Skala, Peter Hans (01326224)

Record status: unconfirmed. Class-roster match confidence is medium. Correct the infobox if you have a source, and note it on talk.

Peter Hans Skala
Personal details
Born	3 September 1924 Vienna, Austria
Died	3 April 2017 London, England
Nativity	Austria
Religion	Protestant
Awards	Silver Star; Purple Heart; French Legion of Honor
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	01326224
Rank	First Lieutenant
Rank at Ritchie	Private
Camp Ritchie	Class 10 (23 July – 20 September 1943)
Section	5A
Team	IPW 101

Awards and honors

Silver Star	Purple Heart	French Legion of Honor

• Listed in By The Numbers/Awards (from Ritchie Boy Secrets by Beverley Driver Eddy).

Teammates

IPW 101

Altbaum, Jack (12127952)

De Neufvile, Robert (0552581)

Heuman, John S (32441485)

Necker, Herbert Ferdinand (32962743)

Rosenstern, Franz J. (36612405)

Skala, Peter Hans (01326224)

These are the other soldiers currently on each team roster. Men were attached, transferred, and sent on throughout the war, so appearing together here does not mean they served in the same place at the same time.

Research notes on this page are compiled from the source file and later edits. They may be unverified, incomplete, or incorrect, and should not be treated as established fact. Please correct the article or add sources on the talk page. For class-roster terms, see About the data.

Sources & confidence: Treat Research notes as leads, not settled fact. Prefer NARA, the class roster, newspapers, Find a Grave, or published histories for contested claims. Mark unsourced claims with {{Needs source}}, or explain disagreements on talk. Baseline import notes: About the data.

Peter Hans Skala (3 September 1924 – 3 April 2017) was a Vienna-born Ritchie Boy (Protestant, of Jewish roots) who trained at Camp Ritchie in Class 10, commanded IPW Team 101 with the 95th Infantry Division, and earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart in the battle for Metz and on the Westwall.

Biography

Peter Hans Skala was born on 3 September 1924 in Vienna, Austria; Army records list him as Protestant, of Jewish roots. As a schoolboy he fled Austria after Kristallnacht in November 1938 and from December 1938 to October 1939 stayed in Birmingham and Liverpool, England. He then went on with his family to the United States, lived in Queens, New York City, and studied English at Queens College. He enlisted in the Army on 5 April 1943 (enlisted ASN 32883052) and took basic training as a supply soldier with Company I, 6th Quartermaster Training Regiment, at the Quartermaster Replacement Training Center at Camp Lee, Virginia. In July 1943 he was transferred to the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, where he trained as a German-language prisoner-of-war interrogator and graduated with Class 10 (section 5A; certificate 3548); he became a United States citizen in September. From October to December 1943 he was detached with a provisional IPW team to the Desert Training Center at Camp Young, California, for exercises.

In January 1944 Skala was sent to the Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, where by May he had completed class No. 329 with the 24th and 27th Companies of the 3rd Student Training Regiment and was commissioned a second lieutenant (officer ASN O1326224). In June 1944 he returned to the MITC, and in July, as a member of provisional IPW Team 169, he sailed for Europe and was assigned to the Military Intelligence Service and its Field Interrogation Detachment at Broadway, England. In August he was placed in command of IPW Team 101, which was divided into two groups and detached to the Ninth (later the Third) U.S. Army for service with the 95th Infantry Division. After a rapid advance, from October 1944 he served at and in Metz with the 377th Infantry Regiment as an interrogation officer and, as a platoon leader in its Company I, as a "combat interrogator" in the house-to-house fighting, taking part among other actions in the capture of Generalleutnant Heinrich Kittel; for this he was awarded the Silver Star. His team included Herbert Ferdinand Necker. In December 1944 he was wounded by rifle fire at Fraulautern (Saarlautern) on the Westwall and evacuated to the 109th Evacuation Hospital. He returned to the United States through Britain in February 1945, received the Purple Heart in March 1945 at Newton D. Baker General Hospital in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and was discharged there as a first lieutenant in October 1945. From 1946 he served in the intelligence branch of the Officers' Reserve Corps, leaving the Army for good in April 1953.

After the war Skala earned B.A. (1947) and M.A. (1949) degrees at Yale and worked in international marketing and executive search, including Boyden International posts in Brussels and London. He later received the French Legion of Honor (2014). He died in London on 3 April 2017 and was buried at Fort Myer, Arlington, Virginia.

Timeline

• 3 September 1924 — Born in Vienna, Austria.
• 1938 — Family fled Austria after Kristallnacht; December 1938 – October 1939 in Birmingham and Liverpool, England.
• 5 April 1943 — Enlisted while a student at Queens College (ASN 32883052); basic training at Camp Lee, Virginia.
• July 1943 — Transferred to Camp Ritchie; graduated with Class 10 (section 5A). Certificate # 3548.
• September 1943 — Naturalized.
• July 1944 — Sailed for Europe with provisional IPW Team 169.
• August 1944 — Commander, IPW Team 101, with the 95th Infantry Division.
• December 1944 — Wounded at Fraulautern (Saarlautern), Germany.
• March 1945 — Received the Purple Heart at Martinsburg, West Virginia.
• October 1945 — Discharged as first lieutenant.
• 1947 — Received a B.A. from Yale.
• 1949 — Received an M.A. from Yale.
• April 1953 — Left the Officers' Reserve Corps.
• 2014 — Received the French Legion of Honor.
• 3 April 2017 — Died in London, England.
• October–December 1943 — Provisional IPW team at the Desert Training Center, Camp Young, California.
• January–May 1944 — Infantry OCS, Fort Benning, Georgia; commissioned second lieutenant (O1326224).
• October–November 1944 — Battle for Metz; awarded the Silver Star for gallantry.

Technical record

Field	Imported value
Approx Age at Death	93
Class_ASN	32883052
Class_Name	SKALA, Peter H.
match_method	pass2_unique_name
row_source	both

Research notes

• Silver Star; Legion of Honor
• Fixed malformed live birth_place/death_place strings. Purple Heart added from the packet alongside the existing Silver Star and Legion of Honor display. City of birth within Austria is not asserted.
• Also held enlisted ASN 32883052 (class roster; Austriansoldiers biography). The page title uses his officer ASN O1326224.
• The Austriansoldiers biography gives his birth name as "probably" Peter Harald Skala and his death date as 13 April 2017; the page's Peter Hans and 3 April 2017 (RB Archive note) are kept pending review.
• Birth city Vienna per the Austriansoldiers biography (supersedes the earlier note that no city was asserted).

Sources

• Dan Gross, Timeline of Peter H. Skala for Camp Ritchie (private research document; selected non-private findings)
• RB Archive biographical note for 1LT Peter Hans Skala (Class 10; Yale; Purple Heart; Silver Star; French Legion d’Honneur 2014)
• Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
• Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
• NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
• 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)
• Ritchie Boys of WWII Facebook page, post dated 2022-09-27 (1 post)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Peter H. Skala for Camp Ritchie (private research document; 2 source documents reviewed)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Skala, Peter H. for Camp Ritchie (private research files; selected non-private narrative findings; 2 source files: PETER SKALA (2020).doc, PETER SKALA.doc)
• Austriansoldiers biography: Peter H. Skala, Austriansoldiers / Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on Consequences of War (in German; accessed 25 September 2026)