Band of Brothers: SGT Warren H. “Skip” Muck
Source: Find a Grave (c/o Ida Lundell)
Sergeant (SGT) Warren Harold “Skip” Muck of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 101st Airborne Division, was born in Tonawanda, Erie County, New York, to Elmer J. and Loretta M. (Bessinger) Muck on January 31, 1922. Warren had one older brother, Elmer J. Muck Jr., and one younger sister, Ruth J. (LaFleur) Muck.
Warren was named after the 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, who served from 1921 until his death on August 2, 1923. Many kids of the WWII generation were given this name, and according to Don Malarkey of Easy Company, “it wasn’t a wonder he preferred to be called ‘Skip.’”
Warren enlisted in the U.S. Army in Buffalo, New York, on August 17, 1942. A week later, on August 24th, he was transferred from Fort Niagara, New York, to Easy Company at Toccoa, Georgia, along with others like Gordon Carson and Robert B. Smith.
Although Don Malarkey came from the opposite side of the country, Tocoma, Washington, he and Warren Muck became best friends. They were assigned as a gunner team to the mortar squad of Easy Company’s second platoon. Malarkey controlled the deflection and elevation of the mortar through the mortar sight, and Muck dropped the rounds down the tube.
Later, while in England, LT Dick Winters split the men, sending Warren Muck to Easy’s first platoon. Don Malarkey suspected that Winters thought they were so close that if one of them were killed or badly wounded in action, the other would become worthless.
Warren Muck did not see the end of the war. He survived the combat actions in Normandy and the Netherlands but met his fate while fighting the Germans at Bastogne when a German shell made a direct hit in his foxhole, not only killing Warren Muck but also another close friend, Alex Penkala.
Alex Penkala (left) and Warren “Skip” Muck at Camp Mackall, 1943 (c/o Rudolph Tatay)
SGT Warren Muck was killed in action at age 22 on January 10, 1945. He was first buried next to Alex Penkala at the Temporary American Military Cemetery of Grand Faily #1, France, at Plot G, Row 11, Grave 255. On August 16, 1948, he was disinterred and reburied at the American Military Cemetery of Hamm, Luxembourg, at Plot E, Row 9, Grave 45. SGT Warren Muck was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart Medal.
In a post-war letter, Robert “Burr” Smith of Easy Company remembered Warren “Skip” Muck in a very honorable and moving way.
“Warren ‘Skippy’ Muck [was] an upstate New Yorker of great charm and wit who drew people to him like a magnet. Quiet, unassuming, totally ‘real,’ his strength was revealed in combat, where his 2d Platoon mortar section earned a fearsome reputation as Easy Company’s most effective heavy weapons element. Skippy was a happy guy, and those who knew him basked in the warmth of that happiness and were happy, too. His closest friend, and, inevitably, one of mine, was Don Malarkey, another warm, friendly, and happy-go-lucky individual who, like-wise, rose to the top of my list of personal heroes like cream to the top of the old-fashioned glass milk bottle.”
May he rest in peace.
Lest we forget. 🇺🇸
Sources:
NARA
Family Search
Easy Company Soldier by SGT Don Malarkey with Bob Welch