Mike Toohig, Paris 1945
(1945) – Mike Toohig had previously been awarded a furlough to London in April which was cancelled by his Co Cmdr due to the tactical situation at that time. However, as soon as hostilities ended he was notified that the furlough was reinstated. He then got word that he could visit his grandparents in Ireland with special permission from his Co Cmdr, since Ireland was neutral, you could desert, and escape possible combat duty in the Pacific. He easily received the permission required and was on his way to London with an Irish friend from Delta Company, who was visiting his parents in Ireland. The rest is Mike’s story with some omissions for sake of brevity.
We arrived at the “Moyston Club” near Oxford Circle in London. We had to arrange for passports, get exit papers, get a leave extension, and travel documents and tickets from the US Military and it was Friday and everything was closed on Saturday. First were photos, then to the US Embassy to apply for passports which they would give us later in the day, then to the US Military for leave extensions and travel documents, then to the Red Cross (British) to get civilian clothes (as Ireland was neutral), we took the train to Hollyhead in Wales and took the mail packet to Dun Laoghaire – the port for Dublin. We took a train to Dublin and with detailed instructions we separated. I only knew that my Dad’s family were in Cork – I thought that Millstreet was a street in Cork City – my mother’s family was actually in Skibreen in County Cork. This was all from listening to visiting relatives while I was growing up. My rail tickets took me via Limerick Junction to Cork City. I figured I’d give it a try!
At Cork City, I couldn’t find a Millstreet and found out there was a Toohig, a baker. I finally found a bus and found him and learned there were some Toohig’s in Macroom – near Kerry. I then switched to try Skibreen and the Walshes. I remember that my grandfather was John Walsh, a harness maker on High Street in Skibreen. I took a bus! My only American ID was a US Army ammo bag that I used for toilet articles. People would come up to me – knowing that the US had just opened up visits by relatives and they all wanted to know if I knew Pat Murphy with George Patton or Mike Conner with Eisenhower. It was a 25 mile bus ride and one man on the bus knew John Walsh. When we got to the center of Skibreen, he pointed out my grandfather’s home. I walked up to an open half door and an old man sat inside by the fireplace. He looked at me and said “Michael, I’ve been expecting you!” He’d read about Ireland opening up and knew I’d come. Astounding!! My grandfather called my godmother – May Keating – who had been mother’s best friend. She came and got my cousin Bill Walsh of Carrick Fodder – the farm on the edge of town. Betty and Ted Toohig, in later years, became good friends of Bill’s daughter – Terry Culbert, who still lives there on holidays. They took care of me – I slept with Bill on a straw mattress. I was still infected with scabies and lice – from living in German positions during the fighting. (We’d sit around scratching.) Poor Bill had to burn the mattress after I left. My mother and father heard about it during their 1950 visit for their 25th wedding anniversary.
My grandfather knew the Twohigs and gave me directions. I don’t remember too many details of the Skibreen visit, except I was one of the first Yanks to return and my visit made the paper – there is still a copy about.
I took the bus back to Cork City and then a bus to Millstreet. I was in civilian clothes from the London Red Cross but had an army ammo bag. People would recognize this and I was frequently asked if I was a Yank and everyone had brothers or cousins in the war. One man knew the Twohigs and told me to stay on the bus at Millstreet and get off out of town at Barry Daley Chapel. I was told that the Twohig farm was the third one on the road to the mountains and the sun was going down. At the first house I knocked – and then banged – finally someone behind the door asked who I was and what I wanted. They said the Twohig farm was the second – but wouldn’t open the door. They later gave my parents a vivid description of banging on the door and a strange voice as darkness came. I finally came to the Twohig’s thatched roof farm house. I knew that my uncle Ned lived with Grandma – he had been with us in the States when I was a boy. The half door was open and I recognized my grandmother from photos. She was hard of hearing and thought I was a salesman friend of Ned’s and kept shooing me away as I was telling her I was Tim’s boy Michael. Finally, Uncle Ned hurried up – someone along the road told him of his relative heading toward the house. He knew me immediately and I settled in.
