America in WWII 2012-07-08 August

A NAZI SALUTE TO OLD GLORY? A LAUREN BACALL’S ON-SCREEN SIS

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INFERNO IN PARADISE 500 Die at a Boston Nightclub August 2012

350,000 US Soldiers ‘Battle’ in the Bayou State All Aboard Lake Erie’s Flotilla

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AM E RICA I N

WWII August 2012 • Volume Eight • Number Two

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FEATURES

14 ARMED WITH A PAINTBRUSH Army artist Ed Reep dodged bullets and bomb blasts to give Americans back home a closeup look at the war. By Melissa Amateis Marsh

24 TO THE RHINE! The Bulge was broken, but the Allies on Germany’s western edge weren’t out of the woods yet. Now they had to fight their way to the mighty Rhine. By Éric Grenier

34 DRESS REHEARSAL FOR WAR The time to act was near, and the US Army needed practice. So 350,000 soldiers went into ‘battle’ in the Bayou State. By Michael Edwards

40 INFERNO IN PARADISE A thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians packed Boston’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub on November 28, 1942. By night’s end, half of them were dead. By Chuck Lyons

departments 2 KILROY 4 V-MAIL 6 HOME FRONT: Hail Old Glory! 7 PINUP: Martha Vickers 8 THE FUNNIES: War Hawks 10 LANDINGS: The Lake Erie Flotilla 12 WAR STORIES 48 I WAS THERE: His and Her War 49, 57 FLASHBACKS 56 BOOKS AND MEDIA 60 THEATER OF WAR: A Yank in the RAF 62 78 RPM: Stan Kenton 63 WWII EVENTS 64 GIs: A Honeymoon Cut Short COVER SHOT: Omar Bradley was a soldier’s general, a considerate leader known to give up his winter coat to a shivering private. He was also humble and wise enough to listen to his lieutenants and was a master tactician. In early 1945, he would put those qualities to good use in pushing the Nazi forces from the Ardennes back into the German heartland. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

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WWII July–August 2012 Volume Eight • Number Two www.AmericaInWWII.com PUBLISHER

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Heidi Kushlan 717-564-0161, [email protected] A Publication of 310 PUBLISHING, LLC CEO Heidi Kushlan EDITORIAL DIRECTOR James P. Kushlan AMERICA IN WWII (ISSN 1554-5296) is published bimonthly by 310 Publishing LLC, 310 Kelso Street, Harrisburg, PA 17111-1825. Periodicals postage paid at Harrisburg, PA. SUBSCRIPTION RATE: One year (six issues) $29.95; outside the U.S., $41.95 in U.S. funds. Customer service: call toll-free 866-525-1945 (U.S. & Canada), or write AMERICA IN WWII, P.O. Box 421945, Palm Coast, FL 32142, or visit online at www.americainwwii.com. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO AMERICA IN WWII, P.O. BOX 421945, PALM COAST, FL 32142. Copyright 2012 by 310 Publishing LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this issue may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. Address letters, War Stories, and GIs correspondence to: Editor, AMERICA IN WWII, PO Box 4175, Harrisburg, PA 17111-0175. Letters to the editor become the property of AMERICA IN WWII and may be edited. Submission of text and images for War Stories and GIs gives AMERICA IN WWII the right to edit, publish, and republish them in any form or medium. No unsolicited article manuscripts, please: query first. AMERICA IN WWII does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of advertisements or letters to the editor that appear herein.

KILROY WAS HERE

The Bad and the Ugly POPULAR HISTORY MAGAZINES CAN BE DANGEROUS on the subject of war. There’s a tendency to avoid the difficult and overlook the unsightly. War can then be too alluring. Robert E. Lee understood: “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” If the attraction is strong even as war is appearing before our eyes, it only grows stronger after time has turned the disfigured bodies to dust, while granting immortality to the moments of glory. In the new book The Last Full Measure: How Soldiers Die in Battle, author Michael Stephenson, a former editor for the Military Book Club, offers a corrective to the inclination to ignore the worst of war. He reminds us of the central truth. “War is about many things,” he writes, “but at its core it is about killing or getting killed.” Chapter by chapter he takes us from ancient times to our own, stopping along the way to dedicate a full quarter of his book to the deadliest war of all—World War II. By the time Japan surrendered, roughly 16 million fighting men and women were dead. About 300,000 were American. One particularly disturbing section covers WWII tanks. Tanks were what scared infantrymen most, which in turn made the deadly machines a frequent target. They found themselves on the giving and receiving end of unspeakable devastation. A German on the Russian front described a tank “ironing” the trench he was in. “And there it is again—the rattle and the roaring as steel tank tracks grind squealing on their rollers…,” he wrote. “Frozen blocks of dirt fall on to my back and half cover me. Will the monster bury me alive?” Men inside tanks were protected by the heavy armor, but there were weak spots. When the enemy found them, the result could be horrific. Stephenson writes of anti-tank shells that “on impact, ‘squirted’ a molten jet of metal through a relatively small hole in the tank’s armor into the interior, igniting ammunition and fuel and causing hideous injury to the crew.” American tank commander Keith Douglas described the sight inside an Italian tank in Africa that had been penetrated by one of those shells: “The crew of the tank—for, I believe, these tanks did not hold more than two—were, so to speak, distributed around the turret. At first it was difficult to work out how the limbs were arranged. They lay in clumsy embrace, their white faces whiter, as those in the desert always were, for the light powdering of dust on them. One with a six-inch hole in his head, the whole skull smashed in behind the remains of an ear—the other covered with his own and his friend’s blood….” It’s a terrifying image, the sort that needs to appear in a publication like this one at least on occasion. “To speak of war in any other fashion brings with it a sort of immorality,” Stephenson quotes from the military historian Victor David Hanson. “Euphemism in battle narrative or the omission of graphic killing altogether is a near criminal offense of the military historian.”

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A JESUS, HITLER, AND KILROY I HAVE JUST READ “Kilroy Was There” [by Chuck Lyons, June 2012], and some memories from long ago were stirred up. We were in northern Germany, waiting to be sent to our combat units. Being young and restless, some others and I decided to go “exploring” a nearby village (I can’t recall its name). We came upon a demolished house with its basement still accessible. Downstairs there was a large photograph of Hitler, and lying nearby was an equally large picture of Jesus—the Sacred Heart. This seemed so incongruous to us. Just as surprising was, on a wall, a sketch of Kilroy. Probably no other US ground troops had been in the area. Maybe some Germans knew of Kilroy and drew the sketch? EDWARD J. FEELEY wartime private, Battery B, 211th Field Artillery Battalion Bronxville, New York

A HOOT OF A ZOOT ZUIT I ENJOYED THE ARTICLE about Zoot Suits [“Zoot!”] in the June 2012 issue. I did notice an error in illustration, however. Page 45 intends to show a typical zoot-suiter and makes note of the outlandish ties and watch chain. The picture actually shows a soldier in an issued US Army uniform (save for the tie) poking fun at the style. JOSH LEASURE received via e-mail

Editor’s note: You can blame our humorless editor for missing the joke. TAKING AIM ON ‘TAKING THE X’ I WAS INTERESTED IN your April story “Taking the X on Iwo” by Eric Ethier. It was the story of the battle for Airfield Number 2 on Iwo in 1945. Unfortunately, the article suffered from ambiguity and factual error. While Fourth and Fifth Marine Divisions are clearly identified on page 28 as divisions in VAC (Fifth Amphibious Corps), the Third Marine Division is not. It along with the other two divisions comprised VAC. Page 28 refers to the “21st Marines,” which is a regiment. For the Iwo Jima operation, it was more than a regiment and was more correctly known as Regimental 4 AMERICA IN WWII

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V-MAIL

Combat Team 21 or RCT-21. Each division’s regiments were RCTs comprising the infantry regiments with additional attached units to facilitate combat on Iwo, thus making them RCTs rather than the regiments they were outside combat. On page 29, the author writes that the 21st Marines “passed through the lines of the 5th Division’s 23rd Marines.” While units were often attached temporarily to commands outside their normal chains of command (their “parent” commands), in fact the 23rd Marine Regiment or RCT-23 was a part of Fourth Marine Division. The Fourth had RCTs 23, 24, and 25. The Fifth Division had RCTs 26, 27, and 28. K Company and I Company are mentioned on page 31, but their battalion is not identified: it was the Third Battalion of RCT-21, the battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Duplantis. Page 31 also states that “a Japanese bullet dropped I Company commander Captain Clayton S. Rockmore.” What is “dropped”: killed in action, wounded in action, or died of wounds? In fact, as related to me by an I Company Marine, Captain Rockmore was killed on the spot. Since he had no other officers remaining to command a company, Duplantis had to dispatch a member of his battalion staff (his battalion intelligence officer, Captain Dan Marshall) to assume command of I Company. On page 35 Captain Edward Stephenson was placed in I Company. In fact, he commanded L or “Love” Company. COLONEL CHARLES A. JONES US Marine Corps (Retired) Norfolk, VA

Eric Ethier responds: 1. This, and most of your points, are about style-based choices, not factual errors. Touching on the 4th and 5th Divisions’ initial assault, I noted that the 4th and 5th were “of” the VAC, not that they alone “comprised” the VAC, which obviously also included the 3rd Division. As it was still early in the story, I had not yet introduced the 3rd, whose presence in the VAC is, in any case, clearly implied.

2. This is not a nut-and-bolts military magazine; it is a popular history publication. Although technically more accurate, the term “regiment” is, except in specific cases, typically used rather than “regimental combat team,” which takes some explaining. 3. I was technically incorrect about the 23rd Marines’ parent division on Iwo. 4. I could have been clearer here, but George Green—who is mentioned immediately before the I and K Company attack— was clearly identified on the previous page as being attached to the 3rd Battalion. And the text leading immediately up to the rush by Companies I and K further clarifies the presence of Duplantis’s unit. 5. The Rockmore point is not worth discussing. But the text does indeed say that Marshall replaced him. 6. While preferable, it is impractical to lean on primary sources for every fact. Rarely, however, do I rely on just one secondary source. In this case, both Richard Newcomb’s Iwo Jima and the US Marine Corps’s Historical Branch study of the battle (available online via HyperWar) identified Stephenson as a member of I Company. (The latter, as it happens, used Newcomb’s book as its source.) Further, the 3rd Division’s original official history refers to Stephenson as “CO of I Company.” GREMLINS June 2012: “Zoot!”—The cartoons Red Hot Riding Hood and Swing Shift Cinderella were produced by MGM, not Warner Brothers. Editor’s note: Thanks again to the wonderful website www.KilroyWasHere.org and its owner, Patrick Tillery, for their much-appreciated help with our presentation of “Kilroy Was There,” by Chuck Lyons, in our June 2012 issue. Please do check out the site. Then just follow the links to join efforts to persuade the US Postal Service to publish a Kilroy Was Here commemorative stamp! Send us your comments and reactions— especially the favorable ones! Mail them to V-Mail, America in WWII, PO Box 4175, Harrisburg, PA 17111-0175, or e-mail them to [email protected].

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A HOME FRONT

Hail Old Glory! by Carl Zebrowski

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HERE HE IS ,

6 AMERICA IN WWII

AUGUST 2012

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

the aviator and political activist Charles Lindbergh, standing in a crowd with his right arm straight out, palm down, doing what looks to be the “Heil Hitler” salute. Such photos don’t help refute charges that he had Nazi sympathies. Then there are the photos of young schoolkids doing the same salute. What is not immediately apparent in these scenes is that Lindbergh and the kids are saluting the flag, the American flag, in the United States. Surprisingly, the salute associated with Hitler was essentially the same salute Americans gave the Stars and Stripes while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance back in those days. In fact, the salute and pledge were born together. In 1892, Youth’s Companion, the nation’s largest magazine for kids, was giving away flags with subscription packages as part of a “put a flag in every schoolhouse” drive. Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and writer, was hired to bolster the effort, and he penned the pledge to be the centerpiece of school flag-raising ceremonies during the nationwide Columbus Day quadricentennial celebration. The pledge ran in the magazine’s September 8, 1892, issue along with instructions for reciting it: …Every pupil gives the flag the military salute—right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side. [A “to” was added before “the Republic” a few weeks later, and “under God” was

These American schoolkids doing what appears to be the “Heil Hilter” salute are actually saluting the Stars and Stripes.

added after “one Nation” in 1954.] Over the years, the pledge gesture was simplified from what was originally described, eliminating the military-style salute at the start. And the palm was generally turned downward in the manner associated with the Roman salute common in the movies. Even there, the story runs into complications. The Roman salute apparently does not begin with the Romans. Historians have argued that no salute of that style is described in any Roman writing, nor does it appear in Roman art. They claim that the neoclassical French artist Jacques-Louis David introduced it in his late-18th-century paintings and others of his school picked up on it. A century later, in 1899, Broadway staged the postbellum novel Ben Hur, set in ancient Rome, and the title character gave the salute when greeting a sheik. Later he was riding his chariot and a crowd greeted him in the same manner. Moviemakers retained the salute for the 1907 silver screen version.

When the Italian nationalist leader Gabriele d’Annunzio scripted the 1914 film Cabiria, he, too, had his ancient Roman characters give the Roman salute. Five years later, he brought the salute into the real world after he led 2,000 nationalists into Fiume when it was about to be handed over to the WWI Allies. He declared Fiume an independent state and declared war on Italy. During his one-year stint as ruler that ended with bombardment by the Italian navy, d’Annunzio hit on a formula for dictators to come. He delivered speeches from balconies, co-opted religious symbols for political effect, harshly suppressed dissent—and popularized the Roman salute. Within a year of Benito Mussolini’s takeover of Italy in 1922, the salute became an official fascist gesture of greeting. The Nazis picked up on the salute three years later, and after they rose to power in Germany in 1933, it became law. All employees of the state were to be saluted, and violators were punished. Images of Nazis doing the salute eventually appeared in American newspapers and magazines and in the weekly newsreels shown before movies. Once America was officially at war with Germany, the flag salute that was now so closely associated with the enemy had to go. In December 1942 Congress passed amendments to the code that guided flag display and other formalities, including one that stated the pledge “should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart.” The extended-arm salute was gone for good in the United States. After the war, the salute was banished in Germany, too. Today, anyone caught making the “Heil Hitler” salute there can be punished with up to three years in prison. A

AM E RICA I N

WWII PINUP

MarthaVickers The Hollywood career of Martha Vickers started humbly. She played a corpse. Her character is killed off-screen by the werewolf in 1943’s Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Then she makes her appearance. Her roles did improve. Born Martha MacVicar in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1925, Vickers got her break into the movie business after David O. Selznick, director of 1939’s Gone with the Wind, saw some photos of her and was drawn to her slender beauty and auburn hair. Soon she made the Frankenstein film and followed that with several others over the next couple of years, including Hi’Ya Sailor (1943) and Marine Raiders (1944). Her roles in these war-themed releases helped win her the coveted spot as Pin-up Girl in the US Army’s weekly magazine Yank three times during 1944 and 1945. She went on to play mostly minor parts in B movies, but did earn critical success as the sultry sister of Lauren Bacall’s character in the Humphrey Bogart film The Big Sleep (1946). There was as much drama in Vickers’s personal life as on screen. All three of her marriages, including one to actor Mickey Rooney, ended in divorce. Her career ended in 1960, and she died of cancer in 1971. PHOTO COURTESY OF WWW.DOCTORMACRO.INFO

A THE FUNNIES

War Hawks by Arnold T. Blumberg

caricatures of ethnic stereotypes that were prevalent at the time. The most offensive by today’s standards was Chop Chop, a bucktoothed coolie cook, though he did evolve into a dashing hero with his own plane. In the 1950s, the Blackhawks found a new home at DC Comics, where their adventures became much more fanciful. They also branched out into radio with their own show and onto the silver screen, in a 1952 serial from Columbia Pictures. Starring as Blackhawk in the 15-part series was Kirk Alyn, the actor who had become Hollywood’s first Superman, in 1948. There have been several attempts to revive the Blackhawks in the comics, but they have failed. Unlike some heroes who moved forward with the times, the Blackhawks are still fighting World War II. A DR. ARNOLD T. BLUMBERG is an educator and the author of books on comic books and other pop culture topics. He resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Polish American superhero Blackhawk and his multiethnic squadron of combat pilots were the brainchild of a creative team that included Will Eisner, the legendary writer-artist who lent his name to the Oscars of the comics business. Above: The so-called Blackhawks debuted in the premier issue of Military Comics and appeared in that series for several years. Opposite: The fliers eventually got their own series. 8 AMERICA IN WWII

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IMAGES COURTESY OF GEPPI'S ENTERTAINMENT MUSEUM, WWW.GEPPISMUSEUM.COM

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EISNER IS ONE OF THE ARCHITECTS of the modern comics industry. He created the masked vigilante the Spirit, a legendary hero to comic book aficionados, and lent his name to the industry’s version of the Academy Awards. During World War II, he gave us a squadron of fearless fighters who weren’t blessed with extraordinary powers, but still deserved the label “superheroes.” First appearing in Quality Comics’ Military Comics No. 1 just months before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the Blackhawks were a team of multinational air aces led by a man named Blackhawk, later revealed as Bart Hawk, Polish American. With fellow fliers Andre (French), Olaf (Swedish and Norwegian), Chuck (American), Hans (Dutch), Stanislaus (Polish), Zinda “Lady Blackhawk” Blake (American), and Chop Chop (Chinese), Bart and his team battled the Axis from the cockpits of their Grumman XF5F Skyrockets and their base on Blackhawk Island (they really got a lot of mileage out of the name). The heroes were ILL

A LANDINGS

The Lake Erie Flotilla by Neil Graves

Splashed across a funnel on USS The Sullivans, a shamrock recalls the Irish heritage of the five Iowa brothers for whom the ship was named.

