Before I begin my account of my experiences during World War II, I wanted to thank The Journal for giving the men and women involved the opportunity to pass on to the younger generations what some of the people went through so that they can enjoy the freedoms they now enjoy.  It has been a somewhat difficult task, writing from memory, bringing back memories some of which you would rather not. 

Secondly, I wanted everyone to understand that even though I have received some decorations, I do not consider myself a hero.  The heros are those lying in graves on foreign soil and lying in beds or sitting in wheel chairs in V.A. hospitals and nursing homes across these United States.

What I have experienced is nothing when compared to others.  I sustained small arms fire wounds from which I have recovered while at a German hospital.  I, with the use of my one good arm and one of his, was able to help a young G.I. change the position of his body which he had lain in for hours on a stretcher on the floor of a cold hall.  He had been in an armored personnel vehicle struck by artillery and had shrapnel wounds that completely encircled both of his legs and one of his arms.

While I was a P.O.W. for only four months I walked as nearly as I can determine, approximately 200 miles in fairly decent weather while others made forced marches of hundreds of miles in snow and freezing weather.  Of course all of us had very little to eat.  At one camp I was with a number of British P.O.W.'s that had been prisoners for three and four years.  On the day they - we were being moved, we were bombed and strafed by allied planes.  The buildings were not marked and several of them were killed and wounded and with the end of  the war less than two months away.

I will not be able to give accurate dates of all that happened, only those that I have obtained from records and those that I guess I will always remember.

My period in service began 21 Feb. 1941 when I reported to my draft board at an engine house at 18th St. and Park Ave. in St. Louis.  We were served breakfast by the firemen, after which we walked to Union Station where we boarded a train that took us to Jefferson Barracks.  After physicals and some tests we were sworn in sometime in the afternoon.  After evening mess we reboarded the train arriving sometime the next morning at Camp Robinson, Arkansas a few miles outside of Little Rock.

The next day was spent drawing equipment and uniforms.  If you were lucky you received a uniform.  Some of the fellows received a regular worsted blouse and what we called blanket pants because the material was similar to that of a blanket.  Some of the harder to fit fellows were issued breeches, and wrapped leggings.  W.W.I vintage.   We all received one pair of shoes.

I was assigned to Company "F" of the 138th Inf. Regiment, 35th Division, which was a Mo. National Guard outfit.  While I was at Robinson I received basic training, drill, manual of arms, marksmanship training, bayonet drill, calisthenics, field training all night and day.   We also spent about two months on maneuvers in Arkansas and Louisiana during which we slept in pup tents or rolled up in our raincoats.   One morning I got up walked away from next to a fallen tree trunk in one direction while a snake crawled away in another.  We also saw numerous signs in store windows.  Colored and soldiers not wanted.  After our four months basic training our pay was raised from $28.00 per month to $30.00, however I was made a BAR man (Browning Automatic Rifle) which called for a PFC (Private First Class) rating and $36.00 a month.  Of course, there was a downside, the BAR was much heavier as was the ammo clips and the average life of a BAR man in combat was less than 10 minutes.

I was fortunate in having a cousin living in Little Rock which gave me the opportunity to get some home cooked meals and a weekend pass away from camp occasionally.  After several months we unofficially stretched our weekend passes into trips home for a few hours.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, changes were made in the composition of a division.  It was changed from what was called a Square Division consisting of four infantry regiments into a triangular, consisting of three infantry regiments.  Along with other changes.  The 138th Reg. was sent to the West Coast and later to Alaska, the rest of the division was later sent to Europe.

My company was first sent to Fort Ord Cal. arriving there a few days before Christmas 1941.  I spent Christmas Eve and day on guard duty at the camp stockade with a nice Christmas dinner, while most of the company was sleeping in pup tents and getting their meals from chow trucks on the coast.   We were out there until after New Year's.   There were rumors of submarines and sabotage.   After a while there we moved on up the coast to Fort Lewis, Washington and then to Olympia, Washington to an airport where some P47's were stationed which we guarded.

It was during this time that my fianc�e joined me and we were married in a chapel in Fort Lewis by a Catholic Chaplain.  We had planned on being married after my one year of service in February but decided to go ahead with our plans.  Again, I was very fortunate as we were able to rent a small bungalow within walking distance of the airport; however, sometime in March I was assigned to a school back at Fort Lewis and rumors which proved to be true had us going to Alaska.  My wife went home and on 3 April 42 my company along with other elements of the 138th shipped out of Seattle for Alaska.

