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Sept. 17 and Nov. 11, 2009 Rufus Broadaway is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and former Professor of Surgery at the University of Miami. On these dates at Oak Hammock Rufus talked about his experiences in World War II. In the first talk, he focused mainly on Market Garden, a British-American military operation (mostly airborne) that failed to achieve its major objective of cutting a path into Germany. Dick Martin, a retired Army chaplain who saw action in Vietnam, interspersed clips from the film A Bridge Too Far with Rufus’ account. In the second talk, part of a Veterans Day celebration at Oak Hammock and videotaped by Martin earlier (July 14), Rufus gave an overview of his military career and included some of the highlights of his civilian life.
From National Guardsman to Parachute Infantryman The Bloody Battle of La Fiere Causeway
I went on active duty in 1940 as a member of the 31st Infantry Division, Mississippi National Guard. Our first duty station was Camp Blanding near Jacksonville. When Pearl Harbor was hit, I was a PFC. I didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was, but I soon found out. We were sent to guard the beaches of the Florida Coast. I went through officer school and airborne training at Ft. Benning and became a second lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division. When I told my mother I was a paratrooper, she demanded that I get out of that. I told her I couldn’t get out. They’d put me in jail or shoot me. (Chuckles.) On July 13, 1942, Marian and I were married. Yesterday was our 67th wedding anniversary and we’re still very much in love.
My first European duty station was in Northern Ireland. After that we were sent to England. We didn’t know where we were going. On June 5 we loaded into the plane, each of us carrying 100 pounds of equipment. We sat in there for hours before General Eisenhower cancelled the mission. The next day we finally took off. On the way the Germans started shooting at us. The pilot told me, “Lieutenant, we’ve been hit. I don’t know where I am, but I advise you to get out.” We were delighted to get out. I parachuted into Normandy in the early hours of D-Day. We jumped at about 300 feet. Some have called it the lowest jump ever made. I landed in an apple tree and couldn’t remember the password. I lost my signal clicker, almost got shot by my platoon sergeant.
We landed about an hour and a half from Utah Beach. Our mission was to take the La Fiere Causeway. The Germans had dammed the river. A lot of our troops carrying all that equipment drowned. La Fiere had to be taken because our troops from Utah Beach had to get through. The battle went back and forth. It was very bloody. Dead and dying all over the place! Some of our men were so scared they hid under anything they could find. We had to get them out with “Come on soldier, let’s get going now!” Some authorities have called La Fiere the bloodiest small unit battle of World War II. After the Causeway was taken, I was with a group that went down a side road. Up to this point all this action had been very exciting to me. It felt like cowboys and Indians and cops and robbers. Down that side road we saw a German mortar emplacement. They threw grenades at us; we threw grenades at them. A young lieutenant and I took cover. We heard Germans screaming. We stuck our heads up to see what we’d hit. The lieutenant fell back in my arms. He’d been hit right here (Points to his forehead.), right through the crossbar of his helmet. At that point the war got very serious for me. That could’ve been me the sniper hit. After D-Day the 82nd was sent back to England. General James Gavin became Commander of the 82nd and selected me as his Aide-de-Camp. Being with General Gavin was one of the high points of my life. He was a kind, wonderful man. The 82nd made plans to clear ways for the advance of General Patton’s Third Army. Before we could begin to implement each plan, Patton had already gone through. (Chuckles.)
Operation Market Garden and the Bridge Too Far
On September 17, 1944, the Allies launched Operation Market Garden commanded by British General Bernard Montgomery. It took place in Holland. We and the British dropped 64 miles behind enemy lines. We tried to put in every plane the biggest sergeant with the biggest boot we could find. That boot was for laggard backsides. A Dutch captain jumped with us. His name’s hard to pronounce and I won’t attempt to spell it [Arie Dirk Bestebreurtje]. His job was to contact the Dutch underground and help disrupt the Germans. He later came to the U.S. and became a Presbyterian minister in North Carolina. He’d been an Olympic ice skater. Unfortunately, he was skating one day and fell through the ice and died.
Our objective was to take nine important bridges in Holland. We were repulsed time and again at Nijmegen. Montgomery was confident he could take Arnhem. It was the last bridge in Holland before Germany. The plan was to take it and move into the Ruhr area of Germany. Montgomery said we would be home for Christmas, but the British were being cut to pieces. Montgomery wouldn’t give the 82nd the order to go into Arnhem.
It was decided that elements of our 504th Regiment and 307th Engineers would make a crossing over the Waal River. We got boats from the British. They had plywood bottoms and canvas sides. I told General Gavin that I wanted to go across with the men. He said, “No, you’re going to Headquarters and hold the hand of the Chief of Staff. He’s nervous even on a good day.” Major Julian Cook led the river crossing. A protestant chaplain went with Cook. Cook was a devout Catholic and kept praying “Hail Mary full of grace, Hail Mary full grace” and the protestant chaplain was praying “Thy will be done, Thy will be done”; they kept praying like that all the way across. [Scenes of the crossing in A Bridge Too Far are shown, Robert Redford as Major Cook paddling and praying]. This film is pretty close to what actually happened. The British didn’t send any paddles. Our men really did use their rifle stocks as paddles. Casualties were high, but they succeeded in taking the Nijmegen highway and railroad bridges.
We never did get to Arnhem. British tanks were backed up. The British failed to blow Arnhem Bridge. Some of them just stopped and had tea. We took 8 of the 9 bridges, but the cost was very high. A lot of fine British airborne died. There were over 10,000 Allied casualties in this operation. Civilians were killed, too—I don’t know how many.
After Market Garden, I asked General Gavin if I could go back to a rifle company. He arranged it. After we got into Germany, we figured there was a pocket of German troops near Cologne. I was ordered to take a patrol of 18 to 20 men across the Rhine and find out what we were up against. We got across and ran into strong resistance. We shot our way out, but three of my men were killed. We were able to estimate enemy strength and get back to our lines. I was hit just below the left eye by a little bit of shell or rock or something. My eye clotted over for a little while, but the eye itself wasn’t hurt. That’s how I got the Purple Heart.
There was never any doubt about the American fighting man. We got very good at killing. But it seems to me we can find better ways to solve human problems than war.
When I got back home after the war, my first daughter was 15 months old. Marian and I lived for a time with her parents in the Boston area. I found out the government would pay for 48 months of education under the GI Bill. I finished undergraduate work at Tufts University and then was accepted into Harvard Medical School. I completed my schooling at the finest medical school in the world.