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during World War II, 29 Cleveland-class US Navy cruisers rode the waves. Today just one remains: the USS Little Rock. You can find her in the harbor of Buffalo, New York, docked beside her berth mate, the famed USS The Sullivans, at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park. Those two retired ships, along with the Gatoclass submarine USS Croaker, form the largest inland anchorage of WWII naval vessels in the nation. Open since June 1979, the Buffalo Naval Park straddles the US-Canada border, just 20 miles from the roaring thunder of Niagara Falls. Squeezed into this cramped inlet is a one-of-a-kind mix of vintage military hardware, including a WWII Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter, a Korean War M41 Walker Bulldog light tank, a 1950s North American FJ-4B Navy Fury fighter-bomber, and a Vietnam-era PTF-17 coastal patrol T ONE POINT

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AUGUST 2012

boat and UH-1 “Huey” helicopter. The park’s main attraction, however, is the warships whose gray superstructures rise high above the murky, green waters of Lake Erie. The Little Rock (CL-92) was commissioned in 1945, replete with a dozen six-inch guns and dozen five-inch guns. After operating off the East Coast and in the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas into 1949, the Little Rock was relegated to America’s Mothball Fleet, awaiting possible recall to active service. In 1960 she was converted to a missile cruiser, armed with a formidable new Talos surface-to-air missile system. After that, she pulled double duty, serving as the flagship for the navy’s Second and Sixth fleets during the early phase of the Cold War, patrolling the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. Decommissioned in November 1976, the Little Rock is the only guided missile cruiser on display in America. Its Medal of Honor

room is chock full of enough information to fascinate even the most jaded history buff. The exhibits salute the 50 natives of Western New York who earned the famous medal, including Buffalo favorite son William “Wild Bill” Donovan, now regarded as the father of the CIA after leading the organization’s precursor, the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), during World War II. Donovan earned his Medal of Honor during World War I in action near Landres-et-SaintGeorges, France, where, despite being wounded, he refused to be evacuated and continued to direct his men. Another Little Rock highlight is a Polish veterans section, an especially fitting exhibit in a city long known for its sizable Polish population. Anchored between the Little Rock and the shore is the USS The Sullivans (DD537), the Fletcher-class destroyer named for the five brothers from Iowa who died before or after the light cruiser USS Juneau

ALL PHOTOS BY ED KNAB

Above, lower right: Commissioned in 1943, USS The Sullivans remains one of the most famous of the US Navy’s celebrated World War II–era Fletcher-class destroyers. Above, left: Flanked by the The Sullivans and the USS Little Rock, the submarine USS Croaker stands watch on the Buffalo waterfront. Above, upper right: Detailed shipboard exhibits such as this WWII timeline help connect visitors with each vessel’s history.

was sunk during a November 1942 naval battle off Guadalcanal in the southwestern Pacific. John Branning, a navy veteran and the park’s historian and chief engineer, corrected a myth that to this day refuses to die: members of the same family could not serve together aboard the same ship. “Lots of people think a rule was in place the Sullivan brothers broke, but there never was a rule,” said Branning. The Sullivans was commissioned in September 1943 and departed on her maiden voyage with no fewer than 23 sailors with the Sullivan surname aboard. “It was the unofficial official Irish ship in the navy,” said Branning. Appropriately the ship sports a green shamrock on its forward smokestack. Like the Little Rock, and most US Navy ships of World War II, The Sullivans bristled with 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns. Originally armed with single-barrel

Oerlikons, The Sullivans took on the heavier-punching, twin-barrel versions when Japanese kamikazes began to appear in swarms. The 2,050-ton vessel could make 35 knots (40 miles per hour) in its day and packed five five-inch guns. It was decommissioned in 1965 and came to Buffalo along with the Little Rock in 1977, after the park’s founding fathers visited the Philadelphia Naval Yard and were offered both retired ships. In 1997 a newly built Arleigh Burke–class destroyer assumed The Sullivans name and legacy in the US Navy. The original The Sullivans is now a national historical landmark. The third piece of the floating portion of the museum is the USS Croaker, whose keel was laid in Groton, Connecticut, on April 1, 1943, just three days before The Sullivans was commissioned in San Francisco. The Gato-class Croaker (SS-246) was eventually

IN A NUTSHELL WHAT The Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park WHERE Buffalo, New York WHY The largest inland anchorage of WWII ships in the United States • The USS The Sullivans, the destroyer named for the five Sullivan brothers from Iowa who died near Guadalcanal • An eclectic mix of historic military ships, aircraft, vehicles, and weapons For more information visit www.buffalonavalpark.org, call 716-847-1773, or write to the museum at One Naval Park Cove, Buffalo, NY 14202.

credited with sinking 11 enemy vessels during six missions in the Pacific. Ironically, her most significant kill was the Nagara, the Japanese light cruiser that did in the Juneau, with the five Sullivan brothers aboard. A year and a half later, on August 7, 1944, the situation came full circle when the Croaker torpedoed the Nagara. “We had bookends here,” said Branning. “What comes around goes around.” Decommissioned in June 1946, Croaker returned to sea in 1953 as a hunter-killer sub and served for another 15 years. She arrived in Buffalo on November 22, 1988, after 20 years in Groton. Within a year, the park’s staff had replaced her entire deck. The trio of fighting ships and other military treasures gathered here at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval Park seem to work. A steady flow of traffic passes through this waterfront neighborhood that includes the homes of the National Hockey League’s Buffalo Sabres and triple-A baseball’s Buffalo Bisons, and many people stop in to see some history. In 2011, 45,000 American and international visitors came through the park gates. And they left with an unusual first-hand glimpse of the deep-sea navy of World War II. A NEIL GRAVES worked as a reporter for the New York Post for 16 years. AUGUST 2012

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A WAR STORIES

A WWII Scrapbook BUMP IN THE NIGHT

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Y DAD, A YOUNG

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COURTESY OF DIANA BIRO

radar specialist during WWII, was stationed at an air base in Italy in 1944–45. As a first-generation American born and raised in New York City by Hungarian immigrant parents, he was used to mingling with people from different backgrounds, and his war stories reflected his open-mindedness about race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion. One of his favorite anecdotes relates how he (a Caucasian) and an African American soldier he was acquainted with at this field became buddies. It was a pitch black night—no moon or stars—and of course during wartime there were no lights because of security needs. Dad was using the edge of the airfield tarmac, a paved section where planes were parked, to guide his way back to the base, walking quickly and silently in soft-soled shoes. Suddenly he collided with another body, a man he sensed was somewhat taller and heavier. “Halt, who goes there?” a startled voice exclaimed. Dad recognized the voice. “Luther, is that you?” “Ed?” The man responded. “Yes, it’s me. What are you doing out here?” “I’m on guard duty. What are you doing out here?” “I’m coming back from town,” Dad explained. “I was using the tarmac to find my way. It’s so dark I can’t see my hand in front of my face. I’m as blind as a bat tonight.” “It’s a good thing,” Luther replied, “’cause you’d sure see a strange sight. I swear, Ed, you done turned me white!” Then they both laughed and shook hands. Luther remained at his post while my dad continued along the tarmac, walk-

Radar technician Ed Biro used an oldfashioned means of finding his way in the night—until he literally bumped into a sentry.

ing more slowly with one arm stretched out before him. Though he lost track of Luther after the war, that moment of shared humor engendered a rapport Dad talked about for many years afterward. Diana Biro daughter of wartime staff sergeant Edward Biro, radar technician, 376th Bomb Group, US Army Air Forces

HIDING FROM NAZIS IN ITALY

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I TRAVELED to Italy with my friend Cheryl’s family, including her 86-year-old father, Jim Suzuki. He wanted ECENTLY

his family to meet the family of the Italian partisan who’d saved his life in 1944. Prior to the war Jim was a typical American teenager, as were his fellow Japanese American friends at Seattle’s Broadway High School. Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and Jim’s life became anything but typical. Soon all persons of Japanese descent living along the Pacific were to move to relocation centers. “It was a frightening time,” Jim told us. “We were sent by bus to an assembly center at the Puyallup Fair Grounds.” At Puyallup they were herded into overcrowded, hastily erected wooden barracks and forced to share communal meals, showers, and trench latrines. “For me, a teenager used to all the American amenities, it was unimaginable.” But Jim found a few classmates at Puyallup from Broadway High. One was Pete Fujino. “Pete made camp tolerable.” In 1943 the military formed a unit made up of American-born Japanese—the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Pete and Jim jumped at the chance to enlist. Before leaving for boot camp Pete’s mother asked a favor of Jim. “She asked me to ‘watch over her boy,’” Jim said. “I promised, even though I found her request strange. After all, Pete was a big, confident kid. I was a lot smaller and nowhere near as confident.” In the spring of 1944, Pete and Jim were assigned to L Company. They were shipped to Italy, where they immediately encountered intense fighting. On July 20, 1944, their commander asked for 12 volunteers to do reconnaissance inside German-held Pisa. Pete and Jim agreed to go. They were to infiltrate enemy lines, assess troop numbers and movement, and report back. Accompanied by a partisan Italian guide, they set out that night. The patrol walked miles into enemy ter-

AM E RICA I N

WWII

L ingo! 1940s GI and civilian patter crush cap: an air forces officer’s billed hat that has been crumpled down by the frequent wearing of headphones over it George: a name that originated with the British Royal Air Force for a plane’s autopilot, used in phrases such as “Let George fly it” roller skate: a tank

Finally, near dusk, the soldiers departed and the patrol again ventured toward Pisa. “Our patrol penetrated over six miles into enemy territory into the city center, made our assessments, and returned to our unit without firing a shot.” After the war Jim often thought of the farmer and the risk he’d taken for the Americans. Jim made many unsuccessful trips

AMERICA IN WWII COLLECTION

ritory gathering information, but couldn’t get into Pisa. With dawn approaching, it was decided that three soldiers would go back with the information. The remaining men would complete the mission the following night. The GIs needed to find a safe place to wait in. The guide led them to a two-story farmhouse where another partisan lived with his family. He woke the farmer and explained that the GIs would be killed if they were not hidden. At great risk, the farmer agreed to hide the Americans upstairs. The farmer’s two children, a girl age one and a boy age seven, slept peacefully in a bedroom off the kitchen. Once inside, Jim kept lookout at a window. As the sun rose he saw a house about 800 feet away. On its porch stood two German officers sweeping the fields with their binoculars. Soon a line of German soldiers was headed directly toward the farmhouse. Because their patrol had been instructed to hold their fire at all costs, the GIs made no sound as the Germans settled into the yard directly below them. Once the children awoke, tension mounted, but the GIs kept them quiet with chocolate bars. Throughout the day more enemy patrols stopped to rest at the farmhouse. Jim prayed the children would remain calm and no German would venture upstairs, for he knew that the resulting fight would mean death for him and the family.

A 1940s postcard shows Atlantic City with its typical summer visitors. In 1943 the boardwalk and beach were filled with boot-camp GIs.

south of Pisa to thank the man, but he didn’t know the location of his house or his name. Finally, in 2001, with the help of the Internet, Jim found the farmer, Marino Bardelli. “It was so good to finally see him. We were just two sentimental old men who were happy to be alive and together once again.” Bardelli died in 2006, but Jim remained in contact with his children. We met them in Podo Garzella, then drove to the farmhouse. The new owner had remodeled the farmhouse, but as we walked around it, Jim explained how it used to look. When he’d found the approximate location of the window where he’d stood watch, he struggled to control his emotions, and we stood silent with him. Then he turned from the house and looked at the fields. “Over there is where I watched them come in.” We followed him around the house to the family’s well. “Something happened here that day I want to tell you about,” he said. From his window he’d had a clear view of the well. A young soldier had rested his rifle against the well’s wall to fill canteens. A dove suddenly perched on the well’s rim. The soldier smiled and slowly dipped his finger into the water bucket. Fascinated, Jim held his breath as he watched the soldier drop water into the bird’s upraised beak. Tentatively the young soldier reached out and softly stroked the

dove before it took flight. Jim realized then that he and the German were not so different. “He too was just another lonely boy away from his home.” Later, over dinner, I asked if he still kept contact with his old friend Pete. Jim hesitated, then said, “No. After the recon mission, Pete and I were in our tent when a shot rang out. I turned to Pete to ask what he thought had happened and saw blood.” With a sadness I’d not heard from him before, Jim said, “Pete was struck in the head and killed instantly, a victim of friendly fire.” Gail Christie-Jahn Washington State

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Y BOOT- CAMP EXPERIENCE

took place in 1943, when I left Illinois on a troop train bound for parts unknown. As it turned out, camp was in Atlantic City! From the train, we were transported to Convention Hall, situated on the famous Atlantic City Boardwalk. There we learned the government had requisitioned nearly all of the hotels in the city to provide housing for an expected 50,000 troops during their basic training. For the next six weeks I was assigned, with five roommates, to the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Except for KP and guard duty, our daily routine was reveille and room inspection at 4:30 A.M., physical training on the beach, marching practice on the boardwalk while singing popular songs, and lights out at 9 P.M. Meals were served in the main dining room of the Ambassador Hotel. Occasionally we were entertained by one of the big bands such as Tommy Dorsey’s and Glenn Miller’s. Our weekend recreation was usually going to Hamid’s Steel Pier. There we’d sit on the boardwalk railing and flirt with all the pretty girls who came by. Little did I know that my Atlantic City days were but the start of a 23-year career in the army. William F. Zoll wartime US Army Air Forces Signal Corps Sierra Vista, Arizona Send your War Stories submission, with a relevant photo if possible, to WAR STORIES, America in WWII, PO Box 4175, Harrisburg, PA 17111-0175, or to [email protected]. By sending stories and photos, you give us permission to publish and republish them.

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armed with a

paintbrush Army ar tist Ed Reep dodged bullets and bomb blasts to give Americans back home a closeup look at the war. by Melissa Amateis Marsh

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REEP STEPPED ONTO THE BEACHHEAD at Anzio, Italy, in late January 1944 toting his own kind of war equipment: art paper, sable-hair brushes, and paints. Farther inland, the German soldiers who were watching Reep were supplied for the combat zone more traditionally, with firearms and artillery, and they didn’t appreciate Reep’s artistic endeavor. Soon, shells rained down on the painter. Shocked and more than a little terrified, Reep dove into a nearby drainage ditch, hoping his equipment would survive. Reep’s watercolor of a US 1st Division tank did survive the bombardment, as did Reep himself and his precious supplies. “They must have pounded in seven or eight shells in the attempt to wipe me out,” he remembered. “Eventually, when things quieted down, I returned to finish my painting. I’m sure the Jerries thought me nutty as a fruitcake, but then, the feeling was mutual.” The painting of the tank now resides at the US Center of Military History in Washington, DC. It’s one of thousands of paintings, sketches, and other artwork produced by US Army combat artists during World War II. The army, navy, and marines all had combat art programs carried out by artists officially enlisted in their ranks. And there were two American magazines—the widely circulated Life and the army’s own weekly, Yank—that sent artist correspondents into the field. Abbott Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company in Illinois, also sponsored an art program, one that focused on the work of the various medical corps. D

Ed Reep was in a nearby foxhole when shells hit this spot and killed 17 men. Realizing he needed to face his fear and grief, he returned to paint The Morning After. AUGUST 2012

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armed with a paintbrush Art has always served as a way to process the horrors and hypocrisies of war, and to memorialize the heroism and valor of its combatants. France’s thousand-year-old Bayeux Tapestry is one of the earliest examples of art documenting conquest, depicting events from before the Norman conquest of England through the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Romantic painter Francisco Goya may have been first to depict the true horror of combat in his stunning and brutal paintings from the Peninsula War between Portugal and his native Spain. During the American Civil War, Harper’s Weekly sent Alfred Waud and Edwin Forbes to sketch clashes between the Union and the Confederacy. But sending American artists into battle in military uniform was unheard of until World War II. And even then, the program almost didn’t get off the ground.