My company "F" and the 2nd Battalion Hdqts Co. were stationed at Juneau, the capital city.  We first set up in an old three C;s Camp, Civilian Conservation Corp., five to ten miles out of Juneau, the camp consisted of one large hall, a kitchen, mess hall, a few wooden huts which slept four men and pyramidal tents which we had lived in a Camp Robinson and Fort Lewis.  They were approximately 15 ft. square with a wooden floor and sides about 3 to 4 ft high then screens and canvas walls and a canvas roof or top, which with wood stoves for heat at Ft. Lewis resulted in some perforated tops.  I remember one incident that took place.  One of the lieutenants started to enter to tell the occupants that their top was burning and was doused by water by one of the occupants trying to throw water on the top floor inside.

As soon as we were settled in we, with an engineer company supplying transportation, started building a more permanent camp of metal quonset huts.   We also installed a water supply system throughout the camp.  We had to use jackhammers to break the frozen ground and after laying the pipe, had to use them again in order to fill the ditch.  We also built sandbag revetments to protect the planes based at the airport.

We pulled guard duty at a road block on the road between camp and town on the docks in town at a place called Auk Bay which, at the time, consisted of a small boat dock, but now, according to travel brochures can handle ocean going vessels.

We were also gotten up at all hours of the night to unload barrels of aviation gasoline which had to be dispensed through the area, which also had to be guarded.  The men on guard here spent a week at a time living in tents supplied with hot food by chow trucks.

We settled into a routine of working a week then guard duty a week.  We also had training exercises, learning how to live in the elements such as, how to walk on snowshoes, pitching tents, building fires on snow several feet deep.  They also started a program to teach everyone to ski which was discontinued after a couple of weeks, too many injuries.

Around June of 1943 a training camp for Alaskan inductees was set up at the 3C's Camp and I was assigned there as part of the training cadre.  This proved to be a rather interesting assignment, as some of the Eskimo natives could barely speak or understand English.

Sometime in October it was decided to close the training camp.   We were also joined by a company of the Alaska National Guard who later took over the main camp.

Sometime in November two of my buddies and I applied for transfers to the air cadet program and after physicals and many tests I and another fellow from Bn. Hdqts were accepted, and on December 7, 1943 were flown down to Fort Lewis, Washington.   This time we were quartered in nice brick barracks.  My former company was later assigned to Nome, Alaska where they were subjected to severe weather conditions with temperatures 30-40 degrees below zero.

After perhaps a month at Ft. Lewis we were assigned to Sheppard Field, Texas where we again received basic training, many more tests to determine what we would be best suited for, Pilot, Navigator, Bombardier, from there we were sent to various colleges.  I went to West Texas State Teachers College near Amarillo.

After I had been at college about two months, changes were made in the program, everyone, other than those who had originally been in the Air Corps were sent to various Infantry Divisions as replacements.

I and others from the Grove I was in were sent to the 42nd Rainbow Division at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma.  I was assigned to Co. "K" of the 222 Inf. Reg.  The 42nd had been formed during World War I and commanded by Gen. Douglas McArthur.   It had been reactivated 14 July 1943, but most of the Division had been shipped out as replacements.

We were again given basic training and the incoming men, both from the Air Cadet Program and others were placed according to their rank.  For example, I, a Corporal with approximately three years in the Infantry was Assistant Squad Leader to a Sgt. who had been in the Coast Artillery with very little or no Inf. training.

After a field training SNFU by a Tech Sgt., a former medic was observed by the commanding general.  Things were changed, I was promoted to Sergeant and made a squad leader.  After more field training and schools I attended a mine and booby trap school, the three Inf. Regiments 222, 232, 242 together with the Assistant Div. Commander and his staff were ordered to Europe and on 13 Nov. 1944 boarded a troop train which took up to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey where we arrived three days later.  We were issued new equipment, received passes to New York, two if you were lucky.  On Nov. 23 we hiked to the railroad yards, boarded a train which took us to POE Brooklyn, New York where we boarded Troop Transport Edmund B. Alexander at 6 p.m.  At about 11:30 a.m. we left the pier and joined a convoy of 11 ships consisting of other transports, freighters, and a couple of destroyers acting as our escorts.