Other decorations awarded to Rufus:
Parachute Wings/2 stars (Normandy, Holland)
European Theatre Ribbons: Normandy, Holland, Battle of the Bulge, Rhine River Crossing
World War II Victory Ribbons: French, Dutch, Belgian: Fourragere
Military Order of Wilhelm (Dutch)
Presidential Unit Citation, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment
James (Jim) Gilmore and his wife Sara are founding members of Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Jim Gilmore served in the Army of Occupation (Japan) and later as an officer in the U. S. Navy Reserve from which he retired. On January 30, 2010, I interviewed him in Oak Hammock’s Meditation Room, a day later by phone, and some by e-mail.
The military for me started when my father was recalled to the Army in 1942. He served as an intelligence officer with a B-26 squadron in England. A few years later, I enrolled in the University of Cincinnati in a special program. I was able to substitute my senior year of high school for my freshman year at the university. This gave me a leg up on many 18-year-olds, and I was accepted into Officer Candidate School at Fort Knox. However, they changed the rules. If you accepted your commission, you had to stay in the Army four years. This didn’t agree with the plans of many of us and about half the class dropped out without a commission.
Impressions of General MacArthur
I was drafted into the Army and served from the spring of 1946 to the spring of 1947. My college background helped. I was assigned to General MacArthur’s Headquarters in Tokyo and worked in Headquarters and Service Group. We were in charge of all the American post exchanges and service clubs in Japan. I was assigned to the Tokyo Kai Kan Hotel, a modern European-style hotel. It was one block from MacArthur’s Headquarters. MacArthur and his staff had taken over the Dai-Ichi Insurance Building. I could look out my window in the Kai Kan Hotel and see MacArthur get in his black limousine with an honor guard. I think he had the honor guard to impress the Japanese more than anything else. MacArthur and his family lived on the American Embassy grounds. I saw them occasionally. He looked imperial and acted imperial.
There was no doubt about MacArthur’s abilities as Supreme Commander of the Occupation of Japan. He did a superb job. He knew Japan well. He knew there was no sense in trying Emperor Hirohito and his court as war criminals. He used the emperor to placate the Japanese. They did whatever the emperor told them to do. The emperor told them to stop fighting and they did, completely. There was absolutely no resistance from the Japanese. GI’s went into Japan with MI rifles and officers with side arms, but we didn’t need the weapons. We were completely safe. We made an armory in the hotel basement and put all the weapons down there. A former Japanese marine was hired to take care of the armory. Like other Japanese, he was very happy to have a job.
What was your job in the hotel?
I started out as a desk clerk and eventually became GI manager of the hotel. The hotel was quarters for American officers, company grade and field grade. There were 700 Japanese employees, including a number of Nisei who were Japanese/Americans. They spoke English well. Some Nisei had been trapped in Japan during the war. Others fought with us in the war. My superior in the hotel was Lieutenant Art Hiraga. He was born in California and had fought in the Italian campaign. His unit [442nd Regimental Combat Team] was the most decorated military unit in American history. My job was to find out what our officers wanted and then get the Japanese workers to do it. The Nisei were a great help in this regard because of their bilingual abilities and knowledge of American ways. There were many cute little Japanese waitresses working in the hotel. They giggled a lot, especially when we photographed them.
Here are some pictures from those days. The first one is of the Kai Kan Hotel taken over the palace ground moat. The Dai-Ichi Building, MacArthur’s Headquarters, is the building to the right, partly behind the overhanging willow branch.
 
The Emperor’s palace grounds are an extensive area, across the street from the hotel. The picture above (right) shows the entrance to the palace grounds. It’s an immense area, about 20 square miles.
 
The man in this picture is with my friend Terro, a bell boy. The woman in this picture with me is Yesko San, a hotel waitress. They were both in their mid 20’s
The “Magic Carpet” and a Geisha House
I got promoted because my superiors went home. I was on the outbound “magic carpet.” Most of the combat troops were going home, and we draftees were sent to Japan to replace them. I made corporal and could have made sergeant, but the Army froze draftees’ rank. All draftees were to be discharged. I felt like a tourist in uniform. (Laughs.) So did a lot of GI’s. We could get in jeeps, travel the countryside and go sightseeing.
One time I was invited to a Geisha house by the Japanese management. The Geisha houses were not places of ill repute. The Geishas were high-class women schooled in the arts and fine entertainment. We sat on the floor and listened to them sing songs and play stringed instruments. They served us tea. The food was cooked on a charcoal burner. The only American song the Geisha ladies knew was “You Are My Sunshine.” I was able to talk with one of them. She spoke pidgin English and I knew a little Japanese. The Geishas were very graceful and charming.
In the states during the war there was a lot of hatred toward the Japanese. When I got to Japan, I didn’t know what to expect of the people. It turned out the Japanese weren’t the monsters I thought they’d be.
Destruction in Tokyo
Our planes had fire-bombed Tokyo and destroyed many wooden buildings. There was devastation everywhere. Here’s a picture showing part of the destruction.
Many people were living in makeshift structures. Cleaning up and building was going on all over the city. The Japanese made scaffolding out of bamboo. Guys were scurrying up and down the scaffolds working hard to rebuild. I was impressed with how industrious the Japanese were. They are physically attractive people, very courteous. They smile and bow a lot out of courtesy. They were very good at taking orders.
A friend of mine needed to install a flagpole. He got a Japanese man to dig the hole. My friend had to do something else and temporarily forgot about the hole. When he came back later, the Japanese was still digging. He’d dug so deep he was out of sight down in the hole. He didn’t know what the hole was for; he was told to dig a hole; he followed orders and kept on digging. (Laughs)
Did you see or sense any hostility toward Americans?
The feeling I got from Japanese I knew was that the war was over, and they had to rebuild their lives and country. They wanted to make a peaceful transition and build a new Japan. I went several times to the war crimes trials. You could get a pass and sit and watch the proceedings. They were pretty boring. I saw Tojo slumped in his seat. He looked like an old man half asleep. He knew he was at the end of his rope. The whole thing was like the war-crime trials in Germany. It was a foregone conclusion that Tojo and others on trial were going to hang.
Tony, the Wheeler-Dealer
I knew this fellow named Tony. Not sure of his last name. He was discharged in Japan and got a government service rating. The reason he wanted to stay as a desk clerk was to operate his money exchange. He’d get cigarettes from his buddies in the PX and sell them to the Japanese. He’d take the yen and convert it to military currency. Military currency then looked like monopoly play money. Tony would swap the military currency for greenbacks. I’m sure MacArthur would’ve frowned on this sort of thing if he’d known about it.
What service decorations did you get?
The World War II Victory medal, Army of Occupation medal, and Good Conduct Medal! There was a saying about the Good Conduct Medal: “I was alive in ’45.” There was a similar saying when I was in the Navy Reserve. “I was alive in ’65." Everybody got the Good Conduct medal.
