The Greatest Generation

I am currently reading the book The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara. Shaara writes war novels with historical accuracy but from the perspective of the key players (thereby making them novels). The result of this writing style is readability akin to reading a bestseller as opposed to a history book.

The Rising Tide is about the North African and Italian efforts in WWII. As I was reading this book, I couldn't help but think of the fact that my great uncle Orville served in the Army during WWII as part of the North African and Sicily invasions. A decade or so ago, prior to Orville passing away, my dad sat down with his Aunt Hannah and Uncle Orville to write their life stories. For reference, Hannah is the sister of my dad's mother Millie. I have always had an immense fondness for Hannah and Orville. I don't know if there was ever a nicer, more pleasant couple to spend time with.

I asked my dad to send me the excerpt from his Hannah and Orville book regarding Orville's service in the war, with the intention of maybe including a snippet or two in this week's blog (given that the Cruzes have done little blog worthy, yet again). However, after reading the excerpt, I think it would be a disservice to not include the whole passage. Be forwarned that this is relatively long, particularly for one of my blog posts, but is in my opinion worth reading and preserving for posterity. This is as told from Orville, who really did not like talking about the war much. I hope you'll find it as fascinating as I do.

Orville: In late September of 1942 I was sent from Abilene to Camp Pickett in Virginia. Camp Pickett was located near Norfolk, at the south end of the Chesapeake Bay. We were there for a short while getting ready to go overseas. I was assigned to Company C, part of the 30th Regiment of the U.S. Army's Third Division. We had no idea where we were headed, just that it would be overseas somewhere. We suspected that we would be part of an invasion force because we did a practice amphibious landing one day from Chesapeake Bay. I enjoyed this dry run landing. We were sent to shore in Higgins boats which put us so close to shore we didn't even get our feet wet. [Higgins boats were large, flat-bottomed boats with a front panel that came down close to shore.]

About the third week in October we shipped out in a fleet of Liberty ships. This was my first time on a big ship and I didn't enjoy this trip very much. We lived down in the bowels of the ship, sleeping in bunks that were three or four tiers high. There was equipment all around us. We could hear water sloshing against the ship from the outside, the equipment was banging around inside, and it seemed like all we could think about was what would happen if a torpedo hit.

We were part of a big convey. There were ships as far as the eye could see. About every six or eight minutes the convoy would change course, because it took that long for a submarine to line up and aim a torpedo. There were so many ships in our convoy, though, it didn't seem to me that the submarines would even have to aim to hit a ship.

I don't recall any torpedo warnings, but about halfway across we ran into a big storm. It was rough. A lot of guys got very seasick. I never got sick enough to throw up but I didn't feel good and missed a lot of meals because I just knew if I saw food then I probably would really be sick.

The waves were so high that one minute the next ship over would be completely out of sight, then you would see it up high on a wave, the propellers exposed and racing out of the water.

We anchored November 8, 1942 off the coast of North Africa. We were about 15 miles offshore from Casablanca, in Morocco, near a small town called Spidella. A small river flowed into the ocean near Spidella and there was a fort on one side of the mouth of the river. Our company, Company C's, objective was to take this fort. There was no intelligence on how many men were defending the fort, so the plan was for the Navy to put a small band of men ashore at 4:00 a. m. to circle behind the fort, then the rest of us would do a frontal assault at dawn. If the fort was not taken by 8:00 a.m. the Navy was to start shelling the fort with their big battleship guns.

As I was to learn, things in the military in wartime never seemed to go according to plan. The Navy didn't get their men ashore until nearly dawn. At 8:00 a.m. we were still in our Higgins boats heading ashore when the big guns on the Battleship Brooklyn began shooting, not more than 15 or 20 feet over our heads. The officer who was supposed to be directing that fire was on our Higgins boat, so he was nowhere around the fort. As it turned out, the American soldiers were just beginning their attack on the fort when the naval assault started and most of the casualties were our own men. And there were only about 40 enemy soldiers defending the fort, so it would not have been much of a fight to take the fort if things had gone according to plan.

The landing itself was nothing like our practice landing on the Chesapeake Bay. They let us out in water that was about waist deep, so we were wet the whole day. There was no enemy fire while we were landing but after we got ashore some German planes began dropping bombs on the beach. I could see the bombs coming down from the planes but they seemed a long way off, so I figured they wouldn't land anywhere near us.

The next thing I knew, the bombs were landing all around us. We had dug slit trenches in the sand, so we laid down in these trenches. Some of the bombs landed close enough to throw sand on me. The one that landed closest to me was a dud.

That evening, we moved from shore into the woods and spent the night. The next morning the bombers returned. Again, a bomb landed frighteningly close to me but, like the day before, this one, too, was a dud. I feel that the Lord was really protecting me.