The next day was Sunday and grandma put me in her jaunting cart behind the horse and off we went to Barry Daley Chapel. She sat on the left side with the women, and I sat on the right side with the men as was the common practice in Ireland.
I had many aunts, uncles, and cousins whom I visited or they came to grandma’s house. I visited my Aunt Mary Sullivan – where I spent time with my cousin my age, Morris Sullivan. He died of pneumonia after I left.
I visited Aunt Bridgit (Horgan) – Dan Joe was a boy then and is now in New York. I visited Uncle Joe Twohig on his farm. He had a son Michael who later had a large family and was recently in New York. Kerry Twohig was a son and I talked to him a couple of years ago when he was in Westminister, MD on a computer contract. In 2010, my Terry and grandson Tommy visited Millstreet and went to Mass at Barry Daley Chapel. The big event was Uncle Ned hired a car – gas was very expensive at that time and he took me around the Ring of Kerry and Lakes of Kilarney. Very interesting, and while I did not know at the time, a very expensive and fine gift. After a few days, I returned to Cork City by bus and then train to Limerick Junction and Dublin.
We saw Blarney Castle leaving Cork City. Life in Ireland, as a neutral country, was much simpler than England since the economy was tight and few luxury goods were available.
I returned to London and the Moyston Club in my 1930’s English clothes and as I walked in I met a crew from Co B that left Austria well after I had – my appearance made quite a conversation impression.
I was now traveling on individual orders and not with a group. I may have taken advantage of it. I had checked out London’s Hyde Park Corner – full of debates by Labor to remove Churchill ! Went back across the Channel to LeHarve and Paris and checked into a leave hotel. While there, I saw the sights – selling PX rations to keep in cash, and after several days, arranged travel back to Innsbruck, and up the Inn Valley to Schonweiss and Co B. In the meantime, the Co B men I had met leaving London had returned well ahead and reported my civilian clothes status. When I reported to the First Sergeant, he went ballistic. I had departed in May and now returned almost a month later in June. I was “lectured” and assigned to outpost duty in the Alps where they had been having problems with Werewolf attacks. I had one night-time encounter with a band and, later, a second at Ingolstadt. The Werewolves were die-hard ex-Hitler Youths.
The US Army point system was based on length of service and combat time to determine separation or transfer to occupation duty. High-pointers were sent home for discharge, I had enough to stay in occupation duty, and not have to go to the Pacific. If I had reported my flesh wound in December for a Purple Heart, the five points would have been a big help.
I was transferred in July to the 9th Inf Div (Germany-Occupation Duty) in Ingolstat and after routine occupation duties was transferred in November to a Graves Registration unit in Holland. In February 1946, I returned to the USA for discharge in March 1946.
– from page 10 of News from the Cactus Patch – issue 32 February 2013 – It is a newsletter for the 103d Infantry Division WWII Association
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Born in 1924 in Essex County, Massachusetts
Military serial#: 31364679
Enlisted: June 29, 1943 in Boston Massachusetts
Enlistment Term: Enlistment for duration of War plus six months
Military branch: No Branch Assignment
Rank: Private, Selectees (enlisted Men)
Enlistment Records: [mooseroots.com]
Mike (Michael F Toohig) lives (2013) in McLean, Virginia, and is heavily involved with the 103d Infantry Division WWII Association
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Parents: Timothy Michael Toohig (Tim), born in millstreet July 10th 1892, died in Lawrence, Essex, Massachusetts, USA January 1977) , Mother Catherine Walsh, born in Skibbereen Dec 28 1896, died in October 1986)
Paternal Grandparents: Michael and Mary (née Lane) Twohig (of Ballydaly, Millstreet)
Siblings: 2 brothers and 5 sisters.
“In Fort Wayne in 1953, I joined a group called the Catholic Young Adults. I was chairman of the social committee and I met my wife (Barbara) during an event. We have five children and eleven grandchildren (2008).”