In my Army days, I knew two guys who didn’t. They screwed up big time. (Chuckles.) I’d appreciate hearing some highlights of your career as a Navy officer.
In 1950 I graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in mechanical engineering. The same year I was commissioned an officer in the Naval Reserve. I went to destroyer school. There were five destroyers assigned to our reserve group, all in Tampa Bay. I served as Engineering Officer on the USS Coolbaugh and USS Greenwood. In 1961, I was recalled to active duty. It was a shock having to leave my civilian career. I commanded the USS Tweedy and USS Darby and served as Prospective Commanding Officer on the USS Beatty.
We operated as school ship for the fleet sonar school in Key West. We’d do figure-8’s over a submerged submarine to train sonar men. We were told there were Soviet submarines off our shores, but we never spotted any. In 1980 I retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of captain.
Fredric (Fred) Kratina is a retired physician and a founding member of Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. He retired from the U. S. Air Force Reserves in 1973 as a Lieutenant Colonel. While in the Air Force he practiced Aeromedicine and served as a liaison officer with the Civil Air Patrol. After resigning from the Regular Air Force, he became a Diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics/Gynecology. While in the Air Force Reserve he obtained Board certification in Psychiatry/Neurology and founded the Family Study Center, a free-standing psychiatric day hospital in Delray Beach, FL. After retiring from the Air Force Reserve, he headed the Women’s Clinic at the University of Florida and was a psychiatrist at the Bradley Center in Columbus, Georgia. Sandra, Fred’s wife of 43 years, held Bachelor and Master Degrees in Nursing and a PhD in Education. She headed the LaGrange College School of Nursing for 17 years. She died of cancer in 1999. Sandra and Fred had four children, five grandchildren and one great granddaughter. Karin, the oldest daughter, practices nutrition therapy in Gainesville, FL
On February 5, 2010, in Oak Hammock’s Meditation Room, Fred told me about some of his experiences, starting with his life in Germany before World War II.
I was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1926. For 20 years my father Rudolf was a cellist in the Dresden Staatskapelle and Oper [Dresden State Orchestra and Opera]. My grandfather, a violinist, and great grandfather, a violist, each performed for 40 years in the same orchestra. My father also sang professionally in Berlin. He made his debut as Sarastro in Die Zauberflote [The Magic Flute]. My aunt Valeria headed the Dance Department at the Staatsoper and also taught dance. She excelled as a dancer at Hellerau, the famous center for modern dance. A Dresden street is named after her: Kratina Strasse.
My father and uncle served in the military during World War I. My father Rudolf was kicked out of the cavalry by a horse. In the groin! (Chuckles.) He joined the German equivalent of the USO and received six medals for his service, which he proudly wore on occasion. My uncle Friedrich flew as a fighter pilot and an observer pilot. Toward the end of the war he was missing in action.
Your surname is Czech, isn’t it?
Yes. My grandfather Josef was born in Volovice near Prague. My mother's maiden name was Marguerite Pressly of Augusta, Georgia. Her father Charles was a foreign-service officer in Paris for many years including service during World War I. Immediately after cessation of hostilities, Marguerite went to Berlin to look for some old friends. Rudolf was then trying to find out about his brother’s disappearance, plane and all. That’s when my parents met. Soon he had Marguerite looking for Friedrich through diplomatic connections. Friedrich’s body and plane were never found. An early MIA! After Marguerite and her father returned to Augusta, she and Rudolf corresponded for five years. The Pressly family didn’t like the idea of Marguerite marrying a German musician. However, they did eventually marry in Baltimore. That's where his boat landed. (Chuckles.) They went back and settled in Germany. We had a nice apartment in Dresden. I had good schooling, loving parents and grandparents. I fondly recall the trips my father and I took to Jonsdorf in Bohemia on the Czech/German border. Jonsdorf was my grandmother’s ancestral home. My father’s reputation as a musician earned him honorary citizenship of that village.
The Kratina family in their parlor in Dresden, ca. 1934
But a cloud hangs over my childhood. One of my early memories was about 1934 coming home from school and passing by the Waldersee Platz, a park in our area. Loudspeakers were blaring from the trees. Later, a kiosk in the park showed pictures of ugly-looking people under glass. They had penetrating eyes, hooked noses, wiry hair. I asked my parents about all this. They said, “Shhh! Never talk about this outside.” They told me the people in the pictures were Juden. Nazi agitators were promoting anti-Semitic demonstrations. My parents didn’t approve of them. I was instructed not to talk about it, not to talk to anybody about it. I was told over and over again to keep my mouth shut about this kind of thing. There was a prevailing fear that somebody would come and get you, take you to the KZ [German abbr. for concentration camp].
By this time my father had shaken hands with Hitler. This happened after an opera performance. Hitler wanted to thank orchestra members for the music. They lined up and Hitler shook hands with each one. On another occasion, my mother and a friend were standing near the door of the Bellevue Hotel in Dresden. Hitler was coming out. My mother and her friend wanted to get a good look at him. My mother had always thought his moustache and hair combed down one side looked ridiculous. When he came out, Hitler looked directly at my mother. She was struck by his charismatic expression. He had very piercing blue eyes.
Were you in Hitler Youth?
I wanted to, but my mother wouldn’t let me join. My friends were in it. They spent weekends in the mountains. They played games, camped out, did rough sports, and other exciting things. I felt bad I couldn’t join the fun, but Mother absolutely forbade it and my father suggested that I might join sometime later on. Eventually an official document ordering me to appear in the park where the Jungvolk [Hitler Youth] met arrived at the house. I had been expected to join the group as a normal German youngster but since I had failed to do that, I was ordered to appear. My mother responded that I had suffered from diphtheria and was in the country recuperating and that I would certainly report when I returned. She didn’t mention what country I was recuperating in; actually I was in the United States. My parents had brought me to Charlotte, North Carolina, at the tail end of 1937 ostensively on vacation but had enrolled me in St. Leo’s boarding school attached to Belmont Abbey and left me there. My mother’s uncle, George Pressly, had practiced surgery there as did his daughter Maude, also a physician. She would come and visit me periodically and very lovingly try to make things better during that year my parents left me there. St. Leo’s had been picked because of her and because there were a few Catholic nuns at the school originally from Germany who could speak my language while I learned the new one and also more about my faith.
