My uncle died yesterday. His health had been poor for some time, but he had always maintained, as much as possible a cheerful demeanor. I will remember him for his charm, his wit, his kindness and his story telling ability. He was quite the raconteur.
One experience he did not discuss much was the story of his service in WWII. He was a member of the 75th Division, the least experienced and youngest unit in the US Army. It was nicknamed the Diaper Division because of his youth. Many of its soldiers were literally 17 and 18 year-old kids straight off the farms of the Midwest. Yet, out of desperation the 75th Division was committed to the Battle of the Bulge to support the flank of the 23rd Armored Division.
My uncle and his fellow companions and friends suffered horrendously in the fighting that followed. In the battle my Uncle’s Company lost nearly all of its original complement of soldiers, killed or wounded, in the first 30 days of fighting. Indeed, after his first day of serious fighting near Werpin, Belgium on Christmas Day 1945, his platoon was down to only about a dozen men, and he as a Private First Class was the highest ranking soldier left.
I know of these horrific experiences of his because of a memoir he wrote late in life and which he gave me permission to use as source material for a book I am writing.
In that memoir he described American soldiers from other units who, in their rage at the German attack and slaughter of their friends, were forcing German prisoners to jump of a bridge to a rocky gorge below or be shot. He described artillery bursts that completely shattered trees creating open spaces where none had existed before and which split his helmet right down the middle. He spoke of soldiers so eager to escape further battle that they either went AWOL or shot themselves (self inflicted wounds) to escape combat. One soldier he knew even shot his foot completely off with his 45 caliber sidearm.
My uncle also described an attack on his infantry regiment by 2nd German Panzer Unit in mid-January 1945. Imagine if you will soldiers freezing to death in their foxholes because they lacked adequate winter gear. Soldiers who were easy targets for Germans in white camouflage because the Americans had been rushed into battle in their regular Green and Khaki uniforms. Soldiers whose anti-tank weapons and machine guns and even rifles had frozen up and who were easy prey for the machine guns on the panzer tanks that attacked them as they ran away in chaos, desperate to escape certain death.
Studs Terkel famously titled his book of interviews of WWII veterans “The Good War.” My uncle’s memoir brought home for me the terrible truth, however, that no war is good, though some may be necessary. And despite Pat Buchanan’s insane ramblings, WWII was a necessary war if only to end the mass slaughter that the Nazis had made their official state policy. The brutal and unjustified military aggression of Nazi Germany ultimately led to the deaths of millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians, often in in the most ghastly and gruesome manner possible. The firebombing of whole cities. The mass execution of Jews, Slavs and other “inferior races” by the Nazis, some by shooting and some in mechanized death camps where poison gas was employed. The “collateral damage” of civilians caught between opposing armies. In all, 50 million or more people died as a result of Hitler’s wars of aggression.
The only good thing about WWII was when the fighting stopped. Today I honor my uncle’s memory by recalling his participation in helping to bring that horrific war to its end. I also honor his courage in writing honestly about the true nature of modern warfare as he experienced it. There was nothing glorious about the war he described. It must have been very painful to dredge up the memories of his many friends and comrades and even enemies whose deaths he witnessed, but I am grateful that he did.
Many people who never witness war up close and personal, including many stay at home Generals and Political Leaders speak with patriotic fervor of the honor and glory and sacrifice of the members of our armed forces, but their words ring hollow to me. All war, even a war of necessity, is the worst activity in which human beings can engage.
War is Death incarnate in all its worst manifestations. It kills and maims everyone in its path, from the youngest to the oldest and leaves no one unmarred who has survived its atrocities. We would do well to remember that when we consider the use of our military forces now and in the future.
I leave you with one passage from his memoir which I believe sums up as best as anyone can the horror of war he survived:
One particular tableau is with me to this day. The morning was bright and sunny, with a slight breeze. As we filed past one group of bodies, we could see that one GI with a head injury was lying on his back, propped against a log, and that a medic bending over him had started to bandage the wound when he too was hit. The ends of the bandage were streaming out in the breeze.
Despite the decades old and now longview of this war I am always struck by the personal stories and indeed perhaps they are what we should remember first and foremost a quiet moment before we recall the larger victories.
Beautiful story and thank you for sharing.
I’m sorry for your loss. It sounds like he was one hell of a man. And you’re right, that passage pretty much sums it up. As another WWII vet, Kurt Vonnegut, said in Slaughterhouse Five:
“The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who’d really fought.”
Please accept my condolences for your uncle. My father, probably the age of your uncle and who had similar WWII experiences, died almost a year ago (Nov 2, 2009, age 84). My dad did not go thru the Bulge (he was in the South of France at the time), but did have many terrible experiences, and many wonderful ones too. My dad too wrote a memoir of a period during the war, and my dad too did not talk much about it.
The Battle of the Bulge was a terrible one. I have read much about it. The troops like your uncle were often green, and thus were not surviving long – no veterans would help them much, since they were likely to do something stupid and get killed. During the Bulge, the treatment of prisoners was even more savage than in other parts of the war. Surrender to the Germans was often followed by a mass execution, and this led to more atrocities from our side. The rules were off during this period. For the Germans, they could not carry prisoners, since they were trying to do blitzkrieg again, and could not manage prisoners while traveling fast.