Mike’s cousin Nora still lives in the same house in Annagloor as her father Ned.
Photos: [Family] [wedding of Ann Mary and William Hickey]
Tim and Catherine Toohig with their eight children
Tim Toohig walks his daughter Mary Ann down the aisle. Tim was a brother of Ned Twohig, Annagloor.
Barbara and Mike Toohig in 2011
Grandson Terry genealogy
Connected Family
Photos: [Family] [wedding of Ann Mary and William Hickey] [Mike and Barbara (2011)] [military photos]
==============================================
Below is a long overview by Mike of his activities in WWII from enlisting in July 1943 to going back home to the US in February 1946.
Mike Toohig at Maastnecht, Holland
(Dec 23rd 1945)
Taped Interview
Cincinnati Reunion 2008
Michael F Toohig, Co. B 411th
I was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. My parents were immigrants from Ireland, County Cork. I finished high school in June of ’42. I finished my freshman year of college in ’43. And in the middle of July I was in the Army. I felt that Pearl Harbor was a rather nasty sneak attack. It was a big messy problem and it was very dangerous! As soon as I was eligible, I was drafted. That was when I turned eighteen years old. I was almost seventeen when Pearl Harbor occurred. I took basic training in North Camp Hood, Texas. I was in an ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program-technical officers) basic training unit but I did not want to go to college. I had been impressed by the Finnish Ski Troopers against the Russians. So I wanted to go into the Ski Troops and volunteered for the Ski Troops. All the guys I was with in Basic Training were New Englanders. Several of them had been with me at Boston College. This whole crew went up to Northeastern University in Boston. Another fellow that I was in high school with also wanted to go with me to the Ski Troops and several more friends wanted to be Air Force Cadets. At the end of the Basic Training they took all of the ASTP fellows and they shipped them up to Northeastern. They put a dozen or so of us in a replacement pool. Several of us were trying to go to the Ski Troops and some of the guys were trying to go into the Air Force to be fighter pilots. One day in late November or so, they called us together and said they would like to tell us that the Ski Troops were closed down, they were full; the Air Force Cadet programs were also closed down. They were full. But they need infantry replacements in Italy. So, everyone is going to Italy except for these people; they then called out me and Joe Regan, my good buddy from Lawrence, Massachusetts, and a few more. We said, “Hey we want to go with these guys!” They said no, you are only eighteen and you cannot go as a combat replacement until you are nineteen. If you are in a unit you can go to combat at eighteen. But if you are a replacement going through the replacement channel as an individual, you have to be nineteen. So they pulled both of us out and said you cannot go as replacements. You are going into regular divisions. He went into the 99th Division and I went into the 103rd the beginning of January of ’44. Some of the ones who went as replacements included friends from Boston and we corresponded. They went to Italy. They were some of the first replacements into Anzio. They were creamed! Dead! I lost a good friend, Bob Segal. I got a letter back after a month that he was KIA. Heavy casualties. They were reporting that guys were being killed right and left there. So I ended up by default in the 103rd Division. An ASTP group showed up in the 103rd Division four or five months later when they closed down ASTP because they needed infantry replacements. Our ASTPers came from the University of Oklahoma.
On October 6, 1944 we left from New York. We were on a three
thousand ton x-banana boat, Santa Maria. The George Washington, a
former commercial liner, was in front of us and that was about a 25,000 ton
ship. It was a much bigger ship. We hit a hurricane on the way over. Our
little ship was up and down. The propeller would come out of the water and
then go down. To eat we had to go up on deck and sort of swish around and
go down where the food was. They had a guy there and they would
basically “time” the waves. When it would look right they said, “run”, “run”,
because the deck would be washed at times. That was an experience. The
holds had five to seven bunks high. I was in a seven hold stack—3rd person
up. It was a fairly good spot because the vomit from the top bunkers might
not splatter me. Many people were heaving all during the hurricane. The
luckiest guy was working on KP and one of the big heavy doors slammed on
him and broke his leg. He went to the hospital in Marseilles when we got
there. He never showed up again. Marseilles was historically interesting to
me. I had always been a history student. I remembered particularly that I
liked bouillabaisse. I remember seeing again and again the cathedral on top
of the mountain. That is still the only thing I remember. We were the first
ships into Marseilles! The harbor was just open. We were small enough that
we went off on a gang plank. Some of the other ships had the men go off
over the side in nets. What I remember next and what most of the guys
remember was a horrible walk. We had not had any exercise for a month!