Original document from the Leader of Little Flag Unit 33, Hitler Youth. It orders Fred Kratina to a hearing on July 12, 1938, in the Waldersee Platz beginning at 4:30 p. m. and ending at 5:10 p.m. In the first sentence, the familiar form of the word you in German [Du, Dich] means that the order applies to the child Kratina. The last sentence says, “If you should not be able to appear because of an important reason, then you must excuse yourself beforehand in writing to the address given below.”
But Maud couldn’t change the situation I was in at St. Leo’s. I was eleven years old, away from home for the first time. I was a scrawny kid who didn’t know English and missed my parents terribly. The bullies had a field day with me. I was frightened and couldn’t fight back. I felt overwhelmed trying to adjust to a different life, quite alone. I remember that awful year as the worst in my 83.
By the time the war started in 1939, my parents and I had settled in Augusta. My mother was no longer as socially acceptable as she had been because her husband was German. Fortunately, he got a part-time job at the University of Georgia teaching music three days a week. In 1940 we moved to Atlanta and I enrolled in Marist College High School. When the U. S. got in the war, we had to register as enemy aliens. Elsa Michel, our long-time maid, was able to get to the U. S. through Norway. She was a fine worker and wonderful friend to the family. She was like my alternative mother. She continued in our family until her death around 1966.
When you were living in Dresden, did your mother have any trouble with the Nazis because of her American background?
About 1936 she was “invited” to Gestapo Headquarters to be interviewed. She didn’t know why. She had to be there at 4 a.m. sharp. There was little transportation in Dresden at that hour, so she rode her bike. The Gestapo was fishing for information: What do you know about this? What do you know about that? What do you know about so-and-so? They asked her about our next door neighbor, Baroness von Nettelbach who was of English extraction. Mother gave them little information; they allowed her to come home. By then the unrest in our home was so thick you could cut it with a knife. This Gestapo thing was the final factor in my mother’s decision to leave Germany. My father was not as eager to leave, but he thought it best he did.
One of my father’s orchestra friends was a Jew. He was anxious to leave Germany but didn’t want to leave behind his gold. He asked my father to help him make a foundry in the man’s basement. They set up the foundry and converted the gold to barbells. The man was able to smuggle the gold out that way.
When did you become aware of the Holocaust?
Growing up in Germany, I became aware of the Nazi persecution of Catholics, Jews, and other religious groups. These were the reasons we left Germany. My mother said, “I didn’t raise you to be cannon fodder or an atheist.” The Holocaust was sketchy to me until long after I’d been in the states. Living in the U. S. during the war, I had mixed feelings. I was anti-Nazi and pro-German. After all, Germany was the country that gave me my birth. I was also aware that if I’d stayed in Germany, I would be dead. When I heard about the Allied destruction of Dresden, I felt I’d been attacked and was sad.
After the war, I graduated from high school and enrolled in Holy Cross College. By then I’d acquired a Southern accent and people at Holy Cross teased me about my accent. All my life I’ve been quick at picking up accents. In Germany when I was on vacation, I adopted the speech patterns of the kids I played with. When I came in for lunch, my father could tell what areas of Germany the kids I’d played with were from. When I came home from Holy Cross, my Atlanta friends said, “You talk like a damn Yankee.” (Laughs.)
At Holy Cross I met Hubertus von Lowenstein. He had been in charge of a Catholic Youth group in Germany. He was virulent anti-Nazi and got in trouble with Hitler. Hubertus took me under his wing. He felt the same way I did about Germany and the Nazis. He filled me in on a lot of happenings in Germany during the war. He was a friend of Dorothy Day [Catholic social activist] and had applied for U. S. citizenship. When the Allies bombed German cities and killed thousands of civilians, he gave up his application. He said the Americans and British had become as bad as the Nazis. Eventually he returned to Germany right after the war and took part in an effort to save Helgoland. This area of two islands had been a German naval base during the war. Hubertus and others would go to one of the islands, about 35 miles out in the sea, and wave flags. This way they kept the British from destroying it.
Photo taken at Tachikawa U. S. Air Base in Japan, published December 1, 1961. Prince von Lowenstein (center) spoke on “Crisis in Education: East and West.” Dr. (Capt.) Fredric Kratina’s last name is misspelled.
What did you hear about the Soviet invasion of eastern Germany?
Just about everywhere the Soviets went, they raped and pillaged. There was going to be a continuation of the misery index in Germany. My aunt Valeria told how frightened she had been when the Russians occupied Dresden. Her house was one of the few not destroyed by Allied bombs. When the Staatsoper was bombed to smithereens, she was out of a job. One day a jeep came by with a Russian officer and his driver in full battle dress. The officer got out and knocked on my aunt’s door. He was courteous but spoke poor German. He pointed to Valeria’s piano and asked if she would play for him. She allowed him in and played classical pieces for him. After two hours, she was running out of music to play. He thanked her and asked if he could come back and listen some more. She of course said “Yes.” Only thing she could do in that situation! The officer left his driver at the front door to keep other Russians from breaking into the house. He came back during the week just to listen to her play. He was a music lover and apparently more civilized than many Soviet soldiers.
My aunt survived the war, married and moved to Oberhausen in West Germany. Her husband became Head of Music in Oberhausen. After the war, there was a remarkable effort toward peace in Dresden that went on for years: the Frauenkirche [Church of Our Lady] was finally put together. This was accomplished through rebuilding efforts in Germany and financial contributions from countries that had been on the Allied side during the war.
I assume your enemy alien status was removed after the war and you became a citizen.
Yes. I graduated from Holy Cross in 1947 and from the University of Georgia Medical School in 1952. I became a U. S. citizen while I was still interning at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. I joined the Florida National Guard and was activated in 1952. At Camp Chaffee I was in charge of bedwetters. My job was to help them or get them out of the Army. I’d talk to them and say, “Why don’t you try emptying your bladder before you go to bed?” I separated more men from the Army than I retained. My job was mostly paper work and I hated it. I wondered how the hell I was going get out of the Army, even thought about pissing in my bed. (Laughs.) I got out by joining the regular Air Force. By that time I’d fallen in love with a lovely nurse I’d met in Miami. When I was assigned to San Francisco, Sandy came out and we got married. Most of my active military career was in OBGYN.
How did you learn about the Nazi execution of your granduncle?
I have several of his letters written to his sister-in-law, my grandmother Frieda. I didn’t hear about his execution till I was in Augusta after the war. My parents never talked about it. My granduncle was executed in Pancraz, the Prague jail the Nazis had taken over. They used their own guillotine equipment. According to Radomir Mlady in his book Catholics in the Shadow of the Swastika, “At the beginning of the year 1945, Karel Kratina, a 62-year-old pensioned high school professor of religion, was beheaded because he allegedly said in front of a Nazi informer [a church sacristan] as they were walking by the villa of the State Secretary of the Protectorate K. H. Frank: ‘Here is where that rascal Frank lives.’ Before the court, however, Father Kratina denied this. He did, however, admit to the accusation that in a sermon at a May church service he warned against false gods, actually mere humans, to whom monuments are built while they are still living.”