The next night two of our support ships were torpedoed by a German submarine. Torpedo nets had been put around the fleet, but apparently one submarine had managed to remain hidden inside the net. One of the torpedoed ships was where the wounded soldiers had been taken. A fuel tank was hit, spreading burning oil over the water. Many of the men who jumped off the sinking ship were badly burned from the oil in the water.

After we'd gone to bed that night, all of the infantry troops were awakened and we were instructed to give up one of our two blankets. I spent my second night ashore helping distribute the collected blankets. A temporary hospital was set up in an old school building. Company D was the medical unit in our division, and our casualties were evacuated back to Company D.

By this time, Casablanca had been taken. So after the torpedo attack, the submarine net was removed and the ships moved to Casablanca, where it was safer. It is believed that the German submarine was able to escape during this ship movement, however, because it was never identified. A hospital was set up in Casablanca and our casualties were moved there.

The next day I was sent out as part of a litter squad to relieve another squad. Our squad consisted of a lieutenant who was a doctor, a driver, and four litter bearers. We took off in a small truck looking for the squad we were to replace. We didn't know just where to go, so we drove into Casablanca. The lieutenant could speak a little French, so we drove all around Casablanca, including places where no Americans had been seen yet. All along the road people were happy to see us, shouting "Viva America!" One woman ran up to one of the guys on our truck and gave him a big kiss.

I was kind of glad to get out of there, though, because we knew there could still be enemy around.

We never did find the squad we were supposed to replace. The enemy had given up, so there was very little fighting going on. I think the lieutenant just felt like taking us on a joy ride.


After that, we moved up to Rabat, the capitol of Morocco. We bivouacked there in a cork forest for the winter. The weather was similar to Southern California, warm days and moderate nights. Once in awhile it was cool enough that we needed a fire at night. During this winter we did various drills, to keep us ready. I went to church two or three times in Rabat. There were four or five Adventists in the division and the pastor would take us to his home for Sabbath dinner.

All winter there had been fighting in Tunisia, the small country sandwiched between Algeria and Libya on the Mediterranean Sea. There had been a lot of casualties, so in April, 1943 the Army decided to send in the Third Division to help them out. We were given some more landing training in Algiers. Our regiment was the third to receive this landing training and we had heard all sorts of stories about men being put ashore in full packs in water over their heads, some drowning. We would rather have gone into action than undergo this landing training.

The morning we were to practice landing we were instead ordered to go straight to Tunis, in Tunisia. We were sure glad we didn't have to go out into the ocean again. By the time our regiment got near Tunis, though, the fighting was all but over. Some of the men policed the area, looking for Germans, but it was pretty quiet by that time. Nevertheless, I got a battle ribbon for being in the Tunisia battle area.

We camped in the hills outside of Tunis and practiced mountain training for a planned invasion of Sicily. After the mountain training we moved to a large lake near Tunis that opened into the ocean. All of the ships had gathered here to prepare for the Sicily invasion. We sailed once around the Mediterranean, partly for practice and partly to throw the Germans off as to our plans.

We invaded Sicily in July, 1943. The landing craft for this invasion included LSTs (Landing Ship-Tank), as well as Higgins boats. LSTs were much larger, 3-tier boats, which could carry large equipment, like tanks, ashore. There was no enemy fire as we came ashore, and we had a good landing. We got close to shore. I was on a Higgins boat and I hesitated, to time my jump ashore with an outgoing wave, so I wouldn't get my feet wet. I misjudged how deep it was and fell flat on my face in the water. So much for staying dry!

After we were ashore, a dive bomber attacked the landing craft, hitting one of the LSTs and setting it afire. The LST was loaded with ammunition and it seemed like the Fourth of July, with shells going off all directions. The LST was being unloaded at the time, and the men kept unloading even while the ship burned. Litters with the wounded were brought ashore on amphibious tanks. I was ordered to the aid station, along with the other litter bearers, and we began collecting the casualties and moving them into the aid station. The dive bomber was still attacking during all of this.

Once the landing was complete and the casualties were taken care of our regiment went right across Sicily to the capitol, Palermo, to take it. The regiment moved so fast across Sicily, we didn't have to do any litter bearing. We could collect all the casualties right from the ambulance. The English had taken the western end of Sicily and we were to take the north. There was only one road along the north coast. Wherever there was a big hill there was a town, and the Germans controlled the towns, which made it easy for them to cover the roads. In some cases, troops could be put ashore from the sea, cutting off the Germans, but one large town proved hard to take. I was part of a group of ten men from our outfit assigned to deliver medical supplies to an aid station near this town. This involved going up and over a ridge, down into a valley, then up the hill towards the town. It was dark this evening and we didn't know the country. Our captain said he wouldn't take our group without a guide. We finally found a guide and headed out. When we got to the bottom of the valley, we encountered a mule train carrying supplies that had started out earlier that day. They were lost, too.