On board our ship were General Linden and his staff.  All of the elements of the three Inf. Regts, Quartermaster Troops a total of nearly 4200 men.  All of the elements of the 42nd Div. to be designated Task Force Linden.  The rest of the Div. Artillery, Quartermaster Signal Corp, etc. were still back at Camp Gruber.

After an uneventful crossing consisting of calisthenics, boat drills, classes, k.p., deck and trash details.  Traveling in complete blackout we found ourselves passing through the Straits of Gibraltar and across the Mediterranean and arriving at Marseille, France on 7 Dec. 1944.  We lay in the outer harbor all that night and about 13:00 or 1 p.m. 8 December disembarked alongside a breakwater carrying a full field equipment we hiked to an entrucking point near the harbor.  After a long wait we were loaded into trucks standing up and arrived at a staging area called C.P. 2 about 11 p.m. near Calais, France about 25 miles from Marseilles.  Here we were issued more equipment and received passes where we observed some of the unusual customs of the French people.

On 18 Dec. we were loaded on, or rather into, 40 by 8 box cars near the camp and received cases of rations and proceeded to a small village called Bensdorf where we spent two nights in a dirty cheese factory and dairy.  Then on the morning of 25 Dec. we were moved by truck to the Fort Kronsprinz area of the Maginot Line, a short distance from Strassbourg where we spent Christmas Eve in cold concrete underground bunkers.

Early on Christmas Day we moved by truck to Strasburg, France to a point near the Rhine River and then hiked to an island in the river in the vicinity of the Strasbourg Electric Works we had our Christmas dinner while relieving Co. "K" of the 143 Inf. 36 Div. and thus became the first troops of the division to be committed to action.  The enemy positions on the Rhine opposite us consisted of reinforced concrete pillboxes set in the banks of the river.  My platoon minus one squad left to guard a bridge in Strasbourg was assigned to man an observation post located in a building on an island between the river and a canal and listening posts along the river at night.  During the week between Christmas and New Years there was some artillery and mortar fire but no injuries.

We left Strasbourg on 3 Jan. at 4:30 a.m. in Duwk's and moved about 20 miles southwest of Strasbourg to a small village called Blasheim where we relieved a unit of French Marines.  We set up defenses but again in Duwks we moved out on the 5 Jan. north through Hagenau and Soultes to a point on the Maginot Line seven miles south of Wissembourg, arriving about 2:00 at the village of Berlinbach.  We detrucked and hiked up a long hill to positions where we relieved units of the 315th Inf. 79 Div.

My platoon was assigned a portion of the OPLR (Outpost Line of Resistance) approximately 1000 yards in front of the main line and moved in position at approximately 5 p.m.  At about 6 a.m. on the morning of the 6 Jan. gunfire was heard on our right and shortly after we were attacked by a German Combat Patrol.  After a brief firefight the Lt. in charge ordered a withdrawal.  In covering the withdrawal my BAR man and I were both hit by small arms fire.  He was killed almost instantly by a burst of shots to his upper left shoulder area.  I was struck first just above the cartridge belt and then the second one hit me in the right shoulder knocking me to the ground and as I started to get up a third round hit my left leg just above the knee, and I went down again.  As I was lying there trying to decide whether to try to get up again, two German soldiers rolled me over and started speaking in English and removing my cartridge belt and bayonet.  In the meantime, the other one had started removing my watch without thinking I said you aren't going to take my watch are you, it's a present from my wife.  He strapped it back on and told me to stay there and an aid man would be by to take care of me.  He came up shortly and bandaged my wounds, walked me back to the farmhouse we had used as a C.P. the previous night, which now was occupied by several German soldiers and the people who lived there.   A rather old lady, a middle aged lady and young girl, I guess about 10 or 12 years old.  They gave me some bread and milk to drink.  I slept most of the time, I guess from being tired and loss of blood.  Sometime during late afternoon or night one of the German soldiers there were two of them woke me up and had me go to the cellar and join the civilians as the place was being shelled.

Again, I fell asleep and again I was awakened by the guard who was pointing to the cellar steps and saying Amerakanger.  I realized that there were probably Americans outside and he wanted me to go first.   As I neared the top of the steps I could see the end of a garand behind a rock fence followed by an American Major.  He questioned me about the Germans and I told him that there had been two the last time I had been awake.  He then questioned the German speaking in German which I do not understand.  Apparently, he didn't like the answer he got, didn't believe it, but opened fire on the German.  In fairness to the major I knew of him from lectures at Camp Gruber.  He had been through   the African Campaign and had seen a lot.  After he shot the German he called up a man with a bazooka and fired a round into the cellar.