Here is a translation of the letter Father Kratina wrote to his family shortly before he was killed. His body was never recovered.
Beloved,
I had a sad Christmas Eve, even sadder New Year’s Day 1945, but the saddest day was my birthday, when it was announced to me in the afternoon that I did not receive clemency and that I will be on Friday the 16th of February, that is today, beheaded. By the time you read these lines, I will no longer be among the living. Today, exactly 64 years ago in 1881, they carried me just a tiny infant from Volovice to Zemechy to holy baptism. And today?
God, I admit my sinfulness, but I certainly do not deserve so much. I am not a thief, but an unfortunate person. But I forgive my enemy according to the will of Christ. Just deliver the message to him [sacristan], that I will remind him in the last moments of my life the retribution of the just God and I will call him within a year and a day to the Judgment Day.
My dear, beloved, last brother Frantisek, how gladly would I kiss your good natured black eyes and thank you and Marenka for everything, but it is not possible. Remember me to everyone: Albinka, the children, all the relatives of the very Reverend Canon, so that they remember me during mass. Pepik, I have already thanked you for everything and everyone all together. You, Jenca, deliver my last remembrances to mom, Fanusk, Ferda, Slama and all the others. For God’s sake I ask you, don’t abandon Ema and be decent to her; she deserves it in full measure.
If it will be possible, put my picture in the cemetery next to Josef’s with the inscription: P. Karel Kratina, professor, archbishop’s notary, consular advisor, born 15. II. 1881, died 16. II. 1945. [born February 15, 1881; died February 16, 1945]
And to you Emilka and all yours I give with this my last goodbye. May God repay you a thousand times, you and the others, for all your love and trouble that you have had on my behalf. E., the pictures of the family and my siblings send to Kralupy; all the rest is yours.
Sister Chladkova I thank for the letters and prayers. She knows how to dispose of my things at the Church of the Holy Ghost. I ask the chaplain for 4 holy masses: 15. II, 16 II, 30. (?), 4. (?). A hundred thanks to Sister Hana for everything that you have done for the Church of the Holy Ghost. And remember me to all there and the very reverend priest and ask them to pray for my unfortunate soul. May you all be with God forever, my dear souls. I have you all around me in the last moments of my life. And my remembrances to all from Lyra, all together, those who liked me and they should dearly remember me. Emilka, Jiri, Hanicka, Veruska, Zdenka, Jiricek, Alenka, I press you all in spirit to my heart and kiss you. I thank you for everything. Be with God forever, happy and healthy.
To all I send my blessing: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Your Karel
Reverend Karel Kratina, ca. 1945.
Fred, thank you very much for your memoir and for a copy of Father Kratina’s letter! I am also grateful to my friends Steve Gallivan and Eva Eichhorn for translating from the Czech Kratina’s letter and the passage from Radomir Mlady’s book. Still more thanks to Steve Gallivan for helping me translate the last sentence of the Hitler Youth summons.
Albert B. (Bert) Miller and his wife Alice are founding members of Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Bert spent 3 ½ years in the Navy, 1942 – 1945. He completed Midshipman School at Cornell University and in 1944 was commissioned an Ensign in the U. S. Naval Reserve. The same year Bert married Alice (at the time Marine Corporal Alice Hauger), and they will soon celebrate 66 years of marriage. Promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade during the war, Bert served as Executive Officer of Landing Ship Medium (LSM) 109. After the war, he returned to Cornell and got his B.A. Degree in English. In 1951 he was appointed to the U. S. Foreign Service and a year later became Public Affairs Officer and Vice Consul of the American Consulate in Thessaloniki [aka Salonica], Greece. After foreign Service, Bert worked for Medical Economics, Inc., publisher of Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR), a prime source of drug information for physicians and their patients. For a number of years he was PDR’s General Manager.
I spent five months in the Pacific Theatre. Our ship, LSM 109, was commissioned on November 23, 1944. As ship Executive Officer and Gunnery Officer, I was one of four officers on LSM 109, including the Captain, Engineering Officer, and Communications Officer. We were mainly a transport vessel and carried over 50 Marines into Okinawa.
As I remember, there was some idle conversation as we prepared to land. Mostly the the Marines were quiet and determined. We made a dry landing. The Marines didn’t have to wade their way in with raised rifles. It was an uncontested landing. There was no enemy firing at any of our ships. The Japs were about 50 to 100 yards away, behind foliage—we were later told. We landed troops in about 15 minutes, I think. (This is hard to recall). After all the troops were ashore, we got out of the area. After we got a couple of miles away, we heard the guns. I think it was about two days later when we came back and took wounded out to the hospital ship.
We had six guns, two of which fired rockets. I remember enemy planes flying over us on their way to bomb our destroyers. One time we were throwing up fire like crazy at these Zeros and one went down. I don’t know whether we got that plane or another LSM brought it down. There were three LSMs in the area firing at the Japanese planes.
Our ship earned the American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. It was decommissioned in 1946. It was sunk 20 miles off the west coast of Florida.
U. S Foreign Service Achievements in War-Torn Greece
I was in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1951 to 1954. Alice and I had an apartment on the top floor of the American Consulate in Thessaloniki. Here’s a picture of the American Consulate in Thessaloniki as it looked in the 1950s. The American flag is waving in front our apartment. The name of the Greek cargo boat in the foreground is “St. Barbara,” which happened to be the name of my mother.
This picture appears in my Greece album containing over 50 photos and several drawings. I wrote an introduction to the pictures entitled “Northern Greece in Black and White”:
These photographs were taken over a three-year period, 1951-1953, when Greece, and northern Greece in particular, was slowly recovering from three years of a harsh German occupation during World War II, followed by 36 months of a bloody civil war with Greek communists who sought to take control of the country.
The civil war (1946-1949) was fought mainly in the villages of northern Greece. With the assistance of the United States military, the Greek Army drove the communist forces northward into what was then Yugoslavia (Macedonia today), a communist country with strong ties to the Soviet Union and ruled by a dictator, Marshall Josip Broz Tito. Albania and Bulgaria, both bordering on northern Greece, were also communist.
The Greek communists who had taken refuge in Yugoslavia were supplied by Yugoslavia. They infiltrated northern Greece through the mountainous regions near Florina in the northwest. Although the war ended in 1949, sporadic and destructive raids on northern villages were launched from Yugoslavia beginning in 1951. The construction of several observation posts and the deployment of border patrols secured the area by the end of the year.
