WW II Memorial: Personal Memories
Published May 28, 2004
My father was a reluctant draftee during WW II. At 28, he was one of the oldest men in whatever unit he happened to be in. After the war, he never spoke a word about it for the next thirty years. At one point, after he'd had some health problems, I asked him to give me a list of where he'd been, maybe in chronological order — if he could remember.
A few months later, he delivered a 200 page hand-written manuscript into my lap. He'd started from the beginning and remembered every sight, sound, smell, friend's name, town, city, and event — as if it had happened the day before. I was shocked, astonished!
He couldn't remember where he'd put his glasses, perhaps, but he could remember the night he sat in a foxhole listening to church bells harmonizing to the sound of artillery shells, how he'd stayed awake all night wiggling his toes to keep them from frostbite.
He'd waded ashore at Omaha Beach, made it through the hedgerows of France (the highest mortality rate of the war), and finally reached the Elbe River a week before the date specified in the history books. (US and Russian forces were supposed to meet up and shake hands for a historic photo-op, therefore the discrepancy between the actual arrival of my father's platoon and the one reflected in history.)
This is an excerpt from his personal memoirs, "A Foxhole View." It describes an attack against a small German town and the circumstances whereupon he earned his first Silver Star Medal.
This story is not unique; thousands of men from that "Greatest Generation" can tell the exact same story, changing only the names of buddies, officers, and locations. Tragically, the stories of men in war are all too common.
Rolsdorf was just across the Roer River from the city of Duren. This was the deepest penetration made on German soil by American forces in the entire year of 1944. They had the hedgerows of France behind them, and were on the move. They thought the end of the war was just around the corner.
The Battle of the Bulge was one day old, but at the time of this excerpt, these soldiers didn't know that — or what they were in for from that final offensive of Hitler's army.
- WW II Memorial: Personal Memories
- Published: May 28, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Culture
- Writer: Shark
- Shark's BC Writer page
- Shark's personal site
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Scott, very nice tribute at your site -- and a beautiful photo. I hope others will add their memories and memorials here as well. It's a very appropriate thing to do this weekend.
Thanks again for adding a link to your own special tribute to your dad.
That is a great excerpt Scott. Your dad was a skilled writer.
Shark, thanks for posting this. I know there are sites dedicated to accounts like these, and I have read some anthologies that are collections of soldiers' stories. Maybe there could be an interconnecting of blogs that post stories like this to bring out some of the unheard stories that are out there. Are your dad's stories published or available?
No politics here, Shark. Great post. Great father you had. We're all proud.
Thanks for posting that fantastic excerpt. I wish more vets had done an oral or written history of their experience in WWII. Everytime I read something like what your father wrote, I am in awe of what those men went through and what they were able to accomplish. Once again, thanks for your poast, and you should publish the whole thing.
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My father served in the Pacific Theatre during the war (Okinawa, and Japan after). Unfortunately, I didn't do something like this with him before he passed.
I think about him often, but always when I am setting the flag at half-staff on Memorial Day.