He, the major, left the one G.I. with me and took off telling me to just wait there my outfit would be coming up soon.  Before I or the other G.I. had a chance to check the older lady in the cellar someone started shelling the place again.  The other G.I. took off and I dove into the pit where we had been throwing our trash and before long the Germans were back again.  I was then taken back to a field headquarters, interrogated briefly, then taken to a medical clearing station where I was examined by a German medical officer and had my bandages changed.

I was moved to several different hospitals first with just two or three German soldiers.  Then with a group of American P.O.W. about a dozen crossing the Rhine River at Worms to what I thought was a German Hospital at Heppenheim.  I learned much later, from some of the fellows from there that I have been reunited with, that it had been an insane asylum.  Two of the fellows were in the same room with me.  They do not remember the date that I arrived, but I together with about 15-20 other G.I. P.O.W.'s and several French, Polish, Russians were moved two days before they were liberated on 27 March.  

It was here that I first saw how being a prisoner could cause one person to act toward others.  There were about 11 other men in the room.  Our rations for a day consisted of a pot of what was supposed to be coffee, a loaf of bread and a half of loaf of bread for the twelve in the morning for lunch and evening a pot of soup made of potato peelings, occasionally a slice or two of carrots.

The second day I was there I noticed that there seemed to be tension in the room.  I asked a young Air Force Sgt. about it and he told me to watch the fellow who divided the bread in the morning.   As I watched the next day I noticed when he cut the whole loaf he would cut it a little off center and when he cut the longer half in two he also cut it off center and kept the larger half to himself.  When I asked the Sgt. why no one said anything about it, he mentioned the fellow's size and asked me if I would.  The next day I asked him for the knife saying that the fellows had asked me to divide the bread.  He said O.K. and handed me the knife.

None of the enlisted men were receiving Red Cross parcels, but apparently some of the officers were.  There was a lieutenant on one of the other floors who started trading the eight fellows in our room that smoked, three cigarettes for a ration of bread each day.  When he refused to take it in slices I was asked to cut a slice from each of seven to give to the one who had to give up his entire ration.  One of the fellows that was doing this happened to be a medic and when two P.O.W. medical officers, American, he started working with them.  He apparently was receiving cigarettes from them and stopped participating in the trading, and would lay on his bunk and smoke an entire cigarette without offering to share.  I heard from the fellows I was later reunited with that the lieutenant was court martialed after liberation.

On the morning of the 25 March the Germans consisting of a Sgt., one who may have had some rank, at least he tried to act like it.  Four or five others and approximately 30 P.O.W.'s mostly American left the hospital.  We were given rations to last us for three days and were supposedly going to the city of Wurzburg, a distance of about 50 miles.

The German soldiers had secured a small farm wagon and a small horse which they had harnessed to one side of the tongue.  On the other side was a rope with three branches or sticks to it, which six men used to help pull the wagon.  A seventh man was used to guide the wagon which the Germans had loaded their belongings and equipment.

We left rather early and about mid-morning stopped for a break at a Hitler Youth Camp where they gave us some coffee.  While we were resting alongside the road an allied plane flew over and the Sgt. moved us off the road into some woods where we remained for the rest of the day and night.   From then on our group moved only at night, resting during the day in small villages.  The next morning one of the G.I.'s was doubled over with cramps.  Someone said he had eaten his entire ration for the three days during the night.  Whether he did or not I don't know, but the Sgt. had two of the French P.O.W.'s take him back to the hospital.  We had a fellow of Polish descent, a G.I. named Frank and another G.I. Italian named Joe who between them could speak several languages.  This helped considerably in communication with the German soldiers.

Sometime during the day the Sgt. learned that Wurzburg was under attack, he then headed south and a day or so later attached himself to a large group of Polish P.O.W.'s under the command of a German Lt. stopped to rest at a small village.  However, the Lt. moved during the day and as we were leaving two allied planes flew over the road which had been bombed and strafed the day before and still had some smoking vehicles on it.  On seeing the column opened fire with their machine guns.  We had no markings, several of the Polish group were hit and I guess killed.   Out Sgt. took us back into the barn we had been in and kept us there until nightfall.