We arrived in Thessaloniki in early 1951 when northern Greece was slowly emerging from the years of destruction and bloodshed. But scars remained, not so much in Thessaloniki and the larger towns far removed from the border, but in the villages in the northwest where most of these photographs were taken.
Some of these photographs, in black and white because color film was not available, reflect the turmoil of the past, as well as recent raids. Others, however, seem to reflect hope, rejuvenation, and the revival of the Greek spirit.
War Victims: Northern Greek women in traditional black mourning clothes, ca 1952
This picture shows a mother and her children in a village near the Bulgarian border. During a communist raid several months before this picture was taken, one of the invaders smashed the mother’s face with his rifle butt. Many villagers were just trying to survive, but they were often caught in fighting between communist and anti-communist forces.
I’d get a little uneasy because there had been so much violence in the recent past. The CIA station in Thessaloniki was right around the corner from our Consulate. The CIA would warn us about the porous border in northern Greece. We had to be careful of communist saboteurs. I never went north without a military escort. If we sensed any communist activity, we’d report it immediately to the CIA.
General Eisenhower stayed a brief time with us. His helicopter was parked on top of the Consulate right over our apartment. He had come to Greece to show strong support for the anti-communist effort and to help bolster Greek Army morale. He was a very nice man. We had a bourbon together. I asked him if he were considering a run for the Presidency. He said, “I’d just as soon not talk about that.” I said with a big smile, “That suggests you might be thinking about running.” He changed the subject; I don’t recall what to.
General Dwight Eisenhower in Thessaloniki, ca. 1951
At the time there was considerable anti-American sentiment in Greece. The leftist newspaper Nea Alithia strongly criticized U.S. policies. My staff and I worked hard to change the newspaper’s attitude toward us. I sat down with members of the Nea Alithia news staff and explained American aims and efforts to help Greece. I took some of their newsmen into the field to show how the Marshall Plan was trying to help Greece get back on its feet. While some Greeks just wanted the U. S. to dole out gifts to them, the best Greeks wanted materials so they could help themselves. They wanted things like farming tools and efficient farming methods so they could produce their own food. There’d been the problem of Greek farmers planting seeds too close together. My staff and I worked with our ag people to who showed the farmers how to plant seeds further apart for better yield.
Eventually there was a marked change in Nea Alithia’s attitude toward the U. S. An example was a positive editorial in the newspaper on September 21, 1952. Our State Department superiors were pleased and sent the Ambassador and Consul General this memo on October 24:
The Secretary and the appropriate offices of the Department have read with interest the Consul General’s Salonika Despatch No. 35 concerning a change in attitude on the part of a Greek newspaper editor wrought through the efforts of the Public Affairs Officer at Salonika, Mr. Albert B. Miller.
Mr. Miller is commended on his clear analysis of the thinking that lay behind the September 21 editorial in Nea Alithia and on his successful attempt by indirect means to put the American aid situation in proper focus.
The Secretary feels that the change in attitude inherent in this incident represents an important accomplishment in our public relations program and is an example of the kind of effectiveness we seek.
Therefore, the Secretary has directed that a Department Commendation be inserted in the personnel file of Mr. Albert B. Miller.
At this time, the Department of State, and the undersigned in particular, wishes also to acknowledge the extremely able and conscientious performance of this officer.
James E. Webb
Things were going well for us in Greece till Roy Cohn and David Schine showed up in my office. You remember those guys?
Yes, quite well! But let’s identify them in case readers don’t know them.
Cohn was a lawyer. In 1951 he’d successfully prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for passing highly classified information to the Soviets. Senator Joseph McCarthy appointed Cohn chief counsel to McCarthy’s Senate Investigations Committee. McCarthy and Cohn were on crusade, more like a witch hunt, to find and prosecute communists and subversives in the federal government. Schine was a close friend of Cohn. Schine was also on McCarthy’s staff.
When Cohn and Schine visited us in 1953, they were on a European junket authorized by McCarthy. McCarthy was rewarding them for their work on his committee. He also directed them to sniff out what he thought was communist influence in U.S. agencies overseas.
For about five minutes Cohn and Schine were nice and convivial. Then Cohn said to me, “Tell me what you’re doing to combat communism.”
I told him about our efforts in getting a leftist newspaper, Nea Alithia, to talk more positively about U. S. policies. I also said we were focusing on the Marshall Plan and on projects to enable the Greeks to help themselves.
Cohn said, “Aren’t you showing movies about how wonderful and prosperous things are in America?”
I said, “The worst thing you can do is to show contrast between rich and poor. That’s the best way to get communism moving against us.”
I argued for the soundness of our approach. Cohn and Schine didn’t like it; they left my office in a huff. Who knows what they said when they got back to Washington. They apparently reported me as being soft on communism because the American ambassador told me, “Cohn and Schine checked your entire record at Cornell.” That worried me. I didn’t have anything to hide, but I didn’t want to be dragged through one of McCarthy’s grillings. It looked as if he was going to be in power for some time. My experience with Cohn and Schine was a factor in my decision to resign from the Foreign Service.
McCarthy fell from power in 1954 when the Senate censured him. Ironically, Cohn helped to bring about McCarthy’s downfall. Schine had been drafted in the Army. Cohn tried to get special privileges for Schine. Cohn threatened to wreck the Army if they didn’t give Private Schine an officer’s commission. The Army refused. Cohn and Schine’s shenanigans, McCarthy’s power-mongering, McCarthy’s verbal abuses and unethical tactics—all this finally brought down him and his committee.
A year later, the next Vice-Consul in Thessaloniki, who later headed the Greek desk at the State Department, had access to the personnel files. He told me, “Bert, you never should have resigned.” I was nearing the end of my Foreign Service appointment anyway. Alice and I wanted to get on with our life. I was looking forward to working in a field that was closer to my college major.
The letters about your service in Greece are most impressive. May I quote another one from the State Department?
Sure.
February 9, 1953
Dear Mr. Miller:
Thank you for the highly acceptable and much appreciated story and pictures which you enclosed with your letter of January 14 to the Editor of Field Reporter, Mr. Karl Brown.
We shall be very happy to publish your interesting story about the visit of a U.S.I.S. mobile unit to the village of Karyes. It will probably appear in the May-June issue of Field Reporter. Mr. Brown and I agree that yours is the best written contribution thus far received from the field.
Several copies of the issue of Field Reporter containing your article will be sent to you, as well as a commendatory letter signed by the chief of this division.
