George R. Neide

Rank: Private First Class, U.S. Army

Serial: 42080604

Unit: Company E, 362nd Infantry Regiment, 91st Infantry Division

Entered service from: New Jersey

Died: April 30, 1945

Buried at: Locustwood Memorial Park, Route 70, Cherry Hill, New Jersey

Private First Class George Ralph Neide was born on June 20, 1925, to Ralph H. and Catherine A. Neide. The 1930 census shows the Neide family at 211 Ardmore Avenue in the Westmont section of Haddon Township. The neighbors at 205 Ardmore were William Hernandez, his wife Lucille, and son William Jr.

By 1940 the family had moved to 328 Chestnut Avenue in Audubon, New Jersey. Ralph Neide was then working as a machinist at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard in Camden. The family had moved to 208 Chestnut Avenue by 1943. In November of that year a sister, named Catherine after her mother, was born.

George Neide left high school after one year and, according to Army records, worked as a “route man” prior to being inducted into the United States Army on December 11, 1943. Assigned to the 362nd Infantry Regiment, 91st Infantry Division, he took part in the fighting in Italy.

At the end of the war, the 362nd Infantry took the town of Treviso, just north of Venice, as combat operations had virtually ceased. Private Neide and his unit arrived in a bivouac area late at night and were given a location to bed down. Tragically, the location where they slept turned out to be a roadway. A truck came through, killing Private Neide and several of his companions.

At the time of his death, George Neide was about to get engaged to his longtime girlfriend Dorothy Powel. His mother had bought the rings and in one of her last letters asked him when he wanted her to give them to “Dottie.” It wasn’t to be.

George Neide was initially buried in Italy. He was brought home in the late 1940s and was buried with full military honors at Locustwood Memorial Park in what was then Delaware Township, now Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He was survived by his parents, his brother Ralph Jr., and his sister Catherine.