver with their poorly working weapons was light and ineffectual. Aware of this, Lieutenant Visch assumed a daringly exposed position and sent a demoralizing volume of fire at the enemy position with his own gun. This was apparently all that was needed to break the enemy spirit. They called 'Kamerad!' Then fifty of them came over and surrendered. for this action Lieutenant Visch, who was later killed in the Koslar battle, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously."

2LT Visch was repatriated in 1948 and re-interred in the Zeeland Cemetery in Zeeland, Michigan.