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Some time after the War II started I
was working in Virginia for a constructing company building a "SeaBee" camp
between Newsport News, Va. and Williamsburg, Va., then to building a POE Camp
near Newport News, Va., Camp Patrick Henry.
From these to building a mobile home
park at Portsmouth, Va. for shipyard
workers.
Married, with a wife and son, everything
was rationed and I thought that things were bad, never knowing that
life
was going
to get far worse
than I had ever had it.
Uncle Sam wanted me, you know that "Greetings"
letter.
Well, I went to Fort Bragg, N.C., then out to
dusty, sandy Camp Walters, Texas where I spent the next seventeen weeks learning
to be a "Soldier". That was in July of 1944. After my training I was sent to
Fort Meade, Md. then to Fort Jackson, S.C.
and on to Camp Atterbury, Ind.
There on a
huge field we were sent to different groups
until I landed in Co. H, 423
Regiment, 2d Battalion,
106 division. on an 81 mm
mortar.
Left the states on the liner Queen
Mary, which was not bad at all except
for the food. It was terrible. We offloaded
at Glascow, Scotland then down to Morton-on-Marsh, England. I enjoyed the
stay there but not for long, next we went to Southhampton and sailed for La
Havre, France - that was one bombed out city.
We just passed thru
on to Born, Belgium where we rested up waiting
for our supplies to catch up with us. It
seemed like a few days. Then came word for us to fall out after packing our
barracks bags but to leave them there, the
kitchen crew would bring them up to us. They never reached us.
We loaded onto
trucks and with only the clothes we
had on and headed out to the front. It was cold, the snow
was deep and it was to be
a
quiet front up there, no fighting, so
we had a 27 mile front to hold where a
division may normally have from a 5
or a 10 mile front. We learned after it was all over, years later, that
scouts came back and told that the Germans
were building up a large force but it never
got
upstairs or did it.
I was on a hill outside of Schonberg,
Belgium with my squad in a gun emplacement with our mortar. It had
been quiet for a couple of days but in
the a. m. of the 16th of Dec. about
5:30 it all started, "The Battle of the Bulge",
right up against our division. The snow
and fog was so bad that you could not
see much and the Germans had flood
'lights they were shining up into the fog and back down on us.
We were use to seeing our own tanks and their size
but never ones
as large as those
Tiger tanks
of the German army,
with what looked like telephone poles for gun barrels sticking out in front of
them.
We fought them for
three days and nights but then we ran out of
ammo
and food, they could
not
air drop us
anything
in because of the snow and fog so on the late evening of the 19th we were
told to destroy our weapons and to try
to escape to our own lines, we had
lost several men.
My Lt. Philipson,
our jeep driver Dopp, Louis Barton and myself piled
into our jeep and headed out, we came
to an open field and there was our kitchen
truck knocked out, we stopped and got
all the ration we could carry on us and then the Germans laid down a
barrage on that field to keep us from
crossing it when it was lifted we headed
out across it and into some woods. On down
that small dirt road we went but not
far because there was a jeep knocked out and blocking the road, we bailed
out. Dopp on the left side into a ditch and
crawled on to freedom, the Lt. and myself out onto the right side and no
where to go. We lost Barton back at the
kitchen truck.
The Lt. was on his side directing
fire to some GI's up on the side of the
hill. I was at the back wheel when
all of a sudden everything went black and
when I came to the Lt. was
telling me
that he was hit. The Germans had
fired
a grenade into the jeep. I started to.
crawl to him when I felt the pain in my
side, I was hit but slight, the Lt.
had a bad hit in his back at the
shoulder and then this German told me to stand up and I got the Lt. up
and here we went into capture. It was an
empty feeling. We were taken back and put into a building.
On the morning of the 20th Dec. we
started marching, I managed to get the Lt.
in a box car they were loading with
prisoners but was unable to get on with him. (After years I found out
that he made it.)
I had to keep walking. On Jan.
2 we got into
the
camp, Stalag 4B, half starved,
because they would not feed us, took what we
could from the fields, my feet were frozen and toes turning black.
After a couple
of weeks, I was put out on a work detail at Muhlberg, Germany along with
a few others. One morning we lined up for
detail and the German Sgt. wanted to
know if anyone knew "Elect". I
realized he wanted an electrician. I
let him know that I knew but I went
out any way but a few hours later he sent for me and he wanted a
light put over his bed so he could read
in bed. I took a couple of days to do
it and he was pleased, next day he sent
me to a hospital for my feet. My good
turn paid off.
At the makeshift hospital in Halle,
Germany they did what they could for
me, after a couple of weeks there I was
moved across town to a beer hall where
they had quite a few prisoners because
the allies were bombing everything.
A few days
there I was liberated by the 104
Infantry Division and
taken across
the river to an air field and flown
out to England. Stayed in a hospital there a month and then I was flown back to
Now York. Next day I was flown to Lawson, General Hospital at Atlanta, GA and to
my family.
I was stationed
at Fort Benning, Ga. in the MP's as
Editor of the detachment newspaper "Crossed Pistols."
After my discharged on Dec. 15,
1945 I came home and went to work in
a local newspaper in Gainesville, Ga.
and stayed in the business until I retired
from an advertising company after 45
years of the printing business. I have one son and two daughters, all
grown and married, my wife and I live near
Muscadine, Al. on top of a mountain
with a beautiful view, me with my wood working and my wife with her
greenhouse and her garden. Life now
is wonderful! |