We were loaded with packs and going up hill. We were walking twelve
miles up hill in mild weather and we were short of water. We got up to the
top of this plateau. We were the first troops there. It was later that this
became a Cigarette Camp. They were digging latrines along the road. They
were just open pits. The civilians, including girls, would walk past the
latrines and you would be sitting on the latrine. We put up pup tents.
Within a day or so it was just pouring rain and the water didn’t go anywhere.
You were flooded. It was just a mess.
The major ports had camps for embarkation both ways. They were
called Cigarette Camps from their names. When the ports opened up that is
where they would keep people and then send them to the front. Then when
the war ended that is how they sent people out through the Cigarette Camps.
Famous Cigarette Camps were in Marseilles and Le Havre. They were
huge tent cities. They named the camps after the cigarettes, Lucky Strike in
Janville, France; Camp Phillip Morris in Le Havre, France, etc.
The problem hiking out of Marseilles was that we had not walked
for weeks and now you are loaded with a pack and walking up hill. People
were falling out and hitching rides. There were a few jeeps but most of us
walked. My weapon was an M-1. You lived with the M-1. It weighed
eleven pounds and I thought it was a toothpick until one of the kids gave me
one a few years ago. And it is a heavy eleven pounds. But at that time it was
like a toothpick. During the war we hardly ever knew where we were going
except that we were loading up to go to the next position. I recently got the
Morning Reports for Co B, 411th because I couldn’t figure out where I was
much of the time. We knew St. Die; we were going around that, and some
of the other towns like Maisongoutte where there was a lot of fighting.
When we left the Siegfried to cover Patton in December, I knew it was up
around Sarreguemines, somewhere. It was later that I found out what towns
we were in. My Company officer was Danny Levinson. He was probably
twenty-seven or twenty-eight. He was a New York City Jewish boy. When
we were up on the Siegfried in December 1944 he got his shoulder shot off.
On the attack on the Siegfried the machine guns were mounted in the
pillboxes apertures which means they didn’t ride. Normally, when a
machine gun shoots it rides to the right. So when you are looking at a
machine gun you run right. In this case it would just hold its stream together
so it didn’t spread. He took a burst that took the shoulder off.
He came to one of the reunions back in the early 1990’s. And I was
talking to him at that time. He is probably well into his nineties now and is
probably dead by now. Before the age of prosthetics, he had seven
operations where they had to go in and take pieces of the bone and build the
bone so he would have an arm socket. He became a good golfer which was
an interesting thing.
We were now in Alsace. The Maginot Line ran basically from the
Rhine over to the Saar. About five to ten miles away was the Siegfried. The
Maginot Line was just inside Alsace. The Siegfried was just inside the
German area. We started on the west side of the Vosges Mountains. The
first fighting that we had was in an area called Taintrux Valley. We took
over the German positions there. That is the first fighting. That is where we
took our first casualties. They then trucked us down the line further and we
went through the German lines, up over the mountains. Then we came down
into the Steige Pass. We came in behind the Germans lines. We captured
the town of Maisongoutte. It was a crazy area because the Germans were in
town and we were in town. It was dark and everybody was mixed up. We
out-posted the town and then we came back into town. We came down the
street and a column of Germans came towards us. We went towards them
and we both saw each other. We both had our rifles slung. We walked past
each other and then both ran! It has happened a few times in battles.
Nobody was about to shoot. Everyone would have been shot if we had. We
were only five feet apart.
This was Saturday. Another company went down the pass to Ville.