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in September 1942 from Frances Brennan, the new director of the Office of War Information’s graphic bureau. “The American People need their artists now—to charge them with the grave responsibility of spelling out their anger, their grief, their greatness, and their justice,” Brennan wrote. “The artist will respond, as he has countless times before in the history of the world, to fight it out on the field where no others can.” Reading those words, George Biddle, a well-known artist and the brother of Attorney General Francis Biddle, agreed with Brennan. He used his connections to push the formation of an army unit of war artists and to create the War Department Art Advisory Committee. Noted artists and experts in the art world were appointed to the board and asked to select potential artists for the program. They sent out telegrams of invitation, and 42 artists accepted. They would go to work in 12 different war zones. Ed Reep received his invitation on May 27, 1943. He was already in the army and had been drawing and painting for as long as he could remember. “I always wanted to be an artist, always,” he said. Born in 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, Reep moved to California with his family in 1921. His parents supported his artistic endeavors from the beginning, and at school he became known as the class artiste. After graduation from high school, he spent five years studying at the Art Center School in Los Angeles before enlisting in the army in July 1941. At basic training in Camp Roberts, California, he snatched moments of free time to roam the low rolling hills of the California landscape and paint—and that was after marching all day. Once out of boot camp, he and a friend from art school were assigned to Fort Ord, California, to paint murals at Colton Hall in Monterey, site of California’s first constitutional convention in 1849. The project continued even after Pearl Harbor was attacked. In Monterey, Reep attended nightly USO dances and fell in love with a brunette named Patricia Stevens. With the war

ALL IMAGES THIS STORY COURTESY OF ED REEP

HE IDEA GOT A BIG BOOST

by Melissa Amateis Marsh

going strong, Reep applied for Engineer Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and earned a spot there. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers and made Patricia his wife after five months of courting. Reep’s first army assignment was to teach at the Andrew Higgins Boat School in New Orleans. When the school closed in the late spring of 1943, he was reassigned to Fort Ord in Monterey. There he was to prepare for an impending mission to recapture the Alaskan islands of Attu and Kiska from the Japanese, who had invaded them in June 1942. The telegram selecting Reep to be an official war artist arrived in time to save him from arctic duty. Ecstatic and sure that this was “a dream come true,” he accepted immediately, kissed his wife goodbye, and headed off to New York to prepare. The War Department gave him a voucher for $1,000 to spend on art materials and other items not available at the military supply warehouses. “I blew the entire sum at a single art store in New York that featured Winsor-Newton art materials, among the finest manufactured,” he said. “I loaded up on paint, bought out their supply of exquisite Albata sable brushes, and spent the balance on the best of rag papers.” Early in the fall of 1943, Reep was aboard a ship headed for North Africa. But back home, the art program was already in jeopardy. Looking at the army’s budget for 1943–1944, the House of Representatives debated whether, in the age of photography and motion pictures, art was really necessary to document a war. Even though the art program cost only $125,000 of the total $1.75 billion budget, one congressman called it a “piece of foolishness.” The program was cancelled on August 31, 1943. Reep got the bad news when he arrived in Algiers. “I was distraught,” he admitted. “It was a dream of mine to fulfill this thing after being selected and being so happy, overjoyed, and almost manic about the whole thing.” Civilian artists in the program would go home. Soldier-artists like Reep would be reassigned to military duty. In October, Reep reported to the Psychological Warfare Branch of the Allied Forces Headquarters in Algiers, and began working as a commercial artist in the publications division. There he created propaganda for use on the military and civilians of occupied countries, making leaflets, brochures, and posters. At least he was using his artistic skills. That December, Reep received a curious summons to General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters in Algiers. A terrific surprise awaited him. Eisenhower told Reep the army’s art program had been reestablished, but using only soldier artists, not civilians. Reep and four others would each accompany one of the five divisions invading Italy. “You will head up the group, pick a division, and assign each of the others to a division,” Eisenhower told

Ed Reep (shown above wearing a personalized combat helmet) viewed this early 1944 post-battle scene from an abandoned enemy machine-gun nest in a wine cellar in San Vittore, Italy. It didn’t strike him until later that the Germans whose place he had taken might have set booby-traps there. 16 AMERICA IN WWII

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armed with a paintbrush

by Melissa Amateis Marsh

Reep was attached to the Historical Section of the Fifth Army Headquarters. He headed to Naples in early 1944 and reported to his new commanding officer, Colonel John D. Forsythe. Reep was eager to return to painting and didn’t waste any time getting to where the action was. “The first time I got my hands on a jeep, I tore wildly toward the front lines,” he said. He carried his art materials in a small wooden box built out of a flat crate. He didn’t use oil paints and canvas because they were too difficult to work with. “You couldn’t keep anything clean,” Reep remembered. “You couldn’t keep anything from the wind, debris, and the drying factor.” Instead, he used watercolors and rag paper.

himself with the subject of war and become accustomed to its sights and sounds. His work reflected this. “I would dramatize my work with strong contrasts of light and dark and invent menacing, eerie shapes,” he said. “I could hear artillery fire in the near distance as I drew but was in no personal danger.” He painted, but also sketched with pen and India ink, particularly when he was in situations where watercolor was impossible to use. One prevailing idea kept Reep focused: “I worked like hell to depict my experiences,” he recalled. “I was always trying to tell it as it was.” It was an attitude that stayed with him for the duration of the war. In January 1944, when the fighting in Italy had reached a stalemate at the Gustav Line at Monte Cassino, Reep was billeted at the beautiful 18th-century Royal Palace of Caserta. It served as army headquarters and was home to civilian reporters, photographers, and USO groups. For the first few days, Reep headed out

An enthusiastic Reep turned out two paintings in quick succession. The first, Coffee Break, depicted GIs in a shell crater drinking cups of joe, the landscape barren and peppered with black, leafless trees. He painted the second, A Machine Gun Position, after a battle at San Vittore. To capture the scene, he sat in an abandoned German machine-gun position in a wine cellar. “I examined with great care everything that was left of the machinegun nest, not even remotely conscious of the possibility that it could have been booby-trapped.” Fortunately, the withdrawing Germans hadn’t had time to set a trap, though Reep later admitted that “either my innocence or my naiveté allowed me to do some very foolish things and come away scot-free.” Those early days on the job were a time for Reep to familiarize

every day to sketch and paint, then returned to the relative safety of the palace. It was at the palace that he became friends with the famed army journalist Ernie Pyle of the Stars and Stripes. There, he also saw Hollywood stars such as Humphrey Bogart and enjoyed the performance of comedian and actor Joe E. Brown. As Reep became more familiar with his surroundings, he began venturing out for days at a time, joining pack trains of foot soldiers and tank units moving toward the front or visiting the battlefront overlooking the 6th-century abbey of Monte Cassino. He lived out of a jeep from the motor pool, sleeping on the ground with his bedroll. After his paintings were finished, they were stored and periodically sent in batches to the Pentagon. When the Allies bombed Monte Cassino on February 15, 1944,

Reep. He handed Reep a list of divisions, and Reep chose the 1st Armored Division, for two reasons: “It would prove distinctive,” he said, “and I hated to walk.”

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OW OFFICIALLY A WAR ARTIST AGAIN ,

Above: Reep’s take on a soldier bathing in a captured tub heated by a fire made the pages of Newsweek. Opposite: His 1970s painting of the Berlin Wall is conspicuously more vivid than his typical wartime work. (The graffiti translates to “Your wall must fall!”) 18 AMERICA IN WWII

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armed with a paintbrush

by Melissa Amateis Marsh

Reep grabbed a front seat. He went to the banks of the Rapido River and set up his gear, then painted as the Allies dropped more than 450 tons of bombs on the abbey. Reep decided to paint an alla prima watercolor—painted in one sitting. “My brushstrokes were crude, brusque, tortured,” he said. “No reworking of this painting was necessary; the frenzied statement would be finished concurrently with the action.” He produced a painting filled with the immediacy of this historic and controversial event.

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REEP WENT to the Anzio beachhead, about 35 miles below Rome on Italy’s west coast, that he finally got a real taste of what the common soldier experienced. “Anzio was different from other battlefields in many ways,” Reep said. “There was no escape from the constant fire of long-range enemy artillery and the occasional Luftwaffe fighter-bomber raids. We were sitting ducks for the Jerries.” For two and a half months Reep exchanged his plush accommodations at the palace for a recently vacated foxhole—“I was discreet enough not to ask why it was unoccupied,” he said. The foxhole was about the size of a kitchen table, and included a trap door and hefty overhead beams made of raw tree trunks. “In the evening,” he recalled, “I’d curl up in my earth nest and pore over my sketches and notes by candlelight, or write letters, or listen to music.” Reep began to paint with a vengeance, churning out mostly pictures of the daily life of soldiers. The Anzio Beachhead depicted the world of the soldier in pen and ink. “It was a unique battlefield,” Reep said. “Everything was dug into the ground—vehicles, offices, sleeping quarters….” The beachhead even had a movie-screening room, the W.M. Emory Memorial Theater, which unfortunately became the subject of one of Reep’s more sobering paintings. One evening, Bing Crosby’s Going My Way was playing. Reep thought about attending, but decided to stay in his foxhole instead. That decision saved his life. During the movie, a German 155mm shell landed between his foxhole and the theater. He heard screams of agony and cries for help. Shaken by the shell, he tried to pull himself together to respond, but then a second shell struck. “That did me in; I lost my courage and froze,” he said. “I stayed in the hole all night, a total wreck. Dirt had fallen down through the rafters and turned to mud on my wet body; the pitiful cries of the wounded tortured me, but there was no way that I would be of service—I was scared gutless.” The next morning, his ears still ringing from the shells, Reep emerged from his foxhole and went to the field hospital. Still in shock and feeling bad about his failure to attend to the wounded the night before, he thought about retreating behind the main battle lines. But he knew if he didn’t paint now, he might never have the courage to return to the front. “I decided to paint—immediately, right then and there at that tragic spot,” he said. “Seventeen men, including the projectionist and his assistant, had been killed by those shells, and a score of others had been wounded.” What Reep produced was perhaps one of his strongest works of the war: The Morning After, in watercolor and casein. “It depicted dazed soldiers stripped to the waist and emotionless, gathering up the remnants of clothing and equipment of the fallen men and stackT WAS ONLY WHEN

Reep turned an experience delivering supplies to a mountain-top machine-gun outpost into the pen-and-ink Pack Train. 20 AMERICA IN WWII

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armed with a paintbrush ing it in neat piles,” he said. “The clouds formed a vague monsterlike image with gaping jaws and elongated clawed hands—not obvious at first glance, but strangely insistent.”

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at the front was horrible. Cropping up amid the harrowing experiences were moments of humor that relieved the awful intensity. Reep’s painting Soldier Bathing portrayed such a lighthearted episode. It showed a 1st Armored Division soldier taking a hot bath in a white, porcelain tub with clawed feet. The man had discovered it in Nettuno, tied it to his jeep, and hauled it back home. Reep was amazed at his ingenuity. “He had punctured a small hole in a five-gallon gasoline can and placed it beneath the tub full of water,” Reep said. “As the gasoline dripped onto the ground below, he bravely ignited it to create a continuous flame that kept the water hot. To this day I cannot understand why the gas can didn’t explode.” The painting was so unique that it was featured in a newsreel back in the States and also appeared in the October 16, 1944, edition of Newsweek. Usually, soldiers at the front didn’t mind Reep putting them in his drawings and paintings. In fact, they were pleased to have him among their ranks. “The soldiers loved the idea that somebody thought what they were doing was important and chronicled it,” Reep said. They would often stop by for a chat, make comments on his work in progress, and sometimes even treat Reep as a sort of chaplain. When the Allies moved into Rome in June 1944, the Historical Section billeted at Cecina, a small city in nearby Tuscany. Reep returned from the front for much-needed rest and relaxation, and a chance to finish works in progress. In that time he met Italian nobles, artists, writers, and scholars and, though he wasn’t a Catholic, had an audience with Pope Pius XII. By the late fall of 1944, Axis forces had established the Gothic Line of defenses near the mountainside community of Livergnano in the Northern Apennines, along Highway 65. Smoke pots camouflaged the town by day, and Reep was entranced by the way the smoke gave the town a “ghostly appearance.” He was determined to capture it on paper by going into the shell-shocked town and painting. The soldiers thought he was crazy and told him so. “It took just three hours for me to prove that they were 100 percent correct,” he said. Right in the heart of the town, he set up his makeshift easel and surveyed the scene before him. Ravaged buildings, Sherman tanks, leafless trees, and billowing white smoke inspired him like never before. “I worked like mad, for it was an inspiring moment and unlike any other I had experienced,” he said. He had to use pen and ink because the weather was cold enough to freeze watercolors. About three hours later, a powerful German artillery shell landed not more than 50 feet from Reep’s easel. “The violent explosion sent mud and shrapnel flying in all directions,” Reep said. “The backside of my working surface was completely coated with the thick pasty mud, but at least it prevented me from being splattered. The roar was deafening; in one instant, the world before my OT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED

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eyes was transformed to a brilliant blood-red emptiness.” After Reep’s nerves finally settled, he realized the deep mud had cushioned the shell’s blow and, miraculously, not one piece of shrapnel had come close to him. Grabbing his supplies, he retreated to the aid station where he was bunking and finished the drawing while the details were fresh in his mind. Reep had now experienced two brushes with death, but they didn’t slow him down. Soon he was traveling with foot soldiers who were moving supplies to a remote outpost. On the way back from a delivery to a machine-gun position on a mountain, an exhausted Reep and several others had to tramp through narrow trails deep with mud. “The effort to keep from sliding, falling, or simply getting one boot after another out of that sucking gumbo was taking its toll,” Reep remembered. He grew more and more tired and fell behind, eventually bringing up the rear. Then, completely spent, he fell facedown in the mud. “The gooey stuff was up to my ears,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe, and although I strained to pull my face upward, it was useless—the suction was too great.” It was a “helluva way to die,” he thought. But then, strength from somewhere came over him and he twisted his head to the side, snorting mud out of his nose. He eventually freed himself and headed back to headquarters, covered with mud. Soldiers greeted him with laughter and catcalls, but he was too tired to care. The incident inspired what he thought was one of his best pen-and-ink drawings of the war. Pack Train features mules and soldiers straining against the pull of gravity—and the mud. Despite the scares and hardships, Reep didn’t give up. “I never allowed fear to block or prevent my activities,” he remembered. Other combat artists in the Historical Section worked differently and were assigned to rear areas, where they documented the humming activity of the Italian people, supply problems, and other experiences. All portrayed the war in their own ways, contributing a lasting legacy that still has the power to place the viewer in the thick of the conflict. Through the winter of 1944–1945—his second long, hard winter in Italy—Reep created work that showed the changing face of war. He went back to the front lines and there, in the heart of a long, narrow valley, he found a road that was the line between German and Allied forces. The resulting painting, No Man’s Road to Bologna, was one of his favorites, with its color, structure, and pictorial vitality. By April 1945, Reep was headed into Bologna, where he documented a conquered town and its civilians in dramatic images. Milan was his next stop. There he saw the body of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini being taken down from the meat hooks from which it hung upside down for public display after execution. On May 2, 1945, half a million German soldiers surrendered, and the war in Italy was over. Reep returned to unit headquarters at the sumptuous Palazzo Martinengo Caesaresco, the spacious summer home of Prince Borghese, on the shores of Lago di Garda in Northern Italy. Here Reep finished his paintings and worked on the overall design and hand-lettering of the covers and frontispieces for The History of the Fifth Army. Working at a desk in

Reep (shown opposite in his dress uniform) came upon a road in the middle of a narrow valley in Italy that was the line between Axis and Allied forces. The painting that the scene inspired, No Man’s Road to Bologna, was one of his favorites.

the lavish comfort of the palace was a far cry from his adventures on the front lines, but he relished the peace and quiet. To his surprise, he received a Bronze Star for efforts beyond the assignments of his duty and was promoted to captain.

