FOREWARD

The following represents memories of World War II events and anecdotes recounted by William Blake (“Bill”) Carlton, Jr., Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, to his daughter Lane Carlton Zatopek. Col. Carlton served as Commander of Headquarters Battery, 30^th Division Field Artillery (Old Hickory), 113^th Infantry, European Theater of Action. He enlisted as a Private on September 27, 1938, in the Tennessee National Guard Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 115^th Field Artillery Regiment. Following is the record of his succession of rank:

·         Corporal, 13 September 1939

·         Sergeant, 5 July 5 1940

·         1^st Sergeant, 16 September 1940

(Artillery was reorganized in 1941 from Regiments to separate Battalions)

·         Master Sergeant, 1 April 1941 HQ BTRY, 115^th FA BN (Sergeant Major, 115^th FA BN)

·         Second Lieutenant, 19 June 1941

(Field Commission; served as Artillery Liaison to the 117^th Infantry)

·         First Lieutenant, 29 June 1942

(While attending the Basic Officer Course at Ft. Sill, OK; subsequently transferred to 113^th FA BN to allow him to complete training)

·         Captain, 16 February, 1943

(Placed on inactive duty in 1945, remained in the Inactive Reserves)

·         Major, 1951

(Re-entered Active Duty—Active Reserves)

·         Lt. Colonel, 1962

(Transferred to Intelligence and Security)

·         Colonel, 1967

(Retired, August, 1967)

The 30^th was one of the first four National Guard Divisions called into Federal service when the Army began expanding in 1940, but it was almost four years before the 30^th was committed to battle. For two years the Division trained at Fort Jackson (SC), in Tennessee with the Second Army maneuvers, and with the First Army maneuvers in the Carolinas. When Col. Carlton was commissioned 2^nd Lt., he was assigned as the Commanding Officer of the same Battery in which he had enlisted in 1938.

In the fall of 1942, the 115^th FA BTN was sent to Iceland as part of a combat team. Lt. Carlton and another officer from the 115^th were attending the Basic Officer Course at Ft. Sill, OK. They fully expected to leave Ft. Sill to join the 115^th in Iceland. Instead, two members of the 113^th were assigned to the 115^th, and Lt. Carlton was assigned to the 113^th to take one of those places. He remained with the 113^th throughout the War.

The 113^th saw action at the Allied Invasion of Normandy, The Battle of the Bulge, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Col. Carlton was decorated numerous times. Following World War II, he was placed on inactive duty, and retained his commission in the Inactive Reserves. He went to work for the Veterans’ Affairs Department in Murfreesboro as an application processor for GI Bill candidates. This office moved to Nashville shortly thereafter, and he commuted with several friends in a car pool for the next several years. In 1951, at the outbreak of the Korean conflict, he re-entered active duty as an instructor of ROK officers at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. In 1954, Major Carlton attended the Army Language School at The Presidio of Monterrey, California, and then was posted as Advisor to the Escuela Militar de Venezuela. In 1958, the Carltons moved to Minnesota, where Major Carlton was Assistant Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of Minnesota. He transferred from Artillery to Intelligence and Security, and was posted to Panama, the Canal Zone, in 1962 as a Lt. Colonel. In 1965 the Carltons returned to the US to Ft. Hood, TX, for three months, then to Ft. Holabird, MD, to the Intelligence School. He remained there until his retirement at the rank of Colonel in 1968.

In 1945, Captain Carlton was the CO of HQ Battery, responsible for communications for the Battalion. His duties included setting up and operating the Fire Direction Centers for the Field Artillery Batteries. The 113^th FA Battalion was a medium, general support battalion armed with 155mm guns.