We stayed behind. We were in the town of Maisongoutte for Sunday. There
was a Mass in the village Catholic Church. All the villagers came into the
church. It was a small town. I had been in the Mass sitting on my helmet
along the window. Years later I took my wife in and showed her exactly
where I was sitting on my helmet. The next day was Monday. We were
going to move out because someone else had gone down the pass and taken
Ville. We were to go down past them and go over the mountains again. The
officers were getting everyone together on the street. However, the Germans
had left a Howitzer behind, up on the hill. So with everybody out now and
getting ready to move down the road, we were thinking we were behind the
lines. Then Germans began dropping 150 mm Howitzer shells onto the
streets. There was chaos. Under the road was a street maintenance area
where they put gravel and stuff like that. So a bunch of the guys went in
there to get out of the way of the shells. I was coming down the street and
there was a house across the street to the left of the road shelter and I could
hear a big shell coming in. There was a door there so I jumped through the
door. And I jumped left. There were some guys in there along the wall
inside the door. A shell landed on a line between the storage facility and the
entrance to this basement. It was chaos. We lost a bunch of guys, killed and
wounded in my squad. I had jumped through to the left. There were some
guys along the wall and they took the shrapnel. One of the things I always
remember was one young guy that had taken the shrapnel in his mid section.
He had just been married before he left. I had to take his pants down and
assure him everything was alright. I said, “I don’t know if you are going to
live or not, but you’re alright there.” He was not part of our Company so I
don’t know what happened to him. We lost a couple of guys from our
Company, they were killed and several were wounded including my squad
leader-Gil Kretchmann and my friend Carl Boltz. Bill Gale was killed. We
reassembled and went down and exited the Vosges a few days later, going
over the Hochwald Pass. We came out at Barr, which is today on the Wine
Highway in the Vosges. We were always buddied. And the guy I buddied
with got killed there (Joe Hajkowicz of Iron River, MI) and another fellow’s
buddy got killed. He and I ended up together digging a foxhole so we
buddied after that. His wife and daughter are here, the Messe’s. His name
was Bud Messe from Rochester, NY. The daughter asked how I met her
father and I was telling her stories. We ended up in Ebersheim while the
409th turned right and went to Selestat. From Ebersheim we then went north
on December 9, 1944 (my 20th birthday). We started the attacks that went
to the Maginot and to the Siegfried from the Griesbach area. We got out of
the Vosges and out onto the Alsace Plain. Then we went North and attacked
the Siegfried; through the Maginot Line to the Siegfried. We were up on the
Siegfried three or four days, three days probably with terrible fighting; we
took a lot of casualties. That is where I mentioned the kid from Boston,
Tony Vaccaro-Alston, MA, who was the first scout. I was the bazooka man.
The theory was we would see the pillbox aperture, he would see it, spot it
and I would shoot it with the Bazooka. The Germans shot him and killed
him. I signed his death certificate. Later, the German Red Cross reported
that he had died in a prisoner of war camp in February 1945. That caused all
sorts of problems. His brother who was in the Navy and his father came to
Lawrence to see my family in June 1945. My mother contacted me with the
story. I knew he was killed—shot between the eyes. I got an action map
from my First Sergeant and wrote the Graves Registration. I told them the
circumstances and said that he would be buried in a trench where he died or
in the Reisdorf church graveyard. They wrote me later and said they found
his body in the Reisdorf church yard. Today, Tony is buried at St. Avold
Cemetery in Lorraine, France. With the Battle of the Bulge we pulled back
from the Siegfried and went north about a hundred miles to the
Sarreguemines area.
We stayed there a couple of weeks over Christmas in ’44. We were
mostly patrolling. It was miserable weather. We had a very extensive line
because when the 3rd Army pulled out we had to cover their front with the
one division. Then the Germans attacked on January, 1945 with Northwind
along the 7th army front and came across the Rhine north of Strassburg.
They wiped out an American tank Battalion. They penetrated out of the
Siegfried area and came down in Alsace. We were loaded on trucks on a
miserable day in mid-January, and we were driven a hundred miles east.