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Y THIS TIME ,

R EEP WAS READY to go home, back to the States and to his wife. He got his wish in September 1945. He went to Washington, DC, and worked in the Pentagon to finish the remaining three volumes of the nine-volume Fifth Army History. Patricia joined him soon afterward. Reep decided to leave the army, and the couple returned to California. There, Reep began to paint again, landing a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative painting based on his sketches and paintings from Italy. Unfortunately, the war and its terrors were finally catching up to Reep. He found himself struggling with his subject matter. At the front, he had put aside his fear to focus on the job before him, but now he had to face that buried fear. “In truth, I was belatedly beginning to get good and scared,” he said. “I relived all my close calls at the front, becoming aware of my own foolishness and the futility of it all.” He also realized he was tired of reliving combat experiences and the war itself through art. After gaining permission from the Guggenheim committee to pursue any direc-

tion he wished, he began to focus on landscapes and other subjects in which “tranquility and beauty abounded” instead of war. Two months later, sufficiently rejuvenated, he returned to the theme of his original Guggenheim proposal and fulfilled his obligation. Reep’s combat art is a stark and powerful reminder of war’s true costs, both physical and psychological. For Reep, it was also a weapon, a way of striking back at Adolf Hitler. “I fought the war more furiously perhaps with my paintbrush than with my weapons,” he said. “And I always put myself in a position where I could witness or be a part of the fighting. That was my job, I felt.” Reep went on to a long career as an artist and continued to produce critically acclaimed work. He taught at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where he was commissioned by the federal government to paint a picture of the Berlin Wall in the early 1970s and served as artist-in-residence and professor of painting at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He retired in 1985. In 1997, the Watercolor USA Honor Society gave him the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Gold Medal. Today, he lives in California. A MELISSA AMATEIS MARSH of Lincoln, Nebraska, wrote the article “Government Girl” for our April 2012 issue. AUGUST 2012

AMERICA IN WWII 23

tothe RHINE! The Bulge was broken, but the Allies on Germany’s western edge weren’t out of the woods yet. Now they had to fight their way to the mighty Rhine. by Éric Grenier

to the RHINE!

“

by Éric Grenier

T

[ARDENNES] OFFENSIVE HAS PASSED TO THE ENEMY.” With a tinge of understatement bordering on irony, this was how the high command of the Wehrmacht, the army of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, assessed the situation on Germany’s western front on January 14, 1945. The bold German offensive that became known as the Battle of the Bulge—a blitzkrieg thrust through Allied lines in Belgium’s thickly forested Ardennes region— had failed at great cost. Now the Allies again had the fighting edge, and they were poised to push ahead to the last major obstacle between them and the heart of Nazi Germany: the Rhine River. HE INITIATIVE IN THE AREA OF THE

RG SYWAR.O WWW.P CHARDS, OF LEE RI SY TE COUR

German to hold great bastions sticking into our lines at the same time that we try to invade his country.” Eisenhower tasked Montgomery with clearing the territory west of the Rhine north of Düsseldorf, in preparation for an advance by US Lieutenant General Omar Bradley’s 12th Army Group. But while Montgomery prepared his offensive in the north, Eisenhower approved another plan by Bradley: to push through western Germany’s thickly wooded Eifel region and capture massive, strategically important dams on the Roer River there. So it was in the Eifel that Bradley began his advance to the Rhine. Into the Eifel COVERED WITH LARGE, dense forests, with terrain as difficult as any in the Ardennes, the Eifel presented serious challenges to an attacking army. With the exception of the Moselle, the rivers of the Eifel are not wide but cut deep into the plateau. One particular challenge was the Schnee Eifel, a prominent ridgeline that rose to more than 2,000 feet and generally followed the border between Belgium and Germany—a sort of natural defensive wall. Hoping to avoid the Schnee Eifel, Bradley opted to attack across the Weisserstein, an L-shaped ridgeline north of the Schnee and south of the dense Hürtgen Forest. But the attack would still have to overcome the West Wall, a series of pillboxes, mines, and anti-tank obstacles blocking the way into Germany. At least Bradley would have the advantage of surprise; the German Fifth Panzer and Seventh Armies, responsible for defending the sector, expected the attack to land elsewhere. The German forces facing Bradley had serious shortcomings. They were thin and concentrated on strong points rather than in a coherent line. The Germans had expected to have some time to regroup behind the West Wall while the Allies prepared for the final invasion. Some units had already been earmarked for the eastern

Previous spread: Armor and jeeps of the US 87th Infantry Division cross the Rhine at Boppard, Germany, on March 27, 1945. The Rhine was the last real barrier blocking the Western Allies from the heart of Nazi Germany. Above: The Germans strained to keep the Yanks at bay. This airdropped leaflet’s flip side warned, “It’s a better idea to stay in the rear than to fall in the very last second!” But defeat in the winter Battle of the Bulge had shattered the German army. Opposite: Gone were the days when blitzkrieg pierced US positions in the Bulge with ease. 26 AMERICA IN WWII

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PREVIOUS SPREAD: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Throwing back the Germans’ December 1944 offensive had been an enormous triumph. The 80,000 German soldiers killed in the Ardennes, along with great reductions in the capabilities of the Luftwaffe, Germany’s air force, greatly weakened Nazi Germany’s ability to defend herself. But the battle had seriously disrupted Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s timetable. His forces were behind schedule as their Eastern ally, the Soviet Red Army, continued its inexorable advance on the other side of Germany. Eisenhower’s original plan was for major operations to take place north and south of the Ruhr, a vitally important German industrial region east of the Rhine, while American and French forces held the line against the Germans further south. But planners felt that if the Germans maintained a military foothold west of the Rhine, the Allies would need to keep roughly half of their forces on the defensive to prevent an enemy breakout. Eisenhower didn’t want to sacrifice any of his invasion force for defensive duty. So he decided that “before attempting any major operations east of the Rhine it was essential to destroy the main enemy armies west of the river.” Ike’s decision did not please British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, commander of the Allied armies on the northern tier of Germany’s western border. Montgomery’s 21st Army Group was perched along the Rhine, ready to drive into northern Germany, but a wholesale Allied campaign to neutralize enemy forces west of the Rhine would delay his offensive and consume supplies and reinforcements he wanted. Eisenhower explained that “we must substantially defeat the German forces west of the Rhine if we are to make a truly successful invasion with all forces available…. As I see it, we simply cannot afford the large defensive forces that would be necessary if we allow the

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

front. Still others had been pulled back to create a reserve that could be sent north, where the Germans expected the main Allied effort to strike. Major General Matthew Ridgway’s XVIII Airborne Corps, on the right wing of the US First Army, would spearhead Bradley’s offensive. The Americans moved forward across a 25-mile front, through the Losheim Gap between the Schnee Eifel and the Weisserstein. The V Corps, under Major General Clarence Huebner, was to protect Ridgway’s north flank and push through the Monschau Forest and the Weisserstein. The Third Army, commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., would protect Ridgway’s southern flank. The attack began on January 28, when the 1st Infantry and 82nd Airborne Divisions of the XVIII Airborne Corps moved forward. They were followed by the Third Army’s VIII Corps the next day and the V Corps on the 30th.

Snow had piled up to between one and two feet in some places and up to a soldier’s waist in others, and this hindered the advance despite light and disorganized enemy resistance. Plodding through the snow exhausted the GIs, and crossing the 8 to 12 miles to the West Wall took four days. Traffic jams slowed the advance of supplies, armor, and artillery. The snow caused some unusual engagements. One night early in the attack, a platoon of paratroopers with tank support came upon a German column moving along a road. The three-foot snow banks on either side of the thoroughfare prevented any escape. The Yanks fired first, and 200 German soldiers were killed without the loss of a single American life. At the outset, the most determined German defense came in the south, in front of the VIII Corps. The Our River there gave the Germans a line to defend, and though it was shallow and frozen in some places and therefore easy to cross, its steep banks were AUGUST 2012

AMERICA IN WWII 27

München Gladbach

Düsseldorf General Gustav-Adolf

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Bradley’s Advance to the Rhine

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Lieutenant General George S.

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March 1–7, 1945

Artwork based on Army Map Service series M 501 topographic sheets.

incorporated into the West Wall’s defensive network. A first attempt at crossing, on January 29, was aborted due to heavy resistance, and it was not until the next day that the Americans had a solid hold on the river’s opposite bank. Once across, deep snow and the remnants of the 9th Panzer Division slowed the VIII Corps’s progress for the next three days. The V Corps was ready to launch its assault on the West Wall on January 30. Huebner’s men faced little opposition from the 28 AMERICA IN WWII

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Germans, but snow and fog proved more difficult obstacles. On the 31st, the corps’s 9th Infantry Division approached Wahlerscheid and threw back a German counterattack before flanking the pillboxes of the West Wall on February 1 and linking up with the 2nd Infantry Division, coming up from the south. Together, the two units pushed past Wahlerscheid. The airborne corps finally came up against the West Wall by February 1. In three days the unit was a mile past the German fron-

to the RHINE! tier and had penetrated deeply into the West Wall. But the advance had been so slow that Eisenhower halted Bradley’s offensive to transfer units in preparation for Montgomery’s assault in the north. Depleted of troop strength, Bradley had to go on the defensive. But he gave his First Army permission to take the Roer River Dams, and allowed the Third Army to continue its “probing attacks.” To a man like George Patton, that meant a full-scale assault. The Roer River Dams ON THE ROER RIVER WAS A COMPLEX of seven dams, the largest of which were the Urft and Schwammenauel dams. For the Germans, the dams were powerful defensive weapons of last resort. By destroying these dams, the Germans could rapidly flood the Roer valley, either preventing an Allied crossing or trapping and isolating any force that managed to cross before the flooding. The 78th Infantry Division (temporarily with the Ninth Army, but soon to be transferred to the First Army’s V Corps), located near Monschau, near the Belgian border, was assigned to capture the Schwammenauel

T

HE WEATHER WAS DREADFULLY COLD .

During the advance toward Schwammenauel, a lieutenant of the 78th came across a private trying to get his attention. “Sir, my fingers are so cold I can’t move ’em,” he said. “Well, do you want me to send you to the rear?” “No, just unlock my piece!” The Urft Dam fell to the 78th Division with little resistance on February 4. And in an advance the next morning, the division overran at least 35 pillboxes filled with more than 100 Germans without a shot being fired. But as the Germans became more alert, the defense picked up and the advance slowed.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES. INSET: PHOTO BY T/4 R.P. RUNYAN. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Right: Another river guarded the Rhine— the Roer, whose dams could trigger floods to block invaders. US forces captured the Schwammenauel Dam on February 9. Below: A Ninth Army scout nabs a concealed German defender across the Roer on February 23.

by Éric Grenier

Dam. Standing in the way was the 6,000-strong 272nd Volksgrenadier Division, which had held this part of the line since mid-December. On January 30, after a five-minute artillery bombardment (reduced to provide more firepower to Montgomery’s attack in the north), the assault began. Expecting a longer bombardment, the German defenders remained under cover and were caught by surprise as the Americans advanced on their right. Thirty-two pillboxes were cleared in a matter of hours. US tanks in the center also made good progress, while on the left the 311th Infantry Regiment met stubborn resistance at Kesternich that took two days to overcome and cost 224 men.

AUGUST 2012

AMERICA IN WWII 29

During the night of February 6-7, however, a German error opened the door just a crack to the Yanks. The 272nd Volksgrenadier fell back, leaving only a thin rearguard to block the American advance. As a result, the attack on the 7th met with greater success, though it was still harassed by artillery and mortar fire. The 78th Division reached Schmidt, an important junction on the road to the Schwammenauel Dam, by the end of the day, though an initial armored charge was thrown back by antitank fire. By nightfall the Americans had captured some houses on the outer limits of the town, which remained partly in German hands even as a US regiment charged through en route to the dam. The US Ninth Army—part of Montgomery’s 21st Army Group since the Battle of the Bulge—was scheduled to attack across the Roer on February 10. Only a few days remained to capture the Schwammenauel Dam and prevent it from flooding the Roer Valley before the Ninth Army could cross. Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges, commander of the First Army, in which the 78th Division now served, was losing patience, and he arrived to supervise the operation personally. With ample artillery support, he was puzzled that the First Army couldn’t “blast a road from our present front line positions straight to the dam.” The 9th Infantry was added to the fray, and its 60th Infantry Regiment was ready on February 9 to kick off the drive to the dam. The regiment and units of the 78th Division finally did reach the dam by day’s end. With midnight approaching, engineers inspected the dam for demolition charges. Under enemy rifle fire, they slid down the dam’s face to reach the bottom. There, they discovered that the Germans had already damaged the dam, crippling it enough that the Roer would flood for a longer period of time, making the crossing of the river a more difficult—but not impossible—proposition. Patton’s Probing Attacks WHILE THE 78TH WAS STILL MOVING toward the Scwammenauel Dam, Patton was already moving in directions of his own. Patton had used the leeway Bradley had accorded him to its maximum extent, and the Third Army’s VIII Corps had continued to advance without pause. Patton wanted Prüm and Bitburg, two important road junctions in the Eifel. In Allied hands, these would make a drive to the Rhine led by the Third Army all the more attractive to his superiors. The job of protecting the VIII Corps’s north flank fell to its 87th Infantry Division. It was an important task, considering that the First Army had not been given permission to go along with Patton’s probe and would therefore not be moving forward on the Third Army’s left, or northern, flank. The probe’s main thrust

TOP PATCH: RAMKAS COLLECTION. BOTTOM PATCH COURTESY OF THE JAMES L. KING FAMILY

to the RHINE!

by Éric Grenier

would be undertaken by the VIII Corps’s 4th and 90th Divisions. The advance would strike the boundary between the German Fifth Panzer and Seventh armies, adding to the challenges the depleted German forces already faced. Early on the morning of February 4, the 4th Division launched its attack across familiar terrain; the division had attempted to capture this sector of the Schnee Eifel back in September 1944. This time, success was total, and the division’s 8th Infantry Regiment took 128 prisoners on the first day at the cost of one casualty. The Germans put up stiffer resistance the next day, and artillery and mortar fire tormented the Americans as they cleared pillboxes in this sector of the West Wall one by one. But with tank support, the 4th Division still captured the junction of Brandschied in the afternoon with only light casualties. The next day, the Germans counterattacked with some 450 men, and fighting erupted in the village when the American front line was infiltrated. Reinforcements came up, however, and in two hours the counterattack was repulsed. More than 150 German soldiers were captured. The 90th Division joined the assault on February 6, meeting at first with the same success as the 4th Division and capturing German soldiers asleep at their posts. But the Germans put up greater resistance as the day wore on and kept the Americans pinned down. Mines prevented tanks from being brought up, and the attack stalled until a US 155mm gun began firing point-blank at the pillboxes. By the end of the day, the VIII Corps had penetrated the West Wall along a front stretching 11 miles. But the process of clearing the pillboxes was slow, and the corps made little progress on February 7. The next day, recognizing the seriousness of the advance, the Germans shifted their boundaries northward, giving the Seventh Army sole responsibility for the sector. The 2nd Panzer Division was released for use and reserves were pushed forward. Fighting picked up, particularly in the center where the 2nd Panzer had been deployed. Casualties rose. For the next three days, the Americans beat back German counterattacks and made slow advances against pillboxes and pockets of three to five German tanks each. But by February 10, the VIII Corps had reached the Prüm River. Now supply became an obstacle to further advances. Roads had been rendered virtually unusable by snow, thaw, and heavy traffic. Forward units of the VIII Corps had to be supplied by airdrops, and the attack halted at the river. But then German prisoners reported that the town of Prüm, along the river of the same name, was being evacuated. On the 11th, the Americans began fighting their way into Prüm, capturing the wrecked town the next day.