"Here," the guide said, "just follow this wire and it will take you up to the aid station." Communication wires had been strung over the ground. So we followed this wire in the dark. I remember the lead guy tumbling into an eight foot hole once. But we made it to the aid station, located in a hole in the side of the mountain, protecting it from artillery fire. It was so steep up there that I had to lay around a tree to sleep that night, so I wouldn't roll down the hill.

The Germans evacuated the next morning, so we spent the next day carrying patients up the hill to the ambulance station. We spent that next night sleeping in the streets of the town.

While we were moving casualties, the Army was making plans for our unit to cut off the German's retreat. This was another fiasco but it was one I missed. The officers didn't think our squad would be back from town in time, so ten replacements were picked and sent to intercept the Germans. The troops were to take a lemon grove in preparation for taking a hill which the Germans were occupying but the Germans got there first and set up machine gun nests in the trees. They took out the American's half-track early on, which contained their only artillery. Our troops held on, then called for artillery fire. The artillery helped some, although a lot of the shells came in where the Americans were. Then they called for Navy warplanes to come in and strafe the area. The Navy got mixed up and ended up strafing some of our own men. The artillery fire set fire to the hillside below the Americans, so there was nowhere to go but up. The Germans were taken but there were heavy American casualties.

An aid station was set up in a railroad culvert. A lieutenant came into the aid station with a wound. When he was patched up he went around and collected all of the injured men who could still walk, got them armed, and led them back to the lemon grove to clean out the last of the Germans. Some of those injured men ended up being killed. But it was tough guys like that lieutenant that helped win this battle. Without some luck and effort the Americans could easily have been captured by the Germans this time. Most of us feared capture by the Germans more than we feared injury.

Of the ten men sent as our replacements, only four came back. One was killed and five were captured or wounded.

We had been east in Sicily almost to Messina, but after Sicily was taken we moved west, past Palermo, to Trapani and bivouacked there for a few days. Italy was now being invaded and our unit landed just south of Naples, on Italy's west coast. We were not part of the initial invasion but landed a few days later. I was able to come ashore in one of the ambulances. We went around Mount Vesuvius and started up a river which headed inland. Every so often there was a ravine emptying into the river from the mountains. There was usually a hill overlooking the river from the top of these ravines. The Germans would make a stand on every one of these hills and it was our unit's job to take out the Germans on these hills.

I remember one hill where one of our soldiers had been hit in both feet by machine gun fire and couldn't walk. My litter squad was sent up to bring him to an aid station. We went up in the afternoon. We found the injured soldier and got him on the litter. We headed back down the hill, six of us on the litter, dodging booby trap wires. Fortunately we got below the booby traps before it got dark. There were some places so steep we would have to put the injured man on someone's back, to carry him over the rocks or whatever, before we could get him back onto the litter. By the time we got to the bottom the six of us were so tired we could only carry the soldier a hundred yards or so without sitting down to rest. It was after midnight before we got back to the aid station. I was never so tired in my life as I was that night.

We never got back to our regular unit. We just constantly moved north up the river eating cold C-rations. Once in awhile someone would heat up some coffee. That was the only time in my life I drank coffee. Anything warm sounded good to me.

By the first part of November, 1943 the tension and the food were affecting my stomach and my health. Finally I told the captain that I was sick. He gave me a shot of something that really laid me out. I couldn't even walk. They sent me in an ambulance back to a field hospital. I remember waking up thrashing around with a nurse holding me down. I guess I was having a nightmare but the nurse probably thought I was psycho. They sent me to a hospital in Naples where I stayed for several weeks. They weren't quite sure what to do with me. I told them I'd go back to my unit but I was afraid the same thing would happen to me again. So they decided to send me clear back to North Africa, to Tunis. On Thanksgiving Day I left Naples with a small group of patients. We flew to Palermo where we spent Thanksgiving, then they flew us on to Tunis.

I spent Christmas of 1943 in the hospital in Tunis. In late January or early February, 1944 I was reclassified and sent to a replacement company in Oran, Algerian. I was assigned to the 23rd Station Hospital which was already set up there. This was a tent hospital, located out in the country a ways. I worked as a ward boy there for about ten days, then they sent me to a general hospital for surgical training, to learn how to take care of surgical patients. I worked on the surgical ward the spring and summer of 1944 and got my PFC stripes. When France was invaded in September, 1944, the 23rd Station Hospital was moved to France, near Lyon.

