Dale Edward Watt
WWII 1944-1946
Battle Of The Bulge
Dale Edward Watt was born March 28, 1923 in Riceville, Iowa, and graduated from Riceville High School in 1941. He was inducted into the Army in April of 1944 in Des Moines. He trained at Camp Roberts in Monterey, California. In September of 1944 he returned to Iowa City for eleven days and married Clarissa Ruppert at the Army chapel in Clinton, Iowa on September 6th. He sailed to Glasgow, Scotland, arriving on October 15th. From there he went to England and then to France where he served in the 30th Infantry Division (Old Hickory), 117th and 119th Infantry. After serving in France he went to Belgium and then onto Germany and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. His family received word that he was missing in action, but he eventually was able to make his way back to the line where he was able to identify himself and was taken first to a hospital in France to be treated for shrapnel wounds and frostbite from the extremely cold weather he had endured. He was then transferred to a hospital in Cardiff, Wales from February 1 to April 3, 1945 where he was awarded the Purple Heart. He returned to what is now Munich, Germany and was scheduled to report back to the front when the war ended. He arrived home in March 1946 as a Staff Sergeant.
Upon his return to Iowa, he and his wife briefly lived in Des Moines where he owned a grocery store. When the opportunity arose, they returned to Iowa City and opened Watt’s Food Market which he operated until his death on November, 6, 1984. His daughter Catherine Clarissa was born in 1949 and his son Craig Ruppert in 1953.
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