Above: While the US 78th “Lightning” Division (bottom patch) seized the Roer dams, the 4th “Ivy” Division (from the Roman numerals IV; top patch) helped blaze a route to the Rhine for General George Patton’s Third Army. Opposite, left: Patton’s advance was swift. By March 7, these infantrymen of his 4th Armored Division were only miles from the Rhine. Opposite, right: The Americans brushed aside remnants of German armies ruined in the Bulge, including reassigned servicemen fighting as infantry—men like this marine veteran captured in the Bulge in January. 30 AMERICA IN WWII

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NATIONAL ARCHIVES

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

While the VIII Corps was busy taking Prüm, Major General Manton Eddy’s XII Corps was advancing on Bitburg, to the south. The advance had begun on February 6, with the III Corps holding the line between the XII and VIII corps. A thaw made the terrain almost impassable and swelled the Sauer River.

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across the river, which would give him control over the surrounding area. He tapped the 5th Infantry Division to cross the Sauer and capture a hill less than a mile beyond the river’s banks. The 5th would then continue on to Bitburg, its flank protected by the 80th Division. The 5th Division’s mission sounded relatively simple at first, but on the night of February 6, the river rose. It was more than 150 feet across, and the current was strong enough to render the small rubber boats assigned for the crossing uncontrollable. Those who made it halfway across the river were then exposed to machine-gun and small-arms fire from the Germans defending the opposite bank. Only 16 men of the 5th Division made it across. DDY SET HIS SIGHTS ON HIGH GROUND

The 80th Division, which crossed two hours later, fired smoke shells at the riverbank as a diversion and made its crossings at other locations. The gambit worked, and within a day almost six companies of the 80th Division were on the east bank. Meanwhile, in the 5th Division’s sector, the 16 men who managed to cross formed the only American bridgehead. The next day, the 80th pushed forward and, near Echternach, thwarted a German counterattack supported by three tanks. But four attempts to bridge the Sauer failed, due to German fire and the strong current. During the night of the 7th and the next day, small groups of reinforcements were brought across the river, but an energetic German defense kept the American bridgehead cut off from supply until February 11. That day, the Americans finally managed to lay a bridge across the Sauer—after more than 10 failed attempts. The Americans expanded their bridgeheads, but the Germans, despite having no reserves and relying on the Volksgrenadiers, were able to bottle up the east bank’s bridgehead until February 17. On the 18th, the 80th Division renewed its attack, trying to AUGUST 2012

AMERICA IN WWII 31

to the RHINE! close the gap between the XII and VIII corps at Prüm. The German LIII and XIII corps defended the gap in difficult terrain around the village of Vianden. The German commanders wanted to withdraw from the bulge, but “Hitler, like a small child, refused to part with even a small portion of his toy, the West Wall,” spat Major General Rudolf Gersdorff of the Seventh Army in interview years later.

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80TH DIVISION MOVED to close the gap from the south, the 90th Infantry Division and the 11th and 6th Armored Divisions joined the attack from the north. The 90th and the 11th Armored made the best progress, capturing some 500 enemy soldiers by the end of the assault’s first day. They continued to roll up the Germans, and by day’s end on February 23, they were poised to join up with the 80th Division. Contact was made early on the morning of February 24. The HILE THE

by Éric Grenier

between them in the Eifel. Covering the Ninth Army’s advance to the Rhine, the VII Corps was already on the move. It jumped the Erft by the end of March 1. Major General Maurice Rose’s 3rd Armored Division and the 99th Infantry Division were to clear the territory north of Cologne before striking toward the city, the fourth largest in the Reich. Rose took off on March 2. Remnants of the 9th Panzer Division slowed his advance, but the open terrain provided no defensive positions, and the Germans could put up a fight only in scattered villages. In some places, the shattered pieces of the German army could do nothing to delay the American advance. The 8th and 104th Infantry Divisions, meanwhile, slowly advanced on Cologne directly from the west. And although the 3rd Armored had yet to reach the Rhine, Rose was ordered to send a contingent south toward Cologne to help the infantry. Early on March 4, the VII Corps reached the Rhine near BOTH PHOTOS: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Above, left: Cologne’s High Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Mary bears silent witness to its ruined city, captured by the US First Army’s VII Corps on March 6. The Americans had reached the Rhine, but as in other places, the city’s bridge had been destroyed. Above, right: The Yanks finally found an intact bridge at Remagen, which they captured on March 7. Here, German POWs carry a wounded comrade across the bridge.

entire gap-closing operation cost some 600 US casualties. About 3,000 Germans were captured. When the 5th Infantry and 4th Armored Divisions moved to capture Bitburg, resistance collapsed and Germans surrendered in droves. By February 26, they were abandoning Bitburg, and the town was captured two days later. The Rhine was but 50 miles away. Operation Lumberjack AFTER ADVANCING IN THE EIFEL and nipping off a persistent German salient in a triangular stretch of land between the Saar and Moselle rivers (known as the Saar-Moselle Triangle), Bradley’s drive to the Rhine could start in earnest. But before he could focus on his own offensive, he had to support the Ninth Army in Montgomery’s sector to the north by capturing the territory between the Erft and Rhine rivers north of Cologne. After doing so, the First Army could move southeast toward the Rhine, and Patton’s Third Army could move northeast toward Koblenz. If all went well, the two armies might trap a pocket of Germans 32 AMERICA IN WWII

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Worringen, north of Cologne. Germans in the sector pulled back, and the Wehrmacht troops protecting the confluence of the Erft and Rhine crossed the river on the 5th. The assault on Cologne began that same day. General Friedrich Koechling, commander of the German LXXXI Corps, had little more than two regiments forming an outer defensive ring around the city. Inside, any able-bodied men who could be found, young or old, put together a shaky inner ring. The 3rd Armored broke through these rings after dawn and by the end of the next day was driving into the center of the city. Cologne’s Hohenzollern Bridge across the Rhine, however, had already been destroyed by the retreating German forces to stop the Americans from crossing. South of Cologne, the III Corps was to advance to the Rhine through Euskirchen and on to Ahrweiler, to meet up with the Third Army. From there, the III Corps would work with the VII Corps in the north to clear the Rhine’s west bank. After crossing the flooded Roer at the end of February, the III Corps’s 9th Armored Division, under Major General John

PHOTO BY T/5 EDWARD A. NORBUTH. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

The 4th Armored, meanwhile, made remarkable progress. The Leonard, struck boldly for Euskirchen. By March 2, and with suptanks crossed the Kyll after the 87th Division cleared the way. port from other units of the corps, the advance was moving Once across, the unit drove northward, rolling up the German smoothly. The German defense, led by the 3rd Parachute Division, defenders along the river and traversing 12 miles on the first day. was smashed, and the Germans could barely maintain contact At Oberstadtfeld, on March 6, the division turned to the northeast with adjacent units, let alone slow the American steamroller. So and headed for the Rhine. successful was the III Corps that Bradley gave it the responsibility The straggling American infantry had trouble keeping up with of clearing the west bank up to Cologne on its own. the armor, but it wasn’t due to enemy resistance; Germans were The rest of the III Corps targeted the Rhine at Bonn and the Ahr surrendering by the hundreds. Instead, it was the muck of the River to the south. The 1st Infantry Division was to capture Bonn, roads that posed the greatest obstacle. The commander of the and the 9th was to head to Bad Godesberg south of Bonn. The 9th German LIII Corps, General Edwin von Rothkirch, was captured Armored, meanwhile, rolled toward Sinzig and Remagen, and the when he mistook a column of German prisoners for one of his 78th Infantry Division marched against Ahrweiler on the Ahr units. His replacement, General Walther River. The III Corps units would reach all Bosch, was rushed to take over, so rushed of these objectives in a matter of days. that he was unable to brief the man who General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen, took over his responsibilities: the defense commander of the German Fifteenth of Bonn and the bridge at Remagen. Army, saw that the American advance The 4th Armored covered almost 14 exposed the town of Remagen, where a miles on March 6. The 11th Armored bridge spanning the Rhine provided vital was making headway, too, advancing 11 supplies to the German forces west of the miles past the Kyll on the 7th. The 4th river. Zangen wanted to reinforce the Armored, meanwhile, made a virtually approaches to Remagen, but he was uninterrupted advance through Kaiserrebuffed by his superior—Field Marshal sesch and Kehrig and by the end of the Walther Model, commander of Army day sat three miles from the Rhine. At the Group B—who saw Bonn, not Remagen, cost of 121 casualties, the division had as the focus of the Allied attack. Model taken 5,000 prisoners and inflicted some was also respecting Hitler’s orders to 700 casualties during its successful drive stand fast, even though the head of the to the Rhine. German Army Command in the West, From Koblenz in the Third Army’s sector Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, disto Cologne in the First Army’s, the agreed. “[Rundstedt] wants to run away American forces had reached the Rhine. The and cross the Rhine,” Hitler said during a Germans had lost roughly 300,000 men as situation report on March 2. “I would prisoners and at least 60,000 killed or only go as far as the Western Wall at wounded in the fighting west of the river— first…he should hold the Western Wall as men who would have been better used long as humanly possible.” defending the river or on the eastern front. But there was little the Germans could The Germans managed to blow up do to stop the Americans. Patton planned about a dozen bridges across the Rhine to attack south of Trier and to support the A GI of the 78th Division’s 309th Infantry before the Americans could capture them. First Army’s advance to the Rhine. But he Regiment is silhouetted by an anti-aircraft But at Remagen the First Army’s 9th also planned an aggressive forward searchlight as he stands guard duty along the Armored Division captured the Ludenthrust. After his VIII and XII Corps had Rhine on March 17, 1945. The last major dorff Bridge intact on March 7 after travcrossed the Kyll River, two armored diviobstacle protecting Nazi Germany was now eling through villages bedecked with white sions would race to the Rhine along main in American hands. flags. The Americans now had their Rhine roads, leaving the ground behind them to bridge, and they raced across into the German heartland. be covered by artillery and the air forces. The 11th Armored of The capture of the Remagen bridge changed the complexion of Patton’s VIII Corps would head for Brohl via the highway passing the Allied plans for crossing the Rhine. The unexpected prize put through Gerolstein and Kelberg, while the XII Corps’s 4th the Americans over the river before Montgomery’s major crossing Armored would advance on Andernach just north of Koblenz. in the north and Patton’s in the south. The last barrier between After Patton’s infantry punched a hole through enemy lines east central Germany and the western Allies had been breached. The of Prüm, tanks of the 11th Armored attacked on March 3. The end of the Third Reich was at hand. A tanks penetrated only two miles by the afternoon, however, due primarily to the chaos of having to cross through infantry lines. Still, by March 6, the 11th Armored had a small bridgehead over ÉRIC GRENIER of Ottawa, Canada, has written for America in the Kyll. The next day, the division shook loose and plodded WWII about the Battle of El Guettar, the reduction of the Ruhr toward Kelberg. Pocket, and the 505th Regimental Combat Team’s assault on Sicily. AUGUST 2012

AMERICA IN WWII 33

dress rehearsal for

WAR The time to act was near, and the US Army needed practice. So 350,000 soldiers went into ‘battle’ in the Bayou State. by Michael Edwards

A

dress rehearsal for

WAR

by Michael Edwards

ST. CHARLES AVENUE in New Orleans sits Christ Church Cathedral. This beautiful church is often viewed by tourists as they ride in one of the iconic “N’awlins” streetcars. One item of interest within the church is a crypt containing the remains of the Fighting Bishop of the Confederacy, Leonidas K. Polk. Before the Civil War, Polk was a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. When the war broke out, however, the bishop, who was a West Point graduate, served as a general in the Confederate States Army. He was killed in action by Union artillery fire during the 1864 Atlanta campaign.

ALL PHOTOS THIS STORY: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

LONG THE WORLD - FAMOUS

It was for this warrior churchman that Camp Polk (today’s Fort Polk), in central Louisiana’s Vernon Parish, was named. Camp Polk was a massive combat training center created for a single purpose: to get the US Army ready for a fast-approaching war that would be very unlike the American Civil War, a war that would be fought on foreign shores. It was at Camp Polk in 1941 that American officers and GIs gathered to join in a sprawling simulated war that went down in history as the 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers or sometimes even as the Great Louisiana Maneuvers. In those war games, a small and backward US Army would expand, train, and transform itself into a world-class modern fighting force capable of leading the Allies to victory over the Axis powers. Dwight D. Eisenhower, future general and supreme Allied commander in World War II’s European theater, would get his first taste of fame in those maneuvers, serving as a colonel and chief of staff for Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, commander of the US Third Army and the Southern Defense Command. Writing in Crusade in Europe, his 1948 memoir of World War II, Eisenhower joked about how, back in Louisiana in 1941, press exposure was still a new experience for him. One photo caption, he noted, listed him as “Lt. Col. D.D. Ersenbeing.” In a very short time not only Eisenhower but also several other participants in the Louisiana Maneuvers would rocket to worldwide fame as WWII generals—men such as George S. Patton, Jr., Mark Clark, Omar Bradley, J. Lawton Collins, and Manton Eddy. The 1941 maneuvers sprang from roots that stretched back to 1939. On September 1 that year, two events occurred. The first, the Nazi invasion of Poland, set the world on the path to global conflict. The second, the appointment of General George C. Marshall as chief of staff of the US Army, paved the way for the reorganization and rebirth of the American ground-and-air combat force to meet the demands of the new war. While serving in the American Expeditionary Forces in the Great War (renamed World War I after the onset of a second global war), Marshall acted as chief of staff for General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of the US forces. From this experience Marshall learned the difficult art of building an effective army from almost nothing.

Even in 1939, as the imperial Japanese forces rampaged in China and Nazi Germany threatened to plunge Europe back into war, the US Army remained almost impotent. The army consisted of less than 200,000 troops, many of whom served in overseas garrisons. The National Guard was even leaner, with only enough men to keep it alive on paper. The invasion of Poland finally shook America out of its lethargy. The blitzkrieg tactics of the Wehrmacht, Germany’s army, shocked the world, and this rapid new form of warfare sent a rude awakening to the American armed forces. The country still suffered from the Depression, and money was tight, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared a national emergency, and Congress allowed increases in military personnel and funding. At the same time, Marshall ordered a sweeping transformation of the Regular Army. This professional core of the US Army reorganized its divisions from socalled square divisions, each consisting of four infantry battalions plus all service and support units, to triangular divisions with three battalions each. The square division was a holdover from World War I, a heavy, ponderous formation built for the attritional warfare of the trenches. But trench warfare was now a thing of the past. The triangular division was leaner and, Marshall hoped, more mobile—an important consideration for an army moving toward greater and greater mechanization. Marshall’s agenda for change extended not only to unit structure, but also to the adoption of new kinds of units and tactics. For instance, one outcome of the 1940 Louisiana Maneuvers (a smaller prelude to the 1941 exercises) was the establishment of an independent armored force headquartered at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Gone would be the piecemeal use of tanks as mere extensions of the infantry and cavalry. The growth of the army air corps added another new dimension to warfare, as did the introduction of the semi-automatic M1 Garand to replace the venerable bolt-action M1903 Springfield as the standard infantry rifle. Even the Tommy helmet of First World War fame was replaced by the iconic steel pot, the M1 Helmet. The US Army experienced many growing pains in a short amount of time.

Previous spread: M2 light tanks trundle across a cornfield during the massive 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers. The maneuvers pitted the Second (Red) Army against the Third (Blue) Army to prepare US forces for war. Above: Helping the Red Army defend Shreveport, Louisiana, in the exercises’ phase two, men of Battery E, 61st Coastal Artillery (Anti-Aircraft), man a rooftop gun. Opposite: M2 medium tanks kick up dust in rural Louisiana. 36 AMERICA IN WWII

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The plans drawn up by the War Department in the years leading up to US involvement World War II—roughly speaking, a more modern version of Civil War general and career officer Emory Upton’s “expansible army”—sought to produce a small but well-trained force drawn from the Regular Army and the National Guard to hold the line until larger forces could be trained and deployed. During the war games of 1940, however, the National Guard, long thought to be the nation’s best line of defense to augment the Regular Army, was found to be even more moribund, inadequately equipped, and out of shape mentally and physically than the US Army. News correspondents reporting on guard summer encampments filed stories and photographs that brought home the lack of preparation for modern war in the nation’s ground forces. Weapons ranged from anti-aircraft guns made from pipe, side arms substituting for machine guns, and jeeps and trucks playing tanks. Shortly after the maneuvers concluded late in the late summer of 1940, Congress passed the nation’s first peacetime draft, the Selective Service Act of 1940, authorizing the conscription of a million men. This was in addition to the War Department’s retention of active-duty soldiers and National Guardsmen for one year’s service. Such a massive influx of men presented a serious challenge to the army’s infrastructure. To manage this growth, the War Department activated the General Headquarters (GHQ). Major General Lesley J. McNair—the “brains of the army,” in Marshall’s estimation—took command of GHQ, accepting the task of training the new army. Soon, GHQ sent directives alerting army commands to prepare for corps-against-corps maneuvers

sometime before the summer of 1941. Once this objective was accomplished, the next mission would be army-against-army maneuvers late that summer. Those would be a showdown between the Second Army and the Third Army. The contest would play out across western and central Louisiana and east Texas. GHQ required lots for room for sharpening the army’s fighting skills. The allotted area started at more than 3,000 square miles but grew to 30,000 by the time maneuvers began in September. With war clouds looming ever larger, both Texas and Louisiana worked with the army to smooth over land acquisition and foster good relations with the civilians living within the training areas of both states.

