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Krasny, John Friedrich (34170536): Difference between revisions

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|death_date=8 April 2005
|death_date=8 April 2005
|birth_place=Vienna, Austria
|birth_place=Vienna, Austria
|rank_final=Sgt
|rank_final=Sergeant
|death_place=Gaithersburg, Maryland
|alias=John F. Krasny
|awards=Bronze Star
|awards_grid=Bronze Star
|awards_ribbons=Ribbon_Bronze_Star_Medal_ribbon.png
|awards_ribbon_rows=Ribbon_Bronze_Star_Medal_ribbon.png
}}
}}


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'''[[Krasny, John Friedrich (34170536)|John Friedrich Krasny]]''' (1914 – 8 April 2005) was a Ritchie Boy (from Austria; Catholic) who trained at Camp Ritchie in class 10.
'''[[Krasny, John Friedrich (34170536)|John Friedrich Krasny]]''' (c. 1915 – 8 April 2005) was a Vienna-born Ritchie Boy (Class 10) interrogator with Fifth Armored Division who later researched textile flammability for NIST.
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== Biography ==
== Biography ==
From 1920 to 1935, John attended School (Elementary, Secondary and 3 years college) in Austria. He received a master’s degree in statistics from American University in 1958.
John Friedrich Krasny was born in Vienna and worked in his mother’s textile factory in Czechoslovakia before immigrating to the United States in 1938. He labored in North Carolina textile mills until entering the Army in September 1941 and training in intelligence at Camp Ritchie (Class 10).


From 1935 to 1938, he worked in textile processing laboratory. John was a native of Vienna, Austria, and worked in his mother’s textile factory in Czechoslovakia until he immigrated to the United States in 1938. On 16 October 1942, he became a naturalized citizen.
Attached to the 5th Armored Division from D-Day through the end of the war, he interrogated German prisoners and civilians. Krasny later wrote that Ritchie Boy teams warned SHAEF of the German buildup before the Battle of the Bulge and felt those warnings went unheeded. He received the Bronze Star.


On 9 July 1944, he member of OB Team 29 assigned to G-2 with 5th Armored Div. In 1972, he returned to the Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology), where he worked on garment and furniture flammability. He served as Order of Battle specialist and.
After the war he earned a physics degree at the University of Denver (1948) and a master’s in statistics at American University (1958), working on textile research for the National Bureau of Standards / NIST and Gillette. Author of more than eighty technical papers, he died of congestive heart failure on 8 April 2005 at Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg, Maryland, at age 90.
 
Krasny was a Ritchie Boy. He was a laborer in textile factories in North Carolina. He was attached to the 5th Armored Division from D-Day through the end of the war and used his language skills as an interrogator of German prisoners and civilians.
 
He told his family that he and other “Ritchie boys” used creative methods to gather intelligence — for instance, they would telephone an Axis armaments factory, impersonate a German officer and attempt to order certain weapons to ascertain whether production was underway. The information, gleaned from prisoner interviews, was passed to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, but he and his colleagues felt that their warnings were ignored. “For me, knowing that SHAEF had strong warnings but did not act upon them remains the most frustrating event in my life,” Mr.
 
He was awarded a Bronze Star by the Army. While in Colorado, he indulged his love of skiing long before ski lifts were common in the mountainous West. He settled in the Washington area, working for what was then known as the National Bureau of Standards and later for the Gillette Research Institute on textile research-and-development projects.


== Research notes ==
== Research notes ==
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* Born 22 October 1914 in Vienna (Religion: Catholic, but father was Jewish).
* c. 1915 — Born in Vienna (age 90 at death in 2005).
* 13 September 1941 — Enlisted as Pvt. At Fort Bragg, North Carolina (ASN 34170536).
* 1938 — Immigrated to the United States; North Carolina textile work.
* 16 October 1942 — Became naturalized citizen.
* September 1941 — Entered U.S. Army; Camp Ritchie Class 10.
* 9 July 1944 — Member of OB Team 29 assigned to G-2 with 5th Armored Div.
* 1944–1945 — 5th Armored Division interrogator; Bronze Star.
* May 1945 — Joined CIC Detachment.
* 1948 / 1958 — B.S. physics, University of Denver; M.S. statistics, American University.
* Graduated Class 10 (IPW Ge) as M/Sgt.
* NBS / NIST / Gillette — Textile flammability research.
* 8 April 2005 — Died in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
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== Sources ==
== Sources ==
* RB Archive: John_F._Krasny.docx / Textile Technologist obituary OCR (Washington-area death notice)
* Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
* 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
* Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
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