Angress, Werner T. (33043440)

Werner T. Angress
Personal details
Birth name	Tom
Born	1920
Died	2010
Nativity	Germany
Religion	Jewish
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	33043440
Rank	Sergeant
Camp Ritchie	Class 11 (25 August – 23 October 1943)
Section	5A
Enlisted	Richmond, Virginia
Team	IPW 45

On film Werner T. Angress appears in The Ritchie Boys (Christian Bauer, 2004).

Teammates

Team — IPW 45

These are other soldiers listed on the same team roster. People moved between teams; overlapping service dates are not always documented.

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.

Werner T. Angress (1920–2010) was a Ritchie Boy (born Tom; from Germany; Jewish) who trained at Camp Ritchie in class 11 and served with IPW Team 45.

Biography

I enjoyed reading Ritchie Boy Werner Angress' memoir, "Witness to the Storm," about his growing up in Berlin in the 1930's, emigration to the United States and return to Europe as a soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division. RB Angress parachuted into France on D-Day with the 82nd Airborne Division (where over 50% of his Parachute Regiment was wounded), was captured and served as a prisoner of war, parachuted into Holland as part of Operation Market Garden, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and helped liberate Camp Wobbelin, a sub-camp of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp.

Are there any other books about Camp Ritchie and the Ritchie Boys that readers would recommend? Here is how RB Angress describes his route to Camp Ritchie. "One day a message from division headquarters appeared on the company's bulletin board urging all those able to speak another language, especially German or Japanese, to apply for the next training course at the Military Intelligence Training Center (MITC) at Camp Ritchie, in order to become POW interrogators, propagandists, or interpreters." More to follow.

In Ritchie Boy Werner Angress' book, he describes the most important class he took at Camp Ritchie - The German Order of Battle.

It is a well-written book packed with facts and memories from growing up in Berlin in the 1920's and 1930's. One interesting anecdote he mentions is the involvement by Reichswehr General Gerd von Rundstedt in enforcing an emergency measure in 1932 following the Coup of Prussia. On the top of my list, however, is a new book to be released on May 5, Invisible Ink, by Ritchie Boy Guy Stern, probably the best known Ritchie Boy because of his being featured in Bruce Henderson's book, Sons and Soldiers, and his feature role in the 2004 documentary, The Ritchie Boys.

There are many, many more books about the Ritchie Boys that are on my reading list, including books by authors such as Roger Sabbadini, Werner Angress (Witness to the Storm), Alfred de Grazia (A Taste of War; Soldiering in World War II), and Hugh and Alex Nibley (Sergeant Nibley, PhD, Memories of an Unlikely Screaming Eagle). I've just begun to read Ritchie Boy Werner Angress' autobiography. Coincidentally, just this week we learned that another Ritchie Boy, Joseph Haas, was involved in the interrogation of Wehrmacht Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt!

"The officer who introduced us to this extensive subject matter was Captain Cohn....We had to know who the commanders of the various German divisions were, which regiments belonged to which divisions.... not only the Wehrmacht but also the Waffen SS....In this course, my head was stuffed with dates, names, military formations, rank insignia, and so on." Members of Ritchie Boy Werner Angress' IPW team included RB's Fred Guttman, Siggi Koesterich, Leo Brodsky, and Ernest Greenwald. Ritchie Boy Werner Angress received a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

Research notes

• Gross Breeson
• Ritchie Boy
• 508th PIR BS
• Historian, SUNY Professor
• Author, "Between Fear and Hope"
• Portrait and summary from Notable Ritchie Boys slides (source).

Gallery

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Technical record

Field	Imported value
Approx Age at Death	90
Nara ASN	33043440
Nara Name	ANGRESS WERNER T
Nara State	33
Nara County	133
Nara POE	3386
Nara DOE	70541
Nara Grade Alpha	PVT
Nara Grade Code	8
Nara Branch Alpha	BI
Nara Branch Code	0
Branch	Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA
Nara Term or Enlistment	0
Term of enlistment	Unknown
Defer. Date	0
Nara Source	0
Nara Nativity	N1
Nara Year of Birth	20
Nara Race	J
Nara Race Description	White not yet a citizen
Nara Education	4
Nara Civilian Occupation	316
Nara Marital Status	6
Nara Height (inches)	65
Nara Weight (lbs)	126
Class_ASN	33043440
Class_Name	ANGRESS, Werner T.
match_method	asn_exact_name_exact
row_source	both

Sources

• Camp Ritchie class roster (classes 1–31), merged research file
• 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 2020-02-09 (1 post)
• Ritchie Boys of WWII Facebook page, post dated 2021-05-22 (1 post)
• Ritchie Boys of WWII Facebook page, post dated 2021-06-29 (3 posts)