In the Hürtgen Forest

Recon for Battry HQ

The 113^th Mechanized Cavalry was often assigned the mission of protecting the left flank of the corps and all divisions assigned to it. Each artillery regiment had a battery of 105mm howitzers in direct support. The Medium battalion, with 155mm howitzers, had the entire division support—in other words, to cover any sector that needed it. At one officers’ briefing[1] someone picked up the “goose egg” with 113 on it, and didn’t notice it was 113^th Mechanized Cavalry and not the 113^th Field Artillery. The Battalion Commander returned after “O Call” and called the Battery Commanders together. He indicated with the 113^th goose egg where he wanted the firing batteries to go. From that indication, the order came to send me out to reconnoiter for a Headquarters for the Battery. We had to look as quickly as possible for a centralized spot for the “spoke” of the wiring that went out to the various batteries. It always fell to the Master Sergeant as the Communications Chief, and the Staff Sergeant as the Wire Chief, to lay lines to the units and set up the battalion switchboard.

When the Allied troops first arrived at the Hürtgen Forest, the trees were in neat rows, from the reforestation program at the time. There were firebreaks at regular intervals in the forest rows. I went out in the Jeep with a driver and my 2 guys along the fire lanes to the central part of the goose egg. From the map, it looked like a good central point for the spoke of the wheel. It was very quiet, and we got through the heavy part of the woods to a nice little hamlet. I had the driver stop the Jeep, and the 2 sergeants and I got out. We stood there and looked around for a while.

Capturing the village

Things appeared to be entirely too quiet, so we decided that since we had been seen—and were being watched—the worst thing we could do would be to turn and try to run. I had a sidearm, and a Thompson sub-machine gun that I had removed from a dead GI around St. Lô. The sergeants both had sidearms and 30 caliber Carbines. We began to advance slowly up the main street. We noticed that all the curtains and shades were drawn; we could see an occasional face peek through the windows. We continued walking toward a prominent building on the opposite side of town that appeared to be the Burgurmeister’s office. As we got to within about 100 yards of the Burgurmeister’s office, a white sheet came out and dropped down, obviously intended as a white flag of surrender.

So we all stopped; the 2 sergeants abreast of me, and the Jeep driver behind me. I made a motion toward the building to indicate that whoever could see me should come out, and some functionary came out. He turned out to be the Burgurmeister, and he spoke and understood English quite well. I asked him how many troops were concealed in town. He hemmed and hawed, so I told him, “You have 15 minutes to get to the troop commander and tell that troop commander to meet me here in the street, prepared to surrender, or my artillery will wipe this entire town off the map.” So he said, “Ja, ja,” and came back in 5-10 minutes (it’s hard to tell when you’re waiting in suspended animation) with an infantry Lieutenant who had been left as a rear guard with a platoon of infantry (about 15 men). I told the Lieutenant to have the men come out and stack arms in the street, which he did, and my 2 sergeants began to pick up rifles by the barrel and wham them against a good, substantial wire pole nearby, to put the guns out of commission so they couldn’t be used. I knew the Lieutenant didn’t intend to fight, because when he came out, he and his men wore soft hats, sort of a garrison cap, that they never wore in combat—they always wore steel pots when they were fighting. I told the Lieutenant to take his men down the road in the direction we had come from, and to be sure to put their arms over their heads at the first sight of the Americans. He wasn’t hard to convince. I decided to use that place as a Battalion Headquarters. Fortunately, the action was ahead of the General’s briefing information, or we would have been in trouble! {If the briefing information had been “real time”, the party probably would not have survived the error.}

The next thing I had to do was locate the other batteries so I could get wire to them. None of the battery commanders had any difficulty finding a battery position. I notified the Battalion Commander of our position, since this was pretty exposed on the flank, and I durn sure wanted everyone to know we weren’t Germans!

Making a run for it

We had some “fun” getting back through the forest: Once we located the batteries and determined where to run the wire, we started back along the same firebreak toward the old battery position to take up the wire and move it to the new position. On the way down, we picked up 2 POW’s. They rode with us on the front fenders of the Jeep, holding arms across the hood of the Jeep, happy to have a ride, happy to be going to the US, feeling jolly about the situation. It was sandy soil, and the Jeep track was not as wide as the trucks that had made the ruts in the firebreak, so it was far from a smooth ride.