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SECOND ARMY (called the Red Army) and the Third Army (the Blue Army) would have to contend with the massive logistical problems of equipping, arming, and positioning units of a size not seen since World War I. They would have to deal with shortages. And all the while, they would be wrestling with new ideas and weapons. Both were training armies, and both were commanded by seasoned WWI veterans. The Second Army, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, was led by Lieutenant General Ben Lear. The Third Army, based at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, was under Lieutenant General Walter Krueger. This army would achieve great fame in Europe under the leadership of General George S. Patton, Jr. The 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers were divided into two phases. The first, to begin on September 15, would focus on a Red Army invasion of Blue territory. In the second, the Blue Army would be the aggressor. The city of Shreveport in northwest Louisiana AUGUST 2012

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dress rehearsal for

would serve as a northern boundary, with the western and eastern boundaries fixed by the Sabine and Red rivers. The southern border was Camp Polk in Leesville, Louisiana, and it was there that GHQ made its headquarters. The war games would see the debut of a new tactical element for the US Army, the independent armored force, embodied in the 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions. Both were attached to the Red Army. Awaiting them were the anti-tank defenses of Blue Army. Added to the operational mix were air groups attached to each army, with navy and marine air assets on loan courtesy of Admiral Harold R. Stark, chief of naval operations. Stark declined an invitation to allow the 1st Marine Corps Division to participate, because he believed the marines needed to concentrate on amphibious training. An added novelty for the two armies was the inclusion of one company of the 502nd Parachute Battalion (a lack of transport aircraft negated any larger commitment of the unit’s assets). This new mix of forces posed new challenges for unit commanders, who now had to control not only large groups of infantry, but also cavalry units, tanks, anti-tank forces, and all the various service and support elements. On top of all that, there was

WAR

by Michael Edwards

the press to contend with. Marshall made sure reporters were on hand to highlight the army’s shortcomings and, he hoped, to shock the nation into even greater action preparing for war. During phase one—“The Battle of the Red River”—Lear’s Red Army was to move from eastern Louisiana and cross the Red River to invade Blue Army territory. On paper the Blue Army was larger, with approximately 215,000 men to the Red Army’s roughly 130,000. But the Red Army possessed the 1st Armored Division of Major General Bruce Magruder and the 2nd Armored Division under the command of Patton, then a major general. Despite the armored advantage, Lear lacked sufficient bridging equipment to get so large a mechanized force across the Red River. He had to send his armored divisions up and to the northwest on a long flanking maneuver. Eisenhower had anticipated this and sent Blue Army forces to meet this threat.

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OWARD THE WEST,

Blue Army forces moved forward and captured the central Louisiana city of Alexandria, while “fighting” raged in eastern Louisiana around Mt. Carmel in Sabine Parish. The two armies bogged down near Alexandria, and the

Above: Before the main army-against-army maneuvers, the armies held corps-versus-corps war games. Here, during Third Army exercises, planes roar over gun crews in Castor, Louisiana. Opposite, top: At 3rd Interceptor Command headquarters during Third Army games, staff members mark reported enemy plane positions on a plotting table. Opposite, inset: Tanks of the 2nd Armored Division clatter down a Louisiana road. 38 AMERICA IN WWII

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Red Army’s wide armor sweep, successful at first, was eventually stopped by Blue anti-tank defenses. Overhead, aircraft from both armies dove and swooped, dropping “bombs” of bagged white sand and flour on opposing forces. McNair pulled the plug on the maneuvers’ phase one on September 19. His criticisms covered poor coordination among units, lack of reconnaissance, failure to properly use artillery assets, and poor planning. Phase two of the Louisiana Maneuvers started after a short period of reorganization. This time, the Blue Army—consisting of the IV, V, and VIII corps, with Patton’s 2nd Armored—would be the aggressor advancing against a numerically inferior Red Army, charged with defending Shreveport. In accordance with his orders to simply defend the city, Lear opted for a series of defensive positions that bought time with space. Krueger would move forward, pressing hard against the Red positions in hopes of finding a crack in the line—a weakness that armor and mechanized infantry could exploit. The maneuvers started at noon on September 24 with Blue troops moving forward. Red engineers blew up every bridge they could, greatly frustrating the Blue advance. The undermanned Blue engineers, meanwhile, were finding it very difficult to repair demolished bridges. Red air units took a punishing toll on the Blue traffic jams.

So went phase one. Phase two was marked by Lear’s reluctance to engage the enemy, and McNair’s frustration with him. Finally, pressured by his own staff and GHQ, Lear ordered the Red Army to stand and fight. By this time, however, Krueger, with Eisenhower doing the fine tuning, had ordered the armor to make an end run through Texas, flanking the Red Army. The Red Army was finally pinned, and the pressure, especially around the city of Mansfield, was intense. McNair called a halt to the maneuvers. There were other war games in 1941, including exercises in Tennessee and the Carolinas, but the Louisiana Maneuvers were the largest. Marshall had wanted the US Army to experience “war” as realistically as possible. He had wanted further proof that some of the senior commanders needed to be replaced. And he had wanted the American public to see that their country’s ground forces—though now larger and possessing some field experience—were still a long way from being able to meet the Imperial Japanese army or the Wehrmacht on level ground. Such knowledge would help the public accept the need for greater military funding. A MICHAEL EDWARDS is project coordinator at the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. AUGUST 2012

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INFERNO IN PARADISE A thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians packed Boston’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub on November 28, 1942. By night’s end, half of them were dead. by Chuck Lyons

BOSTON FIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, BOSTONFIREHISTORY.ORG

INFERNO

IN PARADISE

by Chuck Lyons

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COCOANUT GROVE WAS HOPPING on the night of November 28, 1942. About a thousand people were crammed into the popular Boston nightclub. The crowd was a cross-section of wartime Beantown: soldiers and sailors on leave, couples on dates, celebrities, football fans who had attended that day’s Holy Cross–Boston College game, and others celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, and promotions. Before the night was over, 492 of them were dead. HE

club was through a revolving door on the Piedmont Street side of the building. Altogether, the club’s various rooms could hold about 600 people—at least that was the legal capacity. The crowd far exceeded that limit on the night of the fire, though the precise number of patrons is unknown. The king of the Cocoanut Grove was owner Barnet “Barney” Welansky. He was a tough boss, and rumor had it he hired street thugs to work as waiters and bouncers. Worse, he had some exterior doors bolted shut and even bricked up one doorway when he realized some customers were using these exits to sneak out without paying. On the night of the fire, Welansky was in Massachusetts General Hospital, recovering from a heart attack. Many of the fire’s victims would be rushed to that same hospital. The fire began in the newly opened Melody Lounge. The Boston Fire Department had inspected the lounge only days earlier and certified that it met all fire regulations. The inspectors’ report pointed out that while conducting the inspection, a fire department lieutenant had touched a match to the room’s paper decorations and determined they would not burn. The report also noted that there was “a sufficient number of exits and fire extinguishers.” Despite passing the fire inspection, the Melody Lounge was still operating illegally. Welansky had not obtained a certificate of operation for the lounge from the city’s building inspection division. It has never been determined whether he didn’t understand

Previous spread: Morning lights the Cocoanut Grove after the deadliest nightclub fire in US history. Above, top: A matchbook reflects the tropical paradise motif that helped make the club a Boston hotspot. Above, center: Smoke pours from the building as rescuers work outside. 42 AMERICA IN WWII

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PREVIOUS SPREAD & LEFT: BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, PRINT DEPARTMENT

The fire that raged through the Cocoanut Grove that night lasted only 12 minutes. But it was the deadliest nightclub fire and the second-worst single-building fire in American history. One Boston firefighter later described how bodies were stacked against the door to the club’s Shawmut Street exit. He showed his family the scratches on his legs “where people had clawed (at him) to pull them out.” The death toll shocked the nation and briefly bumped the war from the main headlines of the country’s newspapers. The Cocoanut Grove was considered Boston’s top nightspot from the end of Prohibition in December 1933 into the early war years. The one-and-a-half-story building at 17 Piedmont Street that housed the club had been constructed in 1916 and had been a warehouse, a garage, and a Prohibition-era speakeasy. By wartime it had become a collection of dining rooms, barrooms, and lounges, each offering food, drinks, and dancing in a South Seas island décor, in an indoor tropical paradise of artificial palm trees and lots of rattan and bamboo. In the basement was a new bar called the Melody Lounge, along with the kitchen, freezers, and storage areas. The ground floor had a large dining room, a ballroom with a bandstand, and several bar areas, including the Broadway Lounge, which had recently been opened after several adjacent buildings were renovated and added to the club. The dining room even had a retractable roof that allowed a view of the moon and stars during warm weather. The main entrance to the

BOSTON FIR E HISTORIC AL SOCIET Y

BOSTON FIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, BOSTONFIREHISTORY.ORG

Top to bottom: A first-level floor plan locates the Broadway Lounge (cocktail lounge), ballroom (dance floor), and main dining room; the wine list graphics play up the tropical theme; Goody Goodelle was performing in the basement Melody Lounge when the fire broke out there; Westerns star Buck Jones died from burns and smoke inhalation.

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that the certificate was required or simply decided not to bother obtaining one. The fire started around 10:15 P.M., while pianist and singer Goody Goodelle was performing on the Melody Lounge’s revolving stage. In the fire’s aftermath, most people believed the blaze began after someone loosened a lightbulb among the lounge’s palm tree decorations, probably to provide some privacy for romance. Stanley Tomaszewski, a 16-year-old busboy working at the club illegally, was told to retighten the bulb, but as he attempted to do so, it fell and broke. After returning with a replacement, he struck a match so he could find the socket in the dark. One eyewitness said Tomaszewski blew out the match after screwing in the bulb and the match never came in contact with the decorative palm tree fronds. A second eyewitness, however, claimed that the match burned down to the boy’s fingers, causing him to drop it, and it fell among the fronds. Whatever actually happened, a moment later several patrons thought they saw a flicker of flame in the lounge’s palm tree ceiling decorations. As they watched, they saw the decorations change color and burst into flame. Bartenders tried to extinguish the fire with water and the spray from seltzer bottles while some club patrons started

for the only public exit from the Melody Lounge, a four-foot-wide set of stairs leading up to the ground floor. As other furnishings ignited, a ball of flame and toxic gas formed and raced across the room toward the stairs. A wild panic swept through the crowd as the fireball traveled up the stairs and burst into the foyer area, where coatrooms, restrooms, and the main entrance were located. “There was a flash,” bartender John Bradley later testified. “Fire ran right across the ceiling. Smoke hit me in the face. I put my hands to my head and my hair was ablaze.” Another survivor said the “air itself appeared to be on fire.” Upstairs, club patrons in the dining area were unaware of what was happening. Then a young girl ran screaming across the foyer with her hair on fire. AUGUST 2012

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INFERNO

IN PARADISE

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NCE THE LIGHTS WENT OUT,

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it was pitch black, recounted Dr. Saul Davis (who died at age 89 in 2008, the fire’s last known survivor). There was a “cloud of thick black smoke and people were yelling and screaming and running. You could hear tables being thrown over, dishes breaking, and people running and not knowing where to run, bumping into each other.” Some survivors from the upstairs level described how a club employee in a gray suit and a hatcheck girl continued to demand that patrons not leave without settling their checks and paying to retrieve their coats. Many of the club’s patrons tried to flee through the main entrance, the single revolving door. The door jammed quickly as people piled into it. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they had to dismantle the door to get into the building. They found nearly 200 people dead in heaps behind it. City building commissioner James Mooney later said he could see how people had fought one another in their panic to get out. “Many of the bodies were actually torn apart.” Other exits were useless. There were the bolted side doors. A plate-glass window, which could have been smashed for escape, was boarded up. Some unlocked doors were unusable because they opened inward. Such was the case in the Broadway Lounge, where panicked patrons pushed against the doors in vain and piled up in front of them. A few blocks from the club, fire crews were fighting an automobile fire when they spotted smoke at the Cocoanut Grove. They were among the first emergency personnel to arrive at the scene, which eventually involved 187 firefighters, 26 engine com-

panies, 5 ladder companies, 3 rescue companies, and 1 water tower. Servicemen came from nearby bars to help. Ambulances arrived from surrounding jurisdictions such as Newton and Brookline and from the Charlestown Navy Yard and the Chelsea Navy Hospital. Parcel-delivery trucks were pressed into service to transport victims. Fire equipment and other emergency vehicles clogged the small, congested streets around the club. Martial law was imposed on the entire area around 1:35 A.M. It may have prevented hooliganism and looting, but it didn’t help with the falling temperature. Water used in the firefighting effort turned to ice on the cobblestone streets and glued hoses to the ground. The firefighters pressed on, knocking down the flames and spraying icy water on dead and living victims who were dragged smoldering out of the club. Once the fire was extinguished, rescuers entered the building. They found several victims dead, still sitting in their seats with drinks in their hands, and a dead bartender still standing behind his bar. One firefighter reported finding the body of a woman wearing a fur coat inside a phone booth. It appeared that she was trying to make a phone call when the smoke overcame her, killing her on her feet. The nickel meant for the pay phone was lying on the floor of the booth, the firefighter said. Among the dead were a couple married that day in nearby Cambridge and more than 50 military men. One family lost all four of its GI sons, who were home on holiday leave. Also killed was famous movie cowboy Buck Jones, who had been traveling the country on a war bond campaign. He had attended the Boston College–Holy Cross football game with Boston’s mayor, Maurice Tobin, earlier in the day. Even though Jones was fighting a cold, agents had persuaded him to have dinner that evening at the Cocoanut Grove. The outcome of the football game Jones had attended that day actually saved lives. Boston College, ranked number one in the country, had lost to unranked rival Holy Cross 55-12. The college had canceled what was supposed to have been a victory party at the Cocoanut Grove, unwittingly keeping many people from becoming fire casualties. About half the patrons inside the Cocoanut Grove did survive. T ARTMEN INT DEP ARY, PR IC LIBR N PUBL BOSTO

The fireball—or what other witnesses described as “a great wave” of flames—then exploded into the dining room area, where a majority of the club-goers were crowded around tables awaiting the start of the 10 P.M. floor show, already 15 minutes late. Smoke swirled through hallways, and blazing draperies fell, setting people’s clothes and hair on fire. The lights went out. Some customers huddled under tables. Others were trampled to death in the panic. The patrons in the Broadway Lounge were last to know of the fire. They were alerted that something was happening when occupants of the dining area rushed in seeking an exit. The smoke, heat, and fumes followed on their heels.

by Chuck Lyons

Above, top and center: The now-burned-out ballroom and dining room was filled and hopping on the night of the fire. Above and opposite, bottom: The street-level Broadway Lounge was also filled. Patrons there found out about the blaze only when diners and dancers came running in from the ballroom in a desperate search for an exit. 44 AMERICA IN WWII

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BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, PRINT DEPARTMENT

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, PRINT DEPARTMENT BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, PRINT DEPARTMENT

Above, left: Soldiers and sailors on leave and dancing or dining in the club or elsewhere in the neighborhood were among the able-bodied who joined in the rescue effort. Above, right: The following day sailors survey the damage in the daylight.