They unloaded us at the Haguenau Forest. That was the 18th of January 1945.
The morning of the 19th we basically went to attack Sessenheim. That was a
famous mess. The 3rd Battalion was to go through our 1st Battalion and was
to take Sessenheim. We were then to pass through. We were at the edge of
the woods when they went across the plain. During the night the Germans
had moved in a number of Panzer units into Sessenheim. The Americans,
our 3rd Battalion, had summoned tanks to support them. These tankers were
new to combat and they made a BIG mistake. It was early in the morning
and it was dark. They made the mistake as they got close to town of
gunning their engines. When they gunned the engines, the Germans came
pouring out of the buildings. They had a number of Panzer tanks there.
They knocked out the seven tanks in five minutes. They caught a lot of I
and L Company in the open. Part of L Company had already penetrated the
town. The Germans trapped them and captured them. A whole bunch of L
Company guys were captured. A bunch were wounded. The Lieutenant in
charge was wounded thirteen times that day. His name was Bill Sprosser. I
have known him since then. Then Company I got all shot up. Company B
was still in the woods and the ground was frozen. It had been wet and froze.
The problem they had with the earth being frozen was the shrapnel was
going flat since the shells did not penetrate before exploding. So you would
try to find any declination to get below ground level. People were getting hit
from this shrapnel skimming the ground. We basically were held in the
woods. The attack was broken and a bunch of wounded guys from I and L
Companies got into a house in the middle of the battlefield. That night one
of the Company L guys by the name Jack Scannell came back to get some
help to bring the wounded out of the cellar of the house before the German
patrol captured them. His Battalion Commander would not give him any
help; the Commander said, “Let them surrender.” Scannell said no and that
he was going back out there to be with them. Someone said, “Go see Major
Crouch.” Major Crouch had our 1st Battalion. He told him, “We’ll go get
them.” The 3rd Battalion Commander was giving them up. They needed
some volunteers! Several of my squad were sitting in a hole next to some
tanks. He came over and said you guys just volunteered to go out. There
probably were six to eight wounded there. There were a lot of stretcher
bearers with stretchers. The Germans had patrols out so we went down in
the basement and got the wounded all out. I managed to confiscate a bottle
of wine. When we got ready to leave the house two of us were sent behind
to keep the German patrols from shooting the stretcher bearers. I found out
later that when they went further down the Germans started shelling. One of
the shells hit Bill Sprosser of Company L who had already been hit twelve
times, making this the thirteenth. We were walking behind to keep the
patrols off. When we were walking down the road I hear someone saying
“help, help”. So, I stopped and went over in the field where there was a “slit
trench” in the field. And there was a guy down in there. So I talked to him.
I said, “Can you get up and we’ll get you back?” He said he couldn’t walk.
There are only two of us. We can’t handle you. I am going to have to get a
stretcher and come back. So we went back. Crouch and the medical supplies
were in one of the Maginot pillboxes. So I said we need to get another
stretcher out. Six guys went back with me to pick him up. It was light
enough that I knew where he was. We picked him up and got him out of the
hole. He had a flashlight and he gave it to me as a gift. We got him loaded
up. He said he was a Sergeant from L Co. So we brought him back and he
went to the hospital. We went back to where we were at the tanks. The
next night we had a fifteen mile retreat. It had been snowing during the day
so it was a good thing we got the wounded out. That night we had this
twelve or fifteen mile retreat. Our Company had left our 6 man squad to
cover the retreat as rear guard. They were supposed to tell us when to move.
We had waited and waited. We could hear German tanks on the sides. I
said, “We are moving.” We took off down the road. We finally caught up
with the columns. They had forgotten to tell us to move out. After
retreating about 15 miles we were put in a field. We just basically went in
and lay down on the ground. They had given us just a blanket bag. We
went to sleep. When we woke up in the morning, everything was covered
with about 3 inches of snow. We were just a bunch of lumps in a field!
Sometime early in the morning the Red Cross came with coffee and donuts.