The hospital there was set up in a school building. It was located between the artillery and the front lines. We often had air raids at night but were never directly hit. The classrooms were used as wards. Our unit was responsible for four wards, and at one time we had as many as 96 patients in our four classroom wards. The total hospital eventually reached 500 beds, although we had up to 750 patients. We got the most patients when the Allies made the drive through the Argonne forest. Our troops came under heavy artillery attack there and, strangely, it seemed like there were more injuries from flying tree splinters than from the shells themselves.

We had a few German casualties come to our hospital, too. I remember us having as many as 5-8 German officers at one time. On our ward, at least, they got the same level of care as our own soldiers.

After France was liberated and the fighting died down, the 23rd Station Hospital was taken down. Some of the men were shipped home and others were sent to surrounding hospitals. I was reassigned to a general hospital about 25 miles away. Just before this hospital was closed, I was promoted to T-5. I had no experience supervising a ward. This hospital was set up in a college. I was put on nights, replacing different guys who were on leave.

Until nearly the end of my tour in France I didn't leave the base very often, so I didn't see much of France. When things started to wind down and I went to the general hospital, I got a pass and went to Strasburg, France, right on the German border. There were tours available on Army buses that would go about 50 miles inside Germany. I really wanted to take one of these tours. But when we got to Strasburg, they told us it was too late that day for the trip. I went off giving candy and gum to the kids in the neighborhood, which I liked to do, and while I was gone they decided to go anyway, so I missed my opportunity to take this little trip, which I've always regretted.

The thing I remember about Strasburg is that, because it was so close to Germany, the people spoke both German and French. You would hear someone asking a question in German and someone would answer them in French and vice versa. Sometimes you would hear both French and German used in a single sentence.

I was fortunate that I did not lose any close friends in the war. One litter bearer that I knew was killed when the jeep he was in hit a mine but since he was in a different litter squad than me I didn't know him well.

I spent just a year in France. In September of 1944 I was sent to a staging area, for transfer back to the States. Our group spent nearly a month in this staging area, though, because some other unit was sent home on the ship we had been scheduled on, so we had to wait till the ship returned to France from America.

The trip back to the States was a pleasant one. We encountered no major storms so I didn't get sick and was able to eat. I stood guard duty occasionally, which I didn't mind because it was nice to be up on deck in the fresh air instead of down below. A few times I was assigned KP which was much worse, having to work amongst all the various cooking and cleaning smells, most of which seemed unpleasant to me. Just eating in the mess hall was bad enough. Sometimes when the ship would roll, the table, along with our tray, would go one way and the bench we were sitting on would go the other way.

When we got to Newport News, Virginia, all the guys rushed to the shore side of the ship. There were so many guys on that side that the ship began to list to one side. The captain had to make an announcement for some of us to go to the other side of the ship. A band was playing for us. It was so nice to see the United States again.

The first thing that struck me about America was the colors. I hadn't realized how much color there was in America. In Africa and Europe, everything was dirty and drab and seemed to be the same color. Nothing was freshly painted. In America there were brightly lit neon signs everywhere. Overseas, the neon signs were off all the time. In America, houses were painted bright colors. Overseas, houses were usually made of rock or unpainted stucco or cement.

I was really happy to be getting out of the Army. I had never felt like I fit in well in the service. The other guys were often crude and their chief source of entertainment seemed to be getting drunk. So I rarely went off base with the guys, preferring to stay on my bunk and write letters home. I wrote home nearly every day.

We were at Newport News only a couple of days, just long enough for us to get segregated according to our home destinations. Then we were put on a train home.

I believe we spent five days on the train, traveling day and night, and arrived at Fort Lewis where we were mustered out in about four or five days. One morning about mid-week they got a group of us together, paid us travel pay and our back pay, and before we knew it we had our discharge papers and we were civilians again.

One of the guys I had worked with in the general hospital in France was in the group that I mustered out with. He was from Spokane. As we walked back to the barracks after our discharge he said to me, "I'm ready to go home," he told me. "I'm going to get my bus ticket and leave for home this afternoon." That sounded like a good plan to me. We quickly packed our belongings got our bus tickets. I called Hannah in Roslyn and told her when I would be arriving. The fellow from Spokane and I ended up on the same bus together, leaving in the mid-afternoon.

Hannah: We still didn't have a phone at that time so Orville called our neighbors, the McKeans. Mrs. McKean came over to our house and said, "Oh Hannah, I have bad news for you. You won't want to hear this." She paused, dramatically. "Orville is on his way to Cle Elum from Tacoma."

Orville: I got off the bus in Cle Elum about 5:00 p.m. on the 23rd of October, 1945 and was met by Hannah and her folks. Hannah had driven Clarence's car down to Cle Elum. They were waiting for the bus to arrive and when I saw Hannah I ran and gave her a big hug. She was wearing a little hat and I remember that hat went flying. I hadn't seen Hannah for three long years.