Obituaries

She leaves no immediate family survivors.

-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb

Charles Joseph IppolitoArmy Officer, IBM Manager

Charles Joseph Ippolito, 87, a retired Army officer and IBM manager, died Feb. 28 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda of complications of pneumonia. He was a Germantown resident.

Mr. Ippolito was born in Fitchburg, Mass., and grew up in the Bronx, N.Y. During World War II, he led an Army tank force that captured Dillingen on the Danube, a key river crossing, thus allowing Allied forces to continue advancing into Germany in 1945.

An April 22, 1945, issue of the Beachhead News described what happened: "Led by Lt. Charles J. Ippolito's light tank platoon, the force swept into the town with guns blazing, routing more than 1,000 disorganized defenders and shooting up a retreating mechanized column.

Surging on to the bridge, the unit captured a handful of demolition men and drove other Nazis away with tank fire before the span could be blown."

Mr. Ippolito received the Silver Star for his actions at Dillingen. He also received the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster and the Purple Heart. At a recent reunion of the 12th Armored Cavalry, known as the "Hellcats," a Holocaust survivor offered his gratitude to Mr. Ippolito for his rescue from a concentration camp by Mr. Ippolito's platoon.

Mr. Ippolito stayed in the Army after the war and was stationed at bases in Japan and Germany, as well as in the United States. He also served in Vietnam and at the Pentagon, where he retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1963.

After his retirement from the Army, he graduated from the University of Maryland in 1967 and began a second career with IBM. He was a systems analyst and then a configuration manager before retiring again in 1989.

He was head trustee of Washington Grove United Methodist Church and a member of the IBM "Lunch Bunch." He belonged to the 12th Armored Division Association (43rd Tank Battalion) and was a past commander of VFW Post 9863 in Germantown.