It was marvelous! That is how we ended up that mess.
We went into occupation in Bouxwiller. Our squad was billeted in a
“bar” in a house. It was just like a neighborhood bar. Not like an American
bar. We were there sleeping on the floor. First Battalion was assigned to
raid the town of Rothback. We would be the raiding party. We had to take
over the town. We had a guy from Time Magazine with us. When he took a
look at what was going to happen he decided not to go with us. Our B
Company had to come up through an ice field to get into the town. We were
noisily crunching the ice. The Germans started to shell and we had to duck
down into the water. They were little drainage ditches. C Company went in
through the cemetery and the Germans were dropping phosphorous shells
into the cemetery. So some of the soldiers would fall into the holes, get wet
and be covered with phosphorous. There was a story in the “Stars and
Stripes” that talked about these “glowing guys” jumping out of foxholes.
A few years ago my youngest sister, who is a nun, and two other nuns
were in Europe. They had studied in Europe and were traveling around
Europe. I set them up to visit Sessenheim and Rothback. They went to the
house where all the wounded were in Sessenheim. They could talk to the
people. These were of course the children or grandchildren. They got the
whole story there too. In Rothback they visited the cemetery. When we
came back from the Rothback raid to Bouxwiller they put us into the lines at
Rothback. We were there for a week or ten days. It was just miserable
weather! Myself and another guy were at an out post. When we went to
take it over there was nobody to relieve. It turns out we had the 6th SS below
us. They had come up and captured the guys the night we were moving in.
So we were in that hole and you couldn’t get out in daylight because the
Germans could see you. The hole was a bad hole. It was an exposed hole
and it was not dug deep. We were laying there in the rain and it was
miserable. When we moved we had to turn together. The guy I was with
was one of my best friends. When we got through with that experience we
didn’t talk to each other for a while. It was terrible! They pulled our
platoon back except for us. They couldn’t get us, but they got us out later.
We stayed in a cave higher up with the next platoon in the area. The next
platoon put us down the hill in a hole below the cave, just above the SS
buildings. There were three of us in the hole. I went to sleep. I said I would
take the middle shift. So you have two awake and one down. While I was
sleeping one of the SS came up and got on the roof. They knew he was
around so one of the guys (I never knew who these guys were because they
stuck me with them) got out to throw a flare grenade down. The SS man
stabbed him and he yelled. The guy in the hole with me started shooting
through the roof. I came out of dead sleep with a rifle going off in my face
and I couldn’t find my rifle. As it turns out I was sleeping on it. It was
terrible. We survived that night. The guy got knifed and killed. We came
back up the hill to the cave. We stayed there a couple of days. I knew I had
a problem. As it turns out I had yellow jaundice, which is Hepatitis. When
we came back I said I must go see a medic. People were always trying to
get off the line. They don’t let you off so easily. The medic said alright, let
me see your urine. They won’t let you do your urine specimen somewhere
else. They make you do it right there so they know it is your urine. He saw
black urine and said, “Alright, you are going back.” So I went back to
Sarreguemines and it was Yellow Jaundice. I was up on top floor of a
school building which was the hospital. And that was the time they had
Alsace Alice. Alsace Alice was the railroad cannon. It was shelling the area.
The shells were like a freight train coming in. There was an article recently
in one of the Washington papers by the nurses telling that every time they
heard Alsace Alice the casualties started pouring in. They wanted to get
everyone down in the basement. I said I was too sick. I said that shell is too
heavy; it will go through the top floor. So I just stayed there and slept
through the whole thing. When I came back the outfit had just started the
March attack. They kept me just behind them. As soon as they got through
the Siegfried this time, I rejoined them. Then we went across the Rhine and
were in occupation for a week or so in Beerfelden. The French were in
trouble down in the Black Forest and the Germans were going to retreat into
the Alps. So they put us back in the line. Our job was to go down on the
East side of the Black Forest from ULM on the Danube. Then they put us
on tanks to go and block the Alpine passes.