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INFERNO

IN PARADISE

Five found refuge in a walk-in refrigerator. Bartender Daniel Weiss and pianist Goodelle soaked cloth napkins in water and breathed through them until they found their way out. They and several employees managed to escape by crawling through a kitchen window. Dr. Davis and his wife also escaped through a kitchen window. Once outside the building, Davis said, they were both “coughing and throwing up black soot. It was terrible.” US Coast Guard Petty Officer Clifford Johnson was credited with going back into the club four times to rescue people. Johnson suffered third-degree burns over more than half his body and spent

by Chuck Lyons

Square garage. Long lines formed at the two makeshift mortuaries as families came searching for loved ones. Some bodies were hardly touched by the fire and were still attired in their formal wear, while others were unrecognizable and were covered with blankets. Four days passed before all the victims were identified. A Boston city councilman later charged that some of the bodies had been robbed of cash, wallets, watches, and rings worth some $3,800, though how he arrived at that figure remains a mystery. Barney Welansky, the club owner who had bragged about his connections with politicians and organized crime figures, was

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, PRINT DEPARTMENT

Boston policemen guard an entrance to the club to keep out looters and any others who may have had questionable intentions, as well as the merely curious passerby who could get injured exploring the charred and debris-filled interior.

21 months in the hospital before marrying one of his nurses, Marion Donovan, and returning home to Missouri. At the time, Johnson was the most severely burned person ever to survive. In a tragic irony, he died years later in a fiery automobile crash. Marshall Cook, a chorus member from South Boston, led eight girls from the chorus and others to an adjoining roof that led out of the second-floor dressing room. They descended from there on a ladder, but still had to make a six-foot drop to the ground. Thirty-five people escaped this way. The dead were taken to temporary morgues at the Film Exchange Transfer Company on Shawmut Street and at the Park 46 AMERICA IN WWII

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eventually convicted on 19 counts of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison. After serving four years, he was diagnosed with cancer and was pardoned by the governor, Maurice Tobin, who in 1945 had left his post as Boston’s mayor for the higher office. “I wish I’d died with the others in the fire,” Welansky said upon his release. He died nine weeks later. Stanely Tomaszewski, the busboy whose quickly lit match might have started the fire, survived and testified at the official inquiry. But Tomaszewski (who lived until 1994) was cleared of any responsibility for the tragedy. The official investigation of the blaze listed the cause as unknown.

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, PRINT DEPARTMENT

Family members of club patrons presumed killed on site in the fire line up at Boston’s Suffolk County North Mortuary the next day to identify bodies.

Speculation and investigation into the origin of the fire continue to the present day. Theorists have suggested faulty wiring and careless smoking, and because America was at war at the time of the fire, sabotage was investigated. None of these hypotheses was ever proved. In 1997, former Boston firefighter Charles Kenney reexamined the incident and concluded that the presence of methyl chloride, a highly flammable gas propellant used in refrigeration systems, had greatly contributed to the fire’s rapid spread, regardless of what had started it. (During the war, there was a shortage of the refrigerant Freon, and methyl chloride was used as a replacement.)

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from the Cocoanut Grove fire, and soon Massachusetts and other states enacted laws for public establishments. Flammable decorations and inward-swinging exit doors were banned. Exit signs had to be visible at all times. Revolving doors had to be flanked by at least ARD LESSONS WERE LEARNED

one normal, outward-swinging door or be retrofitted to permit the doors to fold flat. Under no circumstances was any emergency exit to be chained or bolted shut. Some good surfaced after the tragedy, too. New ways of caring for burn and smoke-inhalation victims were developed. Boston psychiatrist Erich Lindemann studied the grieving process of many families of the dead and published a groundbreaking paper on the subject in September 1943. Some of the earliest research into posttraumatic stress disorder was done. Today a plaque embedded in the sidewalk where victims were brought out of the building reads “In memory of the more than 490 people that died in the Cocoanut Grove Fire on November 28 1942.” The spot where the club stood is a parking lot. A CHUCK LYONS of Rochester, New York, has written about the accidental bombing of an Oklahoma town and the wartime Kilroy fad in previous issues of America in WWII. AUGUST 2012

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A I WAS THERE

His and Her War

LL AND SY OF BI COURTE

AMERICA IN WWII COLLECTION

K E SMENTE IRMA LE

Bill and Irma Lee Smentek. Interviewed by T.W. Burger

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of our recent special issue Home Front Life, we received a message from the family of Irma Lee Smentek. Irma Lee was the woman who appeared on the cover, painting a star on an airplane wing at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas in August 1942. At the time that photo was taken, it turns out, she was 19 years old, married to an HORTLY AFTER THE PUBLICATION

army pilot, and mother to an infant son. Months later, she was made a war widow when her husband’s plane crashed into a mountain in bad weather. She moved with her son to her mother’s place in San Angelo, and before long she met a young GI named Bill Smentek at the army air forces base Goodfellow Field. They wed near the end of the war and are still married and living in

Chicago native Bill Smentek was a US Army Air Forces cadet when this photo was taken in 1944. He didn’t yet know Irma Lee McElroy, the civilian employee of the navy who was featured on the cover of America in WWII’s Spring 2012 special issue Home Front Life.

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A AMERICA IN WWII FLASHBACK

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A Texas. They told us they wanted to talk with us about their war experiences. This is their story. America in WWII: Bill, let’s start with you. Where did you start out? Bill: I was born in Chicago in 1922. I attended Lane Technical High School in Chicago. I graduated in 1940 and enlisted in the army air corps as a private in March of 1941, the 23rd, I think. After basic I became a welding instructor at Chanute Field [at the Chanute Technical Training

I WAS THERE

Not only that, but as a recruit, I got $21 a month for the first year. Draftees got $19, so that was a whole nother $200 a year. America in WWII: That doesn’t sound like a lot of money to live on. Bill: It was pretty rough in those days, especially after we were married. I was

Bill: I had already been welding for a while when I got to Chanute, so they made me an instructor. I could have stayed there until I retired, as part of the army’s training command. I think some of the guys did just that. But I had always wanted to fly. They took us up in a Piper Cub [light training plane] for 10 hours total just to be sure we wouldn’t get airsick when we had to go up and check out the planes. But I really wanted to fly. As far as welding was concerned, I taught them how to lay a bead on steel and how to

COURTESY OF BILL AND IRMA LEE SMENTEK

Before getting the chance to earn his wings, Bill Smentek toughed out three years of uninspiring work as an army welding instructor. Here he is in 1943 at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois, looking a bit like the pilot he wanted to be.

Center, in Rantoul, Illinois]. I joined up because all my friends were being drafted. Well, a couple of them joined, but most of them were drafted. They were being picked up right and left, so I figured it was only a matter of time. So I got the jump on them. America in WWII: Were there any incentives to joining as opposed to waiting for the draft? Bill: Oh, yes. I signed up partly because if you joined, they were pretty good about letting you choose what you wanted to do and where you wanted to go. If you were drafted, they handed you a rifle and you went to fight in the Pacific or in Europe. 50 AMERICA IN WWII

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making $180 a month then, and Irma Lee had a child from her first marriage. Everything was rationed, and we were sweating out getting things like a car and tires—everything, really. People today can’t really put themselves in that position, where everyone in the country was saving things. It was the biggest recycling program the country ever had. We were saving everything, tin cans and glass, you name it. It was an all-out effort for the whole country. There were a lot of Victory Gardens, and neighbors would grow different things and then shared what they grew. America in WWII: What about your work teaching people to weld?

weld aluminum. It’s a matter of practice and practice and practice, welding pieces together to get the right bead and penetration. There was a lot of welding to do, but not really so much on airplanes. Sure, if you wound up on an island somewhere with a cracked motor mount, you patch it up enough to get it to a regular repair facility. The planes back then were held together mostly with rivets. In the old days, planes like the Cub had a tubular frame with cloth around it. You could weld there. America in WWII: So the whole time you were there teaching recruits how to weld and that sort of thing, you were looking to become a pilot eventually?

Bill: Yes, I spent three years as a welding instructor and things like that. I became a staff sergeant, and I also took the written exams for pilot training. I couldn’t go as a cadet because I had not had the required two years of college, so I went in as a student pilot and became a pilot training instructor and check pilot [who certifies that trainees have met certain pilot license requirements]. America in WWII: While you were studying to become an officer and pilot, did you continue to train welders? Bill: No, I had to leave Chanute to do those things. I went into the cadet program as an aviation student, and they sent me to get a little bit of college to prepare for some of the exams, mostly to help in the writing of letters, vocabulary, things like that. We went through all the training in East St. Louis, Missouri. We lived in tents in subfreezing weather. It was pretty rough in those days, stuff that the sheriff in Arizona [did] that everybody is yelling about, sticking prisoners in tents and things like that. [The sheriff is Joseph Arpaio, chief of police and prisons for Maricopa County. Known as “America’s toughest sheriff,” he expanded the county jail with open-air facilities dubbed “tent city.”] In those days they could do that to soldiers and nobody said anything. When they wanted to test vaccines and drugs, they would just line us up and give them to us. Nobody asked our permission or told us what was going on. They just did it. America in WWII: You said that you took your early training at the then-new Goodfellow Field, later Goodfellow Air Force Base, at San Angelo, Texas. That is where you met Irma Lee? Bill: Yes, that’s where we met. She was living there with her mother. We were married in San Angelo, as well. Irma Lee: The war was still going on when we got married. But he got his wings and his commission right at the time Japan surrendered [officially, September 2, 1945]. So he missed action in the war. He was a little disappointed, but not too much. He stayed in the military 20 years. America in WWII: Irma Lee, what were

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A you doing when the United States entered the world war? Irma Lee: The day Pearl Harbor was bombed, nobody had an idea where Pearl Harbor was. I was dating a cadet, and the radio announced that all personnel had to return to the air base right away. After that, everything was different. America in WWII: Where were you before you met Bill? Irma Lee: I was born in Ozona, Texas, in December of 1922. In the lead-up to the war, I was living in Corpus Christi, working as a civilian employee of the navy at the naval air station. I worked in a big hangar, building and repairing aircraft wings. The navy was still using a lot of aircraft with fabric spread over wooden frames, and those are what we worked on. I was just out of high school. I had worked at a couple of places before, but the navy was just opening this air station, just getting off to a good start. I wasn’t really trained for anything. I just did what they told me to do. Wherever we were needed, that’s where

I WAS THERE

they put us. I was just a Texas country girl, and the war seemed a long way from us, over in the Pacific or in Europe. America in WWII: What were the aircraft you were working on? Irma Lee: The big planes on the base were the PBYs [flying boats built by Consolidated Aircraft that were widely used for coastal patrols], but our group didn’t work on them. We worked on the small planes. I don’t remember what kind of airplane they were, but they were used for training. I would go and get supplies. Sometimes I would dope the wing fabric [coat it with lacquer to make it airtight and waterproof] or paint the insignia. I enjoyed it. I worked with a lot of nice people. America in WWII: What about your first marriage?

Irma Lee: I worked in that hangar for about a year and a half before I got married to Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Leroy McElroy, who was a PBY pilot instructor. We got married in 1942, and I worked for a few more months, but he wanted me to quit, and so I did. We had a little boy, George, who now has a little store out of Cave Junction, Oregon. In 1943, Leroy left for duty in Alaska, at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. He was killed there in April, and George turned one year old in May. My little boy and I went to live with my mother and her sister. That’s when I met Bill. We got married after three months [in 1945], and now we are getting ready for our 67th anniversary. Anyway, after we were married, I worked very little outside the home. I was a housewife and mother most of our married life. Bill: Irma Lee’s husband gave the ultimate sacrifice. He was on submarine patrol in a PBY in the Aleutian chain. He hit a mountain in bad weather. In those days, the weather had you flying [by] instruments a lot, and flying instruments was


    

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Bill Smentek chased his dream of flying at US Army Air Forces bases from Missouri to Oklahoma. He was in flight training at Goodfellow Field in San Angelo, Texas, when he met Irma Lee McElroy. The couple married in San Angelo in 1945.

pretty hairy. You mostly followed light lines at night, regular airways set up with lights. During the war up there, almost all your flying was Visual Light Rules. I don’t know all the details, but basically he ran into some weather and hit a mountain. I had the same thing happen to a friend of mine. Irma Lee had a rough period for a couple of years. I was in flight training when I met her. I was being moved to Enid, Oklahoma, for advanced flight training. That’s why we got married so quickly, so she could go with me. America in WWII: You got married, and the war ended while you were in Oklahoma? Bill: That’s right. I was just finishing up in Enid when the war ended. The war in Europe ended while I was in training, and then the Japanese surrendered at about the same time as I received my wings and commission. America in WWII: How did you feel about that? Bill: I was kind of disappointed. I had prepared for a year and a half, expecting to do something. I had selected to train for

multi-engine aircraft, figuring I would be flying bombers, and then I had no missions coming. I got into flying transport planes because the bombing was done. On the one hand, you kind of wish you had the stories to tell. But on the other hand, you’re glad you missed them. America in WWII: You stayed in the military after the war and had a very busy career in flying? Bill: Yes. Because the war ended just as I got my wings, I didn’t do a lot of flying in WWII. But I did in the Korean War, transporting the wounded back from Korea to Japan and to the States. I did the same kind of thing in Vietnam, but I retired just as that one started. America in WWII: So you joined the army and retired from the air force? Bill: Yes, I joined the army in 1941 and served six years in the army. Then in 1947, the US Air Force was created as a separate service, and then I was in the air force [by default].

How tory Created S e Tru ola The D. Picc useum M l e d i a p Mich e Intre Th

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A intense mission you flew? Bill: I was in on a project in the Pacific when they fired off the H-bomb in the Pacific. [On March 1, 1954, the United States tested the world’s first hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands.] Right as they lit it off, I was flying around with some of the civilian personnel from the Atomic Energy Commission. That morning, it was just before dawn, and still dark. I was flying 19 miles away and at 5,000 feet. After the explosion, we went

I WAS THERE

Bill: I was in for a full twenty years, including my six years in the army. I flew missions in the early years of the war in Vietnam, but I retired in 1961 [as a major], when I had my 20. After that, I went to the Federal Aviation Administration. In the FAA I was an air carrier operations instruc-

who has a Cessna asked me if I would like to go up and fly. I said maybe on my 90th birthday. So the day after my 90th birthday party [earlier this year], we went up in his plane. It brought back a lot of memories. It’s a lot more exciting than golf. We always said flying consisted of hours and hours of boredom punctuated with a few minutes of stark terror. Irma Lee: I asked him after we retired here in the beautiful hill country of Texas, if he missed flying. He said “not a bit.”

COURTESY OF BILL AND IRMA LEE SMENTEK

After the war, Bill and Irma Lee Smentek raised four children. By 1958, when this photo was taken, Bill was a US Air Force officer and Korean War veteran on his way to completing a 20-year career.

down lower and flew around checking the fallout with Geiger counters. It was scary because they didn’t know what was going to happen. They didn’t have any idea what it would do. Irma Lee: It popped some of the rivets off the airplane. Bill: That’s right. You’ve probably seen the photographs of the explosion. When you see it in person, you can’t believe it. It was about 20 minutes before dawn when they lit it off, and the whole area lit up like daytime…. I understand that some of the islands around there are still hot. America in WWII: You remained a pilot for the US Air Force for how long? 54 AMERICA IN WWII

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tor, performing flight checks on pilots and so on. I performed about one hundred pilot checks for Southwest Airlines when they first started out. I got the same ratings the captains did so I could check them out. I retired from the FAA in 1979, and then we spent a year in Saudi Arabia, with the International Civil Aviation Organization. Irma Lee: I really enjoyed Saudi Arabia, believe it or not. They had their first bus that allowed women on it while we were there. We were treated well, but we wouldn’t want to go over there now. America in WWII: Do you still fly? Bill: I hadn’t flown for quite a few years, maybe twenty, when a friend in California

You can hardly get him on an airplane these days. Today, nearly 70 years after circumstances of war brought them together, Irma Lee and Bill Smentek live near the town of Marble Falls, Texas, on the shores of Lake Lyndon Baines Johnson, about 35 miles from the home of the 36th US president. They have 4 sons, 11 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren. A T.W. BURGER of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, writes frequently for America in WWII. He interviewed Bill and Irma Lee Smentek by telephone a few times for this article.

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The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II, by Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi, Naval Institute Press, 266 pages, $23.95.