From behind us, we heard a “boom” and an almost immediate hiss that we identified by the sound and muzzle velocity as an 88mm anti-aircraft gun, obviously pointed at us. The first round hit well ahead of us, but it was clear that in their retreat the Germans had posted observers on the firebreak, since it would be used to get through the woods. The second round landed a little behind and to our left, so this firing officer was using good Ft. Sill[2] artillery technique in adjusting on us. The third round was over and to the right, but was a good deal closer than the first round. The Jeep driver was looking at me and saying “What shall I do?” The trees were too close and dense to get off the road, so I told him to pour on the gas and take the first break he could see to the right or left. The faster we moved, the harder we were to hit. Meanwhile, the Jeep is bouncing from the left rut to the right rut, and the German POWs are holding on for dear life. The fourth enemy round came just before we reached a break to our right where we could turn off. The round burst directly over our heads, which was God’s grace, because a normal artillery airburst has a pattern like a cone, out from the end of the round. The pattern of fragments that struck all around the Jeep indicated we were in the dead center of the cone. Not a single fragment struck the Jeep or anyone in it.

The Communications Chief was looking up when the round exploded. He said later he couldn’t estimate how high the burst was when it exploded, but said he could feel the heat on his cheeks. It was close. We radioed back to the Fire Direction Center what had happened, and an Observer[3] went up and directed fire to knock out the gun.

BATTLE OF THE BULGE

Friendly fire

We were near Malmedy before Christmas. Charles Cawthon’s[4] 29^th Division was on our left. We were already in houses around Malmedy, and all my men were under cover. It was a good thing, because every day we were bombed by our own planes. Every day I’d go out and throw the color of the day[5] in the snow, and every day we’d get bombed and strafed. Those kids flying those planes didn’t know, I guess. We shot down a US aircraft on one of those bombing runs. We just kept losing men and equipment, and finally decided we’d had enough. {Col. Carlton’s earlier telling of this episode included the observation that all the crew parachuted to safety.}

Axis Sally’s Christmas prediction

We had put up primitive Christmas trees with decorations of some sort—the HQ tree had actual baubles on it. It was right then we got the panic pull-up-and-move-right-now order. 1^st Sgt. Rose was so upset, he went upstairs and I heard “thump, thump” from upstairs. Sgt. Rose was stomping the Christmas tree ornaments so no other SOB could enjoy them. As we were on the move toward Spa[6], we learned our destination by tuning in to Axis Sally, whom we knew as “the Berlin Bitch.” She was telling us how we were going to be decimated, and she taunted the 29^th Division. She said, “Oh, yes, the 30^th Division has pulled out and left you, and we’re going to come and get you.” The 29^th had to spread out all along the line to take up the positions we had abandoned. We were just outside the Siegfried Line.

As we got into an area where the breakthrough was being exploited by the Germans, we began to see more and more signs of trucks and artillery pieces and all sorts of abandoned US equipment. Small US units and segments of units were in full retreat. Before we went into our assigned position, we picked up a couple of extra Jeeps, a long-wheel-base wire truck, and a “Limey” trailer that had metal doors around the top and sides. The firing batteries picked up ammunition and a few extra howitzers.

No one could tell us where the line was—there was no line! There were numerous breakthroughs. The Germans were infiltrating our units using captured US vehicles and uniforms from US POWs and KIAs. They had some special patrols in captured Jeeps with soldiers who were fluent in English. GIs soon figured out a way to identify an imposter by asking questions about the team winning the World Series, using names of athletes, or slogans having to do with cities (like Windy City). You didn’t trust anyone, but you didn’t fire indiscriminately. That’s why we were always a little skittish when new troops were scooped up in the back and sent up to stop the gap. They got trigger-happy.