After the war I used to work in Germany. I had a good friend who
happened to be one of the German soldiers in the Black Forest retreating. I
asked him why he hadn’t stopped. I told him that I had so many blisters on
my feet trying to catch up with you that it wasn’t funny. Then they put us
on tanks and we went down into the Alps. We ended up down in the
Brenner Pass in Italy. That is where I was when the war ended.
Then we were slated for Japan as infantry. I had to get my physical.
That is where I met this Irish guy from Company D who told me about
Ireland being available on leave from London. I was supposed to have been
on combat leave in April but I was out in tanks away from any supply line so
I essentially lost the leave. But after the war was over they said I had the
leave. I had a delayed leave to London coming. I had this leave extended
and I went to Ireland and met my Mother’s father and my Father’s mother. I
had about two weeks there. I had to have civilian clothes. I had to go to the
British Red Cross to get clothes. A week or so after I left, they sent another
group from the same company on leave to London. So when I came back to
London I came walking into the club and the whole next crew on leave was
in there. And I walk in wearing civilian clothes! It was a riot. They had to
go back to the Company. They were traveling with orders as a group. I was
on Independent Orders so I decided to go back by way of Paris. I spent a
few days in Paris where I eventually ran out of rations and money. I went
back and rejoined the Company.
I had to get a physical to go to Japan. You had to have a certain
amount of points and I think I had 44 and you needed 50 to go back to the
States. The problem I had was that some of the guys had received Purple
Hearts and that was five extra points. I had gotten one wound on my finger
and took care of it myself; it was trivial. I didn’t know then that the wound
was worth five points. When I found out at the end of the war I went to get
my Purple Heart; they said they had no records of this. This was after I had
been in Ireland so they were not too sympathetic. So I did not get my five
points. I was in line to go as experienced infantry to Japan. I was in
Germany when I heard about Japan and the bomb. Then the war ended and
they hit me with Occupation.
I was in Ingolstadt up on the Danube. They were looking for people
to go to Holland for grave registration. They had a problem. They had the
bomber run from England to the German Industrial Ruhr. A lot of planes
were shot down there at the Dutch border. They had a big anti-aircraft
complex. When they shot them down they would bury the crew next to the
plane. After the war they had to dig up the crews and bring them to a
cemetery. At this time my battalion was plagued with unhappy troops. The
staff had a lot of interviews regarding why people were unhappy. I
explained that I had left college and I wanted to go back to college. The war
was over, I did not want to be part of the Occupation and I wanted to go
home. They decided I was not a happy trooper. They were looking for
volunteers to help the grave diggers. They volunteered me to go to Holland
with the Grave Digger establishment! It turned out to be a great experience.
I spent three months in Holland attached to the Canadian Army. We hired
local people to dig up the bodies. The first ones I saw were moldy and that
was enough for me. I ended up in Holland and then I went back to the
States in late February, 1946 out of Antwerp.
After the war, I went back to school and was a physicist. I got my
Master’s Degree and worked for Firestone Tire and Rubber Company for a
few years designing the 106mm Recoilless Rifle System. In 1953 I went to
Fort Wayne to work with Philo Farnsworth, who invented TV, and ITT
Laboratories in electro-optics. I ran the Electro Optic Laboratories and
Division for a number of years in Fort Wayne and Roanoke, VA. My
Director of Research at Roanoke was Dr. Charles Kao- inventor of Fiber
Optics for telecommunications which are the heart of worldwide
communications today. Other products were display tubes, star trackers for
satellites, and night vision goggles. Over 1 million of the helmet design with
night vision goggles for the infantry have been sold.
In Fort Wayne in 1953, I joined a group called the Catholic Young
Adults. I was chairman of the social committee and I met my wife during an
event. I have five children and eleven grandchildren. I started coming to
reunions in 1980. I have attended about two out of three reunions. Since I
retired in 2002 I have regularly attended. I am presently the 411th
representative with the 103rd Division of WWII Association.
- from the 103d Infantry Division (Cactus) World War II Association