Sincerely yours,
Elizabeth C. Drayton
Assistant Chief, Periodicals Section
Division of Publications
Nov. 18 and Dec. 3, 2009 These dates I met with Dick Newberg in his Oak Hammock apartment and recorded some of the high points of his World War II experience. Dick is twice widowed, the father of seven children, the grandfather to seven, a retired CPA, and an avid golfer. He began with his situation early in the war.
From 4-F to Armored Infantryman
In 1942 I was a sophomore at Michigan State. I tried to enlist. No service would have me. I had high blood pressure, was 4-F. I've always had high blood pressure, 170 over 90, high readings like that. Everybody was patriotic then. Young men were either in military service or going in. I felt awful. I really wanted to do my part for the war effort. All these old ladies would look at me. I could tell they were wondering why I wasn't in uniform.
I was born in Galesburg, Illinois, and raised by my grandparents. Bill Moon was on the Galesburg draft board. I told him I really wanted in the Army. He said, "Don't worry. I'll get you in." I still had high blood pressure but they needed men, so they must've lowered the standards. Same doctor in Chicago who rejected me at Ft. Custer signed my acceptance papers. He thought I was special; he paraded me around in my underwear to show me off. He told me, "You tell the sergeant you shouldn't be out in cold weather." (Laughs.)
Some Army official asked me if I could drive a car. I said I could, so they sent me to Ft. Knox for tank training. After that they put me in radio school and taught me morse code. I went all through the repo-depo [replacement depot] pipeline. You were just a number. Nobody was lower than a buck private replacement. I was one of the troops that went over on the Ile de France, Queen of the French Merchant Marine. We docked near Glasgow. A bagpipe band greeted us. Everybody was shouting, “Go get ’em, Yanks!” I ended up really liking the English and Scots. They personified Churchill’s courage and determination.
General Patton was a colorful man; I saw him twice. I was sent to the 50th Armored Infantry Battalion in Patton’s Third Army just before he ran out of gas. Patton went so fast they had to stop his advance near Metz. The Red Ball Express [combined quartermaster and transportation units] ran from the Normandy beaches to Metz on a two-lane highway to supply Patton with gas. Our unit eventually disembarked at Normandy. My first day with the 50th Armored Infantry Battalion was in the middle of a French field where they dropped me off. We’re the only army I know of that sends men into a war zone individually. Other armies keep soldiers with their units. That way soldiers have a better chance of getting adjusted. Anyway, I was sitting in this field and a Red Cross guy came along in a jeep. He said, “You new here, soldier? Need anything?” I said I didn’t need anything. He gave me a carton of cigarettes. I was very apprehensive about joining Patton’s army. I heard rolling thunder, felt sorry for myself. I didn’t know how a new guy like me would fit in. Thought about having my first smoke! I didn’t realize how lucky I was.
I was getting the cigarettes out when this five-stripe sergeant comes up: Sgt Wloch. He asked if I’d sell him the cigarettes. I said, “Sergeant, I won’t sell you these cigarettes; I’ll give ’em to you.” Greatest use of a carton of cigarettes I could ever make! I was assigned as a radio operator in a half track. We didn’t have any tanks; we rode in half tracks [armored personnel carriers]. You see these Hollywood war movies, and there’s always some sergeant yelling at guys and giving odd-ball orders like get down and gimme 50 pushups, stuff like that. None of that ever happened to me. Never had a sergeant yell at me! Sergeant Wloch and I got along fine. I was in Headquarters Company. I didn’t see any action for quite a while. I had time to learn my job and get adjusted to the guys in the 50th Battalion.
Into the Hell of the Bulge
Eventually we came under sniper fire. The Germans were very skilled at figuring out where our radio transmissions were. They shelled us with artillery, killed the executive officer, and severely wounded the colonel. When the Battle of the Bulge started, my battalion was part of an offensive attacking along the Saar River. We were just about to cross the river into Germany when we were pulled off the line and sent back west to join Patton’s drive into Bastogne. I said “line” but that’s a misnomer. There really weren’t front lines like in the First World War. The lines in World War II kept changing. It was a very fluid situation.
Patton took the 4th and 6th Armored Divisions and started racing toward Bastogne. The 4th Division didn’t stop. I was in the 6th Division. On Christmas Day, 1944 at 9:30 in the morning we stopped for a turkey dinner at Metz, courtesy of U. S. Army rations. Then we got going. We felt when we got to Bastogne we’d be all right. We didn’t think much about dying. It got down to a day’s work. You got up and went to work. You didn’t know what day it was. Every day was the same. What we worried most about was the weather, the cold, where we’d sleep, when we’d eat. There was a routine quality to it. If you dwelled on being shot at you’d crack up.
Patton got to Bastogne in 48 hours. We followed the 4th Armored Division into Bastogne and caught hell. The Germans hit us with small arms and mortars. They had surrounded the 101st [Airborne Division]. The 4th Armored Division punched a hole in the German line. We followed the 4th in and widened the breach in the German line. Man, it was cold. Our left flank was the right flank of the 101st. I was still in 50th Infantry Battalion Headquarters operating a radio.
I heard that English-speaking Germans posed as GI’s during the Bulge.
There was some of that, but it wasn’t very effective. The order came down for us to wear our gas masks on the other side to guard against German infiltrators. The masks had all been thrown away. It was hard to get up Omaha Beach with all the stuff we had to carry so we threw some of it away. Bastogne was finally secured. It cost us 60,000 casualties. I’d see these replacements coming in—cooks, clerks, and others—all part of our big push toward Germany. They hadn’t had much training. They were totally unprepared for what we facing. They weren’t dressed right. They were confused, very scared. I felt sorry for these poor guys.
The 101st found a small tank with a 37 mm gun, fully loaded, ready to go. Headquarters took me out of the half track and put me in this tank. For a while the colonel used the tank as a command post. I drove and Sgt MacIntosh was tank commander. Then it became a reconnaissance tank and we got two additional men. Here’s a model of the tank. I sat on the lower left side driving. The forward gunner sat on the lower right side with a 30 caliber machine gun. Sgt. Macintosh was in the turret operating the 37 mm gun and a 30 caliber machine gun; the other guy with him assisted with the ammo. We were the lead tank in Task Force Ward. This task force was made up of tanks, armored infantry, and armored artillery. One time I got up in the tank turret and looked back. As far as I could see there was a line of armor and artillery. I thought, “What on earth am I doing here?”