When snow and sub-freezing weather set in, we had a problem moving artillery pieces. Movers were tracked vehicles that would slide off icy roads. The Battalion Maintenance Section finally cut chunks of metal out of German armored vehicles and welded them into the tracks to make extra cleats. That helped.

Proximity fuses for Christmas

We went into position not far from Malmedy, near the north end of the breakthrough. We occupied part of the territory lost by the 101^st Airborne near Stavelot. We took it back from the Germans, and waited in place until a re-grouped 101^st could come back in and re-take the whole area. During this period, we first learned about and were issued proximity fuses, which exploded at a pre-set distance from any mass. Early on, even a cloud mass would set them off. Artillery fire was much more destructive of ground troops and armor because trees would cause air bursts that showered everything beneath.

That’s where we spent Christmas—sitting on stumps and logs to eat our meals. We later found out the stumps and logs were frozen German troops.

BUCHENWALD

[Note: Lane Carlton Zatopek and husband Ed have a sword, engraved in German script, with the designation of a train battalion. Col. Carlton shipped the sword to the US prior to his return from Europe. Lane asked about the sword, and Bill’s answer follows.]

This sword was not acquired through any action that I remember. I probably found it in a house or a building we used for a headquarters. Maybe I found it with uniforms and other stuff in a closet, or perhaps in a basement. I don’t remember exactly. Sometimes the 30^th Division got ahead of the lines because we advanced so rapidly. By 1945, we encountered pockets of hard resistance from the Youth Movement—Nazi Cadets. We had to send back behind the lines for supplies. It was tough.

My unit was not part of the liberating unit at Buchenwald. In its support role, the artillery often reaches a destination well ahead of the rest of the infantry. We reached the Elbe River the day after Buchenwald was liberated, and I came back to see it. My guide was a Belgian man who had been held there as a forced laborer. His eyes were deep pools of nothing, like black holes. No animation in his face and eyes. Even after the end of the tour, when we were saying our farewells, I said, “Now you can go home.” His eyes and face never changed, and he said, “Yes, now I can go home.” He was sucked dry of spirit.

{Following is Col. Carlton’s recounting of what the guide showed and explained to him.}

Other than the open trenches with bodies, and the crematoria, there was a 10-12-foot-high sawhorse-looking thing, maybe 8-9 feet wide. The obstreperous types who had given the guards trouble were suspended by ropes from the crossbar, and swung back and forth with guards taking shots at them as they swung across the gun sights. We went into gas “shower” chambers—solid concrete walls and ceiling, metal hooks in walls at intervals where troublemakers were hung by what clothes they had on. I could see the scratching and digging marks in the concrete from hands attempting to escape. {Col. Carlton paused here, and then continued.} You can’t imagine how emaciated the human body can be and still function.

The reception room desk at Buchenwald had a lampshade, maybe 24” round, made from human skin. There was a display of specimens, preserved in liquid solution, of sections of intestine infected from various forms of dysentery, laid open to expose the interior. There were specimens of just about all the human organs, and a human head shrunken to about the size of a coffee mug.

The sleeping quarters were multi-tiered, 3 or 4 high—I forget. There were so many people packed in they had to sleep upright clasping their knees. Bunks were wooden slats, some with burlap or cloth similar to mattress ticking. I forget how many the guide told me slept in each bunk.

There was a little hospital annex at one end of the barracks. Bunks were the same, except that the patients who were really sick were permitted to lie down. One section was marked “Isolation”, but nothing separated the isolation ward from neighboring beds. The operating table in the corner was maybe 30” wide, plain wood. Situated conveniently next to it was a trap door with a chute that dropped the body into the open pit.

The crematory was still warm, and there were remains still in it. They had not had a chance to cover things up.

As we got farther into Germany, we saw more and more “DP’s” {Displaced Persons} wandering in striped uniforms. You could tell by their appearance the concentration camps were worse then anyone imagined. The 30^th Division position at the Elbe River was at Magdebourg, not far from Buchenwald.