Lt. Wells Lewis, USA

Wells served as a First Lieutenant & Personal Aide, Headquarters, 36th Infantry Division, U.S. Army during World War II.

He resided in New York County, New York and was a member of the New York National Guard prior to the war.

He was called into active Army service from the National Guard on February 10, 1941, prior to the war, in New York City, New York. He was noted, at that time, as being employed as a Author, editor, and/or reporter and also as Single, without dependents.

Wells was "Killed In Action" by a sniper in Piedmont Valley, France during the war and was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and the French Croix de Guerre.

Service # O1040853

Son of Novelist Sinclair Lewis & Grace Livingston Hegger.

( Bio by: Russ Pickett )

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In 1914 Sinclair Lewis married Grace Livingston Hegger, an editor at Vogue. Their son, Wells, was named after the famous British writer H.G.Wells.

"Wells Lewis was born on July26, 1917 to Grace Hegger Lewis and Sinclair Lewis, an only child.
He was educated in both the United States and Europe. He graduated from Harvard about 1939. After college he wrote a novel called "They Still Say No". He enlisted in the Army during World War II. He was a Lieutenant in the Army. On October 29, 1944 he was killed. He was a gentle, pleasant and very handsome young man".
Excerpt from "Sinclair Lewis Remembered" by Isabel Lewis Agrell.

In a letter dated February 20th, 1978, Sinclair Lewis's wife now Mrs. Grace Telesforo Casanova wrote. ..."You will be pleased to learn that the oil painting of my son, Wells Lewis, is to be given to the "Sinclair Lewis Interpretative Center" as well as a study of me by Rigal, who painted some murals at the new Waldorf Astoria Hotel. These two portraits will become the property of the Center upon the death of my husband and myself. Affectionately, Aunt Grace (Mrs. Telesforo Casanova)"

"The Lost Battalion"
Rescue in the Vosges Mountains
Excerpt from www.Homeof... "Major General Dahlquist, in preparation for the Southern France invasion needed an aide, fluent in French. The 443rd's Lt. Wells Lewis, who had lived in Paris, was selected and transferred to the 36th Division as aide to General Dahlquist.
At dawn the 100th and 3d Battalion launched their attack, running directly into heavy resistance supported by enemy armor. It was the small Nisei infantrymen going head to head with multi-ton, steel fortresses of death. The brave soldiers never wavered. At eight in the morning General Dahlquist urged Colonel Singles to push his men onward. "There's a battalion about to die up there (in the mountains) and we've got to reach them." Before noon the General had arrived at the scene of the fighting with his young aide, Lieutenant Lewis. As Colonel Singles and the division commander viewed the terrain, an enemy machinegun some 40 yards away opened fire. Twenty-seven year old Wells Lewis, the eldest son of the first American to receive the Nobel prize for literature Sinclair Lewis, fell dead...his blood splattering the uniform of his commanding general. It was a blow to the General from which he never fully recovered".

At the time of his death he was a First Lieutenant with the U.S. Army, Headquarters, 36th Infantry Division. He was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and the French Croix de Guerre.

1st LT Wells Lewis is buried at the Epinal American Cemetery, Epinal, Vosges, Lorraine, France
Plot: B Row: 41 Grave: 31

Inscription
WELLS LEWIS
1 LT HQ. 36 DIV
NEW YORK OCT 29 1944