Boy Hero of Sommerda
We fought our way into Germany. Outside Sommerda we were stopped by an odd figure. At the time I was some distance away and didn’t see him. Here’s what I heard: this soldier was standing in the road pointing a rifle at our column. He wore a helmet and looked like the long grey coat he was wearing. He was told to surrender but he wouldn’t. He started firing at us. Our guys fired warning shots in the air. An officer said, “Suppose he kills somebody. How am I gonna feel writing that letter to the man’s mother? We gotta take him out.” The medic went down there to check. This soldier was just a boy, 13 years old. The medic came back with tears in his eyes. We wrapped the body up and laid it on the ground off the road. The next morning the body was still there. We called that boy “the hero of Sommerda.”
Silver Star Action
Later we were in the middle of Germany, a few kilometers northwest of Muhlhausen. We’d been under fire all day. We encountered just about every type of enemy resistance, including bombing and strafing by the Luftwaffe. The colonel was pushing us to go, go. We got to the town of Kulestedt. An antitank gun started firing over us, raising hell with the bigger vehicles behind us. We pulled into a commune behind a wall. Here comes the colonel in a peep [what everyone in Dick’s armored command called a jeep]. The colonel said, “Boys, you gotta get that gun!” I drove the tank out of the commune toward the German gun. We were going 30 miles an hour, guns blazing, forward gunner shooting the 30 caliber, the sergeant firing the 37 mm. Through the periscope I saw the German gun get hit. Next thing I know we’re stopped dead still. Black smoke all over me! I couldn’t see anything or hear anything. Next thing I recall was picking myself off the ground. I saw two ditches. A squad of American infantry was coming up one ditch. I waved at them. I remember walking with this squad and some captured Germans.
We damaged the German gun so it couldn’t be used again except for the shell in the chamber. Some guy pulled the lanyard and the shell went right into us. Here’s a model of a tank I was in. That antitank shell went through here [lower right side], right in the face of the forward gunner. It also killed the sergeant and the other man in the turret. I was picked up by medics who had litters. I had to sit on the dashboard back to the aid station. My face and hair were burnt, didn’t have my helmet or pistol. The surgeon put ointment on my superficially burned face. The men in the aid station were so bad off I didn’t want to look at them. I wasn’t anywhere near being with it. I was really just sitting there. I didn’t ask any questions. One of my MP friends asked, “What’s wrong with you?” I said, “I lost a tank.” We had a shot of cognac. The ambulance came and went back to the hospital without me. I rode back to battalion in the MP peep. I never saw any more action. My hearing never did come all the way back. That’s why I wear these hearing aids today.
I was still a Technician 5th Grade (Corporal). I got to work for an intelligence officer in a Civil Affairs unit at Eisenberg, Germany. Buck, the S-2 sergeant, got an apartment. He, the operations sergeant, and I moved in it. There was a brewery nearby. We had beer and women friends. Man, that was really good duty. It didn’t last long. Russians took over Eisenberg. The Germans sure weren’t happy to see the Russians. We had to move into tents near an airport. I saw Buchenwald: miserable place, shoddy, old wooden buildings, meat hooks in the execution chamber. Some prisoners were still there. We didn’t see any dead bodies. Before the war was over, we were going down a road and saw two emaciated women and a camp of Polish women, farm workers. Barbed wire fence all around the camp! Thirty women hadn’t been fed for some time. The battalion surgeon said, “We can’t feed these women because their bodies won’t tolerate our rations.” For me this was the worst sight of the war.
Making English Friends
My highest rank was Technician 4th Grade (Tech Sergeant). After the war was over, nobody was mad at anybody. I was sent to England and took college courses at Shrivenham American University. I had a professor from Auburn and a professor from Oxford. I met Zeke Copp, my great friend from Michigan State, and every weekend we went to London. We met two English ladies at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse: Joyce, my date, and Florence (Florie) Tame, Zeke’s lady. We had a lot of fun dancing. You went around in a big oval dancing the fox trot. All those romantic songs then: I’ll Be Seeing You, Sentimental Journey, When the Lights Go Out All Over the World, As Time Goes By! I hear them now and I still love them. Forty years later, Zeke tried to look up Florie and got her sister Doris. Her husband Eric got on the phone: “Yank, you’re trying to start World War III. We’ll have none of it.” Zeke finally did get to talk to Florie’s husband Sid. Things warmed up, and eventually we all got together in England: Zeke and his wife Fran, my wife Cynthia and me, Sid and Florie, and Eric and Doris. Over the years Sid came over here six or eight times, each time for a week of golf. Florie died six or seven years ago. This relationship with our English friends added a wonderful dimension to my experiences in Europe.
After the war I married my first wife, Mary Ellen. She had been a Wave during the war. She was killed in an auto accident. Cynthia, my second wife, died five years ago from scleroderma, a widespread connective tissue disease. I graduated from Michigan State in 1947 and went into accounting. My mother became Assistant Dean at Michigan State. My stepfather started the School of Forestry at the University of Missouri. He later took a job in Forestry here at UF. After that he went back to Missouri and headed the department until his retirement.
I don’t regret one single day in the Army. They treated me very well. The GI Bill paid all of my expenses while I was finishing my degree from Michigan State. We used the GI Bill financing guarantees in purchasing our first house. I am satisfied that the Veterans Administration gave and is still giving me state-of-the-art instruments to minimize my hearing problems. Those problems stem directly from my service injuries, but the VA goes further and helps me with my general health and well being. No complaints.
A final bit of irony. When I went back to Michigan State, I enrolled in advanced ROTC with the aim of getting a reserve commission. I did fine in class and was especially competent in the field exercises. However, a physical exam turned up my old blood pressure nemesis and I was asked to resign.
Dick Newberg’s military decorations include:
Silver Star
Purple Heart
Combat Infantry Badge
European Theatre Ribbon, 5 Battle Stars
World War II Victory Medal
Good Conduct Medal
Expert, M-1 Rifle
Expert, Machine Guns (30 and 50 caliber)
Dick’s Silver Star award reads:
By direction of the President and under the provisions of Army Regulations 600-45, 22 September 1941, as amended, the Silver Star is awarded to Technician Fifth Grade Richard E. Newberg, 36699470, Infantry****United States Army. For gallantry in action in the vicinity of****Germany on 7 April 1945. Operating in a light tank, about four hundred yards in advance of an armored column, often under direct observation and through constant enemy fire, Technician Fifth Grade Newberg Demonstrated outstanding skill, aggressiveness, and courage in screening the roads in front of his column. When all other vehicles and personnel sought cover from an enemy anti-tank gun, which was wheeled into a road in the path of their advance, he displayed utter fearlessness and contempt for personal safety, in charging the gun position. He succeeded in partially destroying the gun, killing one of the crew, and wounding several others, before a direct hit completely destroyed his own tank. His action is an epic of gallantry and epitomizes the finest traditions of the United States Infantryman.
"They Remember War" Table of Contents
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