A FAMILY DIVIDED BY CONTINENTS AND WAR by Wayne Gsell My name is Wayne Gsell, and I am a 3rd generation New Orleanian. My father and grandfather were both born in New Orleans, as well. My great grandfather, who was a cousin of Karl-Heinrichs grandfather, came to the US from the Alpine regions of Austria and immigrated to the US in the 1850s. All of our family with the Gsell surname are related, and all come from the Alpine areas where Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and France come together. They settled within a 200 mile radius of that point. Karls family ended up in Kiel, however, as his father, Emanuel was a German government engineer, and he and his wife were relocated to Kiel, Germany. My father, Frank Gsell, although he wanted to serve, was not in the United States military during WW2. As an optician by profession, he had a forced & critical job deferment and was not allowed to enlist. This deferment was a major life disappointment for him, as all of his friends went into the military and he could not join them. Karl-Heinrich Gsell was my fathers distant cousin, born in Kiel, Germany, and he served in the war as a panzer company commander on the Eastern Front. Karl was a highly decorated young Lieutenant in the Wehrmacht Heer (Regular German army) and Karls ambition after the war was to enter diplomatic service. But he was fatally wounded at 22 years of age and died on February 25, 1945 during the defense and evacuation of Danzig at the end of the war. The first photo of Karl was when he received his Knights Cross in February 1944. He looks like a kid. The other photo of Karl, was taken one year later and about 2 weeks before he was killed during a nighttime counterattack. He aged years between those images. For more information, you can visit panzerregiment35.blog As far as my service, it was very limited as a Reservist. I enlisted in the USMC Reserves in New Orleans just after my high school graduation and did my 6 months active duty for training in boot camp at MCRD San Diego and my MOS specialty training as a motor transport driver with 1st Tank Battalion/1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. I then returned to New Orleans where I went to the University of New Orleans and did monthly weekend/2weeks summer training with S Co., 4th MP Battalion, 4th Marine Division for the next 3 years. As I was a college student right after I returned from my initial 6 MOS active duty, I soon had a change in MOS and became a clerk typist in 4th MP Bn headquarters. It was not much of a military career; but such was the reserves during the last 3 years of Vietnam. ~ Wayne Gsell We are very grateful to Wayne for sharing these family photos and his unique story. But perhaps his story is not unique after all, as most of our families immigrated from another country and therefore have distant relatives abroad to this very day. Please share your family photos of those who served, so we may feature and honor them on Comes A Soldiers Whisper, where we are all connected. Facebook History Stories : facebook/ComesASoldierswhisper WW2 Letters: ComesASoldiersWhisper Vietnam Letters: VietnamAndBeyond Twitter: @Jennylas
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:00:02 +0000
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