I have long thought about why the vets of that “good war” were so reluctant to talk. After all, they were all “heroes” weren’t they? Actually, there were a few heroes, and a whole bunch of 17 and 18 year old kids who were shooting other people and killing them. They were doing evil things in a good cause. I think it was partly a mix of embarrassment (overmuch praise), reluctance to remember actually killing other 18 year old kids in German uniforms, and memories of other atrocities that they either watched, participated in, or knew about. Plus other stuff. My dad did talk about it a little, mostly in 2000 or 2001. But I never asked “Did you kill anyone?” I always thought he probably did, and didn’t see the need to confirm or disconfirm that.
WWII was an evil time. After the war ended, my dad stayed there for a period acting in the Resettlement Administration, and probably carousing a fair bit. Most of those countries had lost 50-60% of the men, and I imagine the US soldiers had a pretty fun time in that sort of environment. The German women were not stupid – there were thousands of German war brides because the young women looked around and thought “It’s a soldier or nothing”.
For those interested in the war, the end of the Soviet union led to the opening of the Soviet war archive, and a British historian Anthony Bevoir has written two books “The Fall of Berlin” and “Stalingrad” from examining the archives. Fascinating, horrifying, terrifying, endless descriptions of terrible events.
I think you’re right about why they (your father and my uncle, etc.) didn’t talk about the war. That and a cultural norm back then of manly stoicism and repression of emotion. I think the flood of WWII memoirs coming out now as many of the survivors reach the end of their lives is no coincidence.
My sister became very interested in the whole thing, and was for a period the Secretary of the Rainbox Division Families (42nd). We went to one reunion, which was quite interesting – 2003 or so. All these guys were in their late 70s or 80s. No one celebrated the war. My dad became VERY irate when the prayer included a brief mention of Iraq. There is almost a ceremonial and required support of war.
I came of age in 1970, when I became 18. The whole Vietnam thing is TOTALLY linked to WWII. My dad was 45 at the time. He had come to terms (whatever that means) with his WWII experience (we had even lived in Germany for 5 years, so we went to many locations where he had served, and even found a foxhole he had dug or the approximate location). Now I the ungrateful coward of a son was refusing to go to Vietnam. Multiply that by several dozen millions, and you have the Generational Divide of 1967-1970.
In later life, he never once not even one time said “You should have gone to Vietnam”.
I’m sorry for your loss Steven. Your uncle’s memoir is a very valuable piece of history. Real history.
What a bizarre coincidence. My uncle also died last night, about midnight. Same era, I’m sure. Never talked about his war experiences – or much else, he was a true stoic – but he was one of the few genuinely kind and decent people in my family, and I’ll miss him a lot.
Best wishes, Steven, in dealing with your loss.
My condolences Geov
My condolences to you Steven and your family.
Almost every WWII-era story I’ve heard has been from the point of view of someone who was just a kid, really, thrust into the insanity of that time.
My mother’s father could not go (he had only 1 kidney) but my father’s father and stepfather both went to the Pacific and it ground them down. My grandparents-in-law were also in that theater; my wife’s grandmother grew up in Hawaii and was there when it was bombed.
They were all grim and stoic about that time period (my grandfather not about the war, but about the Depression he saw firsthand in Cleveland as a boy). I’d imagine anyone would be if they’d had to confront such massive trauma that early in life. Grandma-in-law only began talking about her WWII experiences last Christmas, when she’d turned 90.
It’s good tor me to remember this because the faux-veneration of that generation by the Brokaw types is so oppressive that it distorts their humanity.
But they were just kids and they endured so much.
A lot of that generation never served in combat. Those that did despised war.
I’m sorry for your loss, Steve. I can’t wait to read your book.
Well
Know any publishers? 🙂
I was introduced to this while in high school lit class. Its always stayed with me. Funny, I got into aviation in the military and later hung out with a group of WWII fliers that called themselves the Bald Eagles. I was the kid, being the only Vietnam era member of the group.
My condolences to you Steven and Geov on the loss of your uncles. My dad was in the Pacific theater and took part in the Phillipine invasion. He didn’t talk much about it either and never kept a working firearm in the house as long as he lived. How flawed we are that we continue to repeat the insanity of times past.
my condolences. story: at a social event a younger person maliciously imo asked a vet of that era about PTSD – Obama had just talked about his uncle’s PTSD and vet, had never received treatment for it because of the era. The vet segued into some of his combat experiences; he attempted suicide a few days after this social event. he then received treatment for PTSD. The emotional stress he described was horrifying but due solely to the “ordinary” circumstances of combat.
One of my Uncles also was in the Battle of the Bulge and later served as an interpreter to an Army fact finding mission touring the Death Camps. He was a bilingual son of German immigrants. My Aunt told me once that he would sometimes wake up screaming in the night. He was stern but not scary if you know what I mean. I only saw him really angry if someone said something like “Hitler did some good things” or “The Nazis weren’t that bad”.
Your Uncle and mine were truly the Greatest Generation. They suffered terrible poverty and then incredible terror and inhumanity. They held it in and just concentrated on a better life for their children, who, unfortunately became the Me Generation.
I’m sorry for your loss, Steven. He sound like a wonderful man.
My condolences, Steven, for your recent loss. Your uncle sounds like a fine man. His generation was so worthy.
Yes, here too. Thanks for sharing these recollections of your uncle’s experiences.