On the morning of the 7 or 8 of April I had just gotten to sleep when I was awakened by the Sgt. and a British medical officer, also a P.O.W. who I was told made visits to P.O.W. camps and reported on conditions to the Red Cross.  I had dysentery, another of the Americans should have never left the hospital.  his wounds were not completely healed.  He had two wounds from a single projectile.  It had entered on one side somehow bounced off his pelvic bones and exited from the other side.  The British officer convinced the Sgt. that we should be taken to a nearby camp located at Eichstadt, where some other British officers and men all P.O.W.'s were being held.  This camp was the closest thing I saw to the camps we had over here for P.O.W.s.  I was also told stories by the two English fellows that I roomed with that made some of the "Hogan's Hero's" episodes believable.  It was here I received  my first Red Cross parcel and I was here the day that we received word of Roosevelt's death.

On the 14th of April a group of us were being moved, we were again bombed and strifed by allied planes.  We were moved by truck on one of the German Autobahn's to a large camp near Mooseberg about 30 miles north of Munich.  Occupied mostly by Air Force personnel.

This was, I guess, a more typical P.O.W. camp.  It was divided into several different sections or compounds, each surrounded by a barbed wire fence about 8 feet high with about an 8 to 10 feet lane between each.  It was patrolled by armed guards.  The compounds were patrolled by guards with German shepherd police dogs.  Each compound contained, I believed, two or three wooden barracks with wooden floors and subfloors.  Much of which had been pulled loose and burned by the time I reached there.  The only way we had warm food was by making stoves out of the larger cans our red cross food came in.  As near as I can recall, there was only one latrine for each compound.

There were several times during my captivity that my not knowing the German language caused me a few anxious moments.  One of them occurred here, being a noncom, I was put in charge of a detail to go out and gather firewood.  When we returned to camp there was quite a commotion with the guards at the gate shouting at the guards that had gone with the detail.  One of the fellows with the detail who understood some German said that we were short one P.O.W.   I don't know what would have happened if they hadn't straightened it out.  I knew we were all there but couldn't say anything.

Another time when we were on the road at night I, guiding the wagon on a bombed road, was told to go to the right and I went to the left.  We were halted and I heard a loud very angry German voice and turned to see a German officer with his hand on his pistol holster.  Apparently, there were two German officers on bikes who wanted to pass us and when I turned the wrong way they had run into a shellhole about half full of water to avoid running into the wagon.  I guess our German Sgt. guard saved me.  He seemed to be a pretty decent sort of fellow.  I am sure the officers thought I had done it intentionally.

I remained here until we were liberated 29 April '45 by an armored unit of 3rd Army.  I remember kitchen units serving us white bread which at that time looked and tasted like angel food cake.

We were formed into groups of 28 and taken to an airport near Ingolsadt to be flown out; however, only one plane arrived in the afternoon.  We were taken into town and billeted in various places and the next day were flown to a camp lucky strike near Rheims, France.  Here we were given physicals and processed.  It was here I had the first opportunity to be weighed which was about two weeks after I had been liberated.  I was about 50 to 55 pounds under my usual weight.

On 23 May we were taken to LaHaure, France where we boarded ship and after a brief stop at Southampton, England, we sailed for Boston where we landed 3 June 1945.  About the only thing I remember about this passage is about two days out of Boston they asked for volunteers for k.p. duty as we were running through a storm.  I volunteered and about the only ones there for mess were the ones who had volunteered.

At Boston we were provided with transportation back to our places of enlistments and I went by rail back to Jefferson Barracks where it had all began over four years earlier.  On the day of my discharge I had spent a total of four years, six months, and four days in service, approximately half of it overseas.

I was met at J.B. by my wife, who until about a month previously had expected to see me with one arm missing.  On the night of 5 Jan. she had dreamed of seeing me getting  my arm blown off.  The only word that she had received from the War Department was that I was missing in action as of 6 Jan.   A follow up letter on 2 Feb. confirming the telegram explaining the possibility that I may be a P.O.W., that I was just not accounted for.

She didn't know that I was still alive until one of the fellows I had been in Heppenheim with stopped over in St. Louis and called her.  He told her that I was a P.O.W. and assured her that I still had both arms.  So, you see things weren't the greatest for the ones back home, with all the shortages, rations,and most of all the uncertainty if you had loved ones in the service.

THE DAILY JOURNAL, St. Francois County, Missouri, Wednesday, April 26, 1995.

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