Fox Company
On This Day 105 years ago: SGT Ted Blazina’s birthday
Oct
SGT Theodore “Ted” Charles Blazina was born in Red Lodge, Carbon County, Montana, on October 29, 1917. Exactly 105 years ago, to this day. He was a graduate of Carbon County High School. He worked for four seasons as a bus driver at Yellowstone National Park before entering the service on February 19, 1942. He enlisted for the paratroopers, and after getting his wings he became a 101st Screaming Eagle, and one of those courageous paratroopers who were part of Fox Company, 502nd PIR.
Featured image: SGT Theodore Charles Blazina, a courageous 101st Screaming Eagle who died much too young (Source: Ancestry.com).
SGT Blazina’s combat action
SGT Blazina made his second combat jump when he was dropped in the Netherlands on September 17, 1944. On June 6, with his first combat jump, he had a lightly injured knee because of a hard landing, but although slightly injured he could continue to fight. At the time he was a private first class but was promoted to the rank of sergeant on June 9.
The Stars and Stripes had a small article about SGT Blazina’s combat actions in Normandy.
“A stocky, leather-necked paratrooper with the bird on his arm, saw a German come running into the area. Shooting up in the air with a pistol. ‘He wanted to surrender, and that’s why he was shooting in the air. We let him surrender all right,’ he told us. Old Ted Blazina, the Montana paratrooper, had a lot of fun and grins all the time about it.”
After the war, “Legs” Johnson, the company commander of Fox Company, remembered how SGT Blazina was one of the men who helped him when he got wounded during the Battle for Best in the Netherlands on September 19, 1944.
“I was running together with my men, forward-leaning over, when I was hit in the shoulder, probably by German machine gun fire. That bullet came out at my backside, but it knocked me down. A couple of my guys grabbed me, I remember one of them was SGT Blazina, and moved me over to the back of our line.”
Legs Johnson’s recollections of SGT Blazina’s support is the last recorded statement of him being unscathed as the War Department would report in a telegram, dated October 5, 1944, to his family that SGT Theodore Blazina was seriously wounded in action on September 19.
His fatal wounds
SGT Blazina would succumb to his wounds in a hospital in Belgium two days later, which was confirmed by a War Department telegram on October 16, 1944. He died at the age of 26 on September 21, 1944. He was one of those 101st Screaming Eagles who died much too young for our liberation. He left behind his father Steve Blazina, a brother, and one sister. After the war, SGT Ted Blazina’s body was reburied at Red Lodge Cemetery, in his hometown, on Saturday, April 23, 1949.
This is a short story of one of Fox Company’s paratroopers, SGT Ted Blazina, as described in the book: From the Frying Pan to Mittersill, Fox Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (1942 – 1945). If you are interested in learning more about these brave Fox Company paratroopers, order your copy now!