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The Kissing Sailor, authors Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi list four components that came together on August 14, 1945, to create the image that epitomizes the euphoria that overcame Americans when they learned that Japan had at last surrendered to end World War II. They are a sailor, a woman dressed as a nurse, a photographer, and Times Square. The photographer is simple. He was Alfred Eisenstaedt. In 1945 he was Life magazine’s most prominent shutterbug and a preeminent photojournalist. As for the location, on that day, on that occasion, Times Square was the place to be. The famous Manhattan intersection was filled with people celebrating, and correspondents from all the top news agencies where there to report on it. The sailor and the woman are another matter altogether. They are the reason for this book. And Verria and Galdorisi unravel the long-standing controversy and end the mystery that surrounds the identities of the two participants of that historic embrace. N THEIR BOOK

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Eisenstaedt’s assignment on August 14, 1945, was to capture on film “what the end of the war felt like.” Out of his peripheral vision he saw a sailor kiss a nurse, so on impulse he spun around and snapped four photographs of the couple. He took no notes. He recorded no names. He merely moved on, looking for the next great image. He had no idea how well he had fulfilled his assigned task. The iconic picture bears the innocuous title “V-J Day, 1945, Times Square,” and it was to become his most famous photograph. The image was buried on page 27 of the August 27, 1945, issue of Life. In the years following, Life found occasions to reprint the image, and its popularity grew. Many began to wonder about the story behind the kiss. One identity seemed firmly established after 1979, when Edith Shain sent Eisenstaedt a letter in which she claimed to be the nurse. It didn’t seem to matter that at the time the photo was taken, Shain was not the same height as the woman in the photograph and had a different body type and hairstyle. As for the sailor, in August 1980, Life issued this invitation: “If the sailor can recognize himself, would he please step forward?” According to Verria and Galdorisi,

“He did. So did many others. More [former sailors] arrived than Life anticipated.” In the years after the invitation, even more men turned up claiming to be the sailor. It isn’t that they were frauds, but that on that pivotal day, it seems everyone was kissing. “Arguably, more people kissed on that day than any other in history…,” the authors note, “[and] on August 14, 1945, probably more people kissed at that crossroads than any other place in the world.” Verria and Galdorisi investigate the stories of five of the most “celebrated, persistent, and well supported suitors.” They provide a convincing case for George Mendonsa of Rhode Island based on findings by Yale University photo expert Richard Benson and scientists from the Mitsubishi Engineering Research Laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Benson and MERL arrived at their conclusions separately. Even so, rival claimants and their adherents, including one very dogged forensic artist, refused to accept the evidence. So Verria and Galdorisi enlisted the aid of Norman Sauer, a prominent physical anthropologist from Michigan State University who is known for his work in determining identification from photographs. Sauer assembled a team and went

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AMERICA IN WWII 57

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to work comparing nose breadth, cheekbone structure, hairline, and ear shape. The resulting conclusion points directly, and only, toward Mendonsa—the same man supported by Benson and the MERL team. As for the identity of the woman dressed as a nurse, only two other serious contenders came forward. One of them, Greta Zimmer Friedman, has the correct body build, remembers the tapestry purse that the woman in the photograph clutches to her chest, and in 1945 wore her hair in the same style as the woman in the photograph. The authors say the public has already accepted Shain, however, and “Dethroning the crowned queen in white stockings proved almost impossible.” Nevertheless, it became very important to Verria and Galdorisi that the man and the woman in the photograph receive the recognition that is their due, before it is too late. They do a fine job of tactfully keeping intact the dignity of the veterans who are not the famous sailor, while building their case and bringing long-overdue honor to the actual couple in the photograph that holds such a prominent place in the American imagination. —Allyson Patton Gettysburg, Pennsylvania The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—the 5-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea, by Walter R. Borneman, Little, Brown, 560 pages, $29.99.

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AMERICAN MILITARY fielded many memorable leaders in World War II, and its navy was no exception. With the savvy behind-the-scenes worker William Leahy, the sound-bite magnate Bull Halsey, the imperious Ernest King, and the shrewd, sanguine Chester Nimitz, the navy was second to none in flamboyant wartime personalities. Normally we see them only at the peaks of their careers, rebounding from the ignominy of Pearl Harbor to take the war back to Japan. Yet the seeds of their wartime success can be seen in their prewar experiences. In The Admirals, historian Walter R. Borneman reviews the entirety of their careers with great insight. Though he never fired a shot in World War II, King was perhaps the navy’s toughest fighter, with adversaries from the Pacific to the Potomac. In the prewar HE

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years, King was an aggressive, strategic, imperious careerist who quickly moved from one assignment to another as opportunity presented itself. In the 1920s he was involved with submarines, and in the 1930s, with aviation. By the late 1930s, a lack of command opportunities, along with his temper, poor networking skills, and weakness in dealing with peers and subordinates, had him looking at the twilight of his career. The approaching war and timely intervention from a friend rescued him and propelled him to eventual power, second in the navy only to Leahy. This is well known, and it is well told here. In addition to predictable instances of King’s martinet-like behavior, added value comes from the counter-image that Borneman creates. We see instances of warmth from King and of his respect for subordinates who stood their ground when right. Borneman succeeds at a nuanced, insightful presentation of King’s personality and growth. Halsey’s story will bring many a familiar smile to readers. Borneman has everything here: the bombastic quotes, the pugnacious leadership of the war’s early years, the enthusiasm for relentless attacks, the respect engendered among subordinates, and the affection received at home. Borneman also covers the accidents Halsey caused in training and the calamitous typhoon that struck his Pacific Fleet in December 1944. For most readers, Leahy may be the book’s biggest discovery. During the war he never fired a shell; his weapons were more subtle and political. Much less known than the others, he depended on a different style of power, rising to work directly with Franklin Roosevelt and serving as ambassador to Vichy France. As the war matured, he was summoned back to assume the cabinet position of chief of staff. The Admirals follows the evolution of his career from executive and engineering positions to command experience to the highest levels. Borneman has done his homework and quotes from Leahy’s diaries

and from a wartime Japanese profile. Because he is the least known of the four admirals, the sections of the book devoted to him are the most educational. Nimitz was the premier American naval leader of the war, and here, too, Borneman gets his man right, from the earliest years in Texas to the early commands and early missteps (running a destroying aground and losing part of a finger) to the tiers of command through Pearl Harbor, after which he was summarily dispatched by FDR’s personal order. Nimitz, with his unflappable temperament and strategic genius, was uniquely suited to revive the Pacific navy and directed Halsey, Raymond Spruance, Robert Ghormley, and others in far-flung campaigns that struck and then strangled the Japanese military. While Nimitz formulated his oceanic strategy, he also put his people skills to use. He turned his own errors into teaching opportunities for others, supported career plans for younger officers, and successfully managed colossal egos in both the navy and army. Borneman traces the development of his immensely effective style from his ensign to his zenith years. I had doubts as I started reading The Admirals, thinking that grouping all the fivestar officers in one book was simply a gimmick. Moreover, in the past year or so I have already reviewed biographies of both Nimitz and Halsey. Yet while both were enjoyable, neither reached the depth and insight I found in The Admirals. The research is deep, the narrative is fine, and the life lessons from each man are clear. They make this book a worthy, absorbing read. —Thomas Mullen Flemington, New Jersey Hell above Earth: The Incredible True Story of an American WWII Bomber Commander and the Co-Pilot Ordered to Kill Him, by Stephen Frater, St. Martin’s Press, 302 pages, $25.99.

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EFORE , DURING , and after World War II, German Americans were the most populous immigrant group in the United States. In Hell above Earth, author Stephen Frater estimates that at least 20 percent of American citizens in the ’30s were of German descent. Many German Americans watched the resurgence of

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Germany in the prewar years with a certain pride that their native country was recovering from the terrible post–World War I political and economic conditions. But the German invasion of Poland in 1939 drastically changed their attitudes. Also changed by the outbreak of World War II were the attitudes of at least some American government officials toward German Americans, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of German Americans were patriots and many high-ranking military officers were of German heritage, including Dwight Eisenhower, Chester Nimitz, Henry Arnold, and Carl Spaatz. The FBI went after the German American Bund, a homegrown Nazi party, and in 1941 arrested 33 members of a German spy ring. A total of 11,507 German Americans and German aliens were interned in the United States—about 10 percent of the number of Japanese Americans interned.

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It is against this backdrop that Frater introduces Werner Goering, an army B-17 pilot who knew the German Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring as Uncle Hermann. (Frater uses the Americanized and German spellings to differentiate between Werner, who flew for the United States, and the Luftwaffe’s Hermann.) Werner’s father avowed a close relationship to Göring and maintained a correspondence with him until 1939. Meanwhile, Werner was preparing to go to England to join the US Eighth Air Force to bomb Germany. The FBI learned of the family connection and worked with the army to figure out whether to let Goering fly in combat, and if they did so, how to

ensure that he remained loyal and that he not be captured by the Germans to be used for propaganda. The FBI settled on the solution of giving Goering’s co-pilot, Jack Rencher, orders to shoot Goering if he showed signs of treachery or if their bomber was going to crash over Germanoccupied land. Frater spends a few early chapters on each man’s background, upbringing, flight training, and eventual friendship. Once both men and their crew are in England flying missions, the book’s scope opens up to present a wide variety of anecdotes from the 303rd Bomb Group and other units of the Eighth Air Force. Almost all the anecdotes are first-hand accounts that describe in gripping detail the dangers faced by

A THEATER OF WAR A Yank in the R.A.F. Starring Tyrone Power, Betty Grable, John Sutton, Reginald Gardiner, written by Darrell Ware and Karl Tunberg, directed by Henry King, 1941, 97 minutes, black and white, not rated.

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James Stewart piloted bombers during World War II, he flew a plane called Nine Yanks and a Jerk. Tim Baker, the lead character in A Yank in the RAF, could have been the jerk. Baker (Tyrone Power) is your typical hotshot pilot, outfitted with the requisite leather jacket, shades, scarf, white teeth, and attitude. In the days when America’s official neutrality meant that any airplanes the United States delivered to British Canada had to be deposited at the border and then towed across, Baker blithely flies right over the border and claims he got lost. The Brits admire his cockiness and offer him a lucrative job ferrying bombers across the Atlantic. He makes one flight and immediately runs into his old flame Carol Brown (Betty Grable). Carol appears to have an accurate assessment of his character. “Tim! You HEN ACTOR

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worm!” she says when he surprises her during an air-raid drill in London and steals a kiss. Baker decides to join the Royal Air Force so he can woo her back. Carole is a volunteer army nurse, but she also performs in a London nightclub, which allows her to become the object of desire of RAF officers there. Among them are Roger Pillby (Reginald Gardiner) and Wing Commander Morley (John Sutton). Roger can’t even manage to wrangle an introduction to the American bombshell, but before long Morley forms the third side in a romantic triangle. Making it especially awkward is the fact that Morley commands Baker’s bomber squadron. Baker thinks he should be flying fighters rather than bombers, and his first mission over Germany—to deliver leaflets, not bombs—doesn’t change his mind. On the romantic front, he encounters increasing turbulence, especially when he stands up Carol for a date so he can go out drinking with some buddies. She spends a weekend in the country with Morley instead, and he proposes. Finally the rivals in love go on a real bombing mission, which goes terribly

awry. Roger sacrifices himself to help Morley and Baker’s plane. Baker manages to reach the Netherlands and ditches on the beach. He and Morley escape pursuing German soldiers, thanks to the heroism of the plane’s corporal. Back in London, Baker lays siege to Carol’s affections by pretending to be wounded. She angrily discovers the subterfuge, but he forces a cheap ring on her finger. Now assigned to the Spitfires he desired, Baker gallantly provides air

bomber crews on every mission. The stories from other crews are interspersed throughout the major narrative of Rencher and Goering’s experiences on one particularly dangerous mission in which Rencher was convinced he would have to shoot Goering. The transition from the main storyline to each anecdote is disconcerting at first, but the method used is the most effective way to make readers feel that they are in a B-17 with the crew. It will not spoil the ending of the book to reveal that Rencher does not kill Goering, for it is the details of the flight and the crew’s survival that make a great story. Hell above Earth follows both men from the end of the war until the present day. Frater tells of Goering’s successful postwar career in the US Air Force as a B-47 pilot with the Strategic Air Command, with stints in military intelligence and as a diplomat in Africa. Rencher finished the war in poor health and suffering from

cover during the evacuation of Dunkirk. “That’s for Roger!” he declares as he shoots down one ME-109. “That’s for the corporal!” Baker goes down, too, and it appears he is dead. But fear not. He and Carol reunite on the docks when he returns among the wounded—and it becomes apparent he’s been flirting with his nurse. A Yank in the RAF was the brainchild of Twentieth Century–Fox’s Anglophile studio head Darryl Zanuck. It’s an entertaining bit of wartime flag-waving designed to sway neutral Americans over to the side of the beleaguered British. Maybe that’s why Morley is so sympathetic compared to Baker. Tyrone Power has the requisite good looks for the lead but stubbornly refuses to soften his character too much. Although the relentless skirt-chasing is played for humor, the scene where Baker wrestles Carol down on a couch and forces his ring on her finger has truly uncomfortable undertones. But Power was the star of the movie. Of course he has to get the girl. —Tom Huntington Camp Hill, Pennsylvania

what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder. But he was also rather well off, having saved nearly all his winnings from gambling. Despite continued ill health, Rencher has had a full life after the war. The two men remained close friends and kept in regular contact, but Rencher never told Goering about his secret orders. The final chapters of the book relate Frater’s quest to interview both men to learn more about their unique war experiences. It is touching how Frater serves as the catalyst for the two men to share their stories despite decades of silence. Neither man ever spoke of the war to the other, even though they spoke and met frequently. The fact that Frater interviewed both men separately leads to a number of funny instances in the book where Rencher remembers certain details of an event and Goering contradicts him. Hell above Earth is a poignant and personal story of two men who became close friends despite Rencher’s secret orders. In the course of telling that story, Stephen Frater explains in vivid detail the terrible dangers faced by bomber crews in Europe that made the missions such hell. —Drew Ames Harrisburg, Pennsylvania The Color of War: How One Battle Broke Japan and Another Changed America, by James Campbell, Crown, 481 pages. $28.

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about events forgotten and events only vaguely remembered, events author James Campbell sees as tied together by war’s ugliest necessities and America’s bitterest social feud. Allow me to explain. In June 1944, US forces took part in two large amphibious assaults. One was D-Day, the invasion of Adolf Hitler’s Fortress Europe. The other was the Battle for Saipan, in the central Pacific. The planning, preparation, and execution of the Allied invasion of the Continent held the attention of most everyone in the Western world. But as most eyes were trained on the English Channel and the beaches of France, a few were watching frantic operations on America’s West Coast, where mega-tons of bombs, shells, artillery, and small arms were being dispatched into the Pacific, around the HIS IS A BOOK

clock, for a destination unknown. The munitions and weapons were bound for the mid-Pacific and the Marianna and Gilbert islands, the Japanese military’s outer band of defenses, which needed to be held if American forces were to be kept away from Japan’s home islands. Much of this dangerous cargo was loaded onto ships at the isolated naval facility at Port Chicago, in north-central California, a station manned almost exclusively by black US sailors. Campbell weaves together the stories of black and white sailors and marines— accounts of their struggles in training, their unmet expectations, and their fears—with the story of the bloody month-long struggle for Saipan and the horrendous explosives disaster at the Port Chicago base immediately afterward. He sees all these elements as pieces of a broad narrative about the fight for Saipan—from the home front to the battle front—and how whites looked at blacks and blacks looked at whites and how both sized up the Japanese. He also sees the men lost, wounded, and traumatized by the Saipan fight and the Port Chicago disaster as casualties of the same wide net of events, though separated by thousands of miles. This approach to history demands skill from a writer, and Campbell has it. He involves readers in the lives of select white marines at Saipan, black sailors and marines in training, naval officers at Port Chicago competing with each other to have their black crews exceed outlandish goals for loading the greatest tonnage of hazardous materials, and commanders squabbling with one another to evade blame for setbacks in battle or the horrific destruction at Port Chicago. For chilling details of the mayhem on the front lines, he draws heavily on Easy Company, the memoirs of white marine Robert Graf, a survivor of vicious hand-to-hand combat and banzai charges and a witness to mass civilian suicides in the face of American victory. Campbell brings up details sometimes forgotten in broad histories of World War II. He documents how combat training was eventually dropped for black marine recruits. They were drilled and taught military deportment, but were never expected to fight. For decades, the role of the black man in the American military had been in AUGUST 2012

AMERICA IN WWII 61

mess services and heavy labor. On Saipan, when gaps opened in the marine lines, black marines—unloading supplies and munitions while under fire—were taken from the invasion beach, handed rifles, and pressed into the fight. Shown how to throw a grenade and use a machine gun while artillery rained down, the marines of the 18th Depot Company and the 20th Depot Battalion did very well, winning praise from white officers. The Battle for Saipan is not as well remembered as the Pacific fights for Guadalcanal or Iwo Jima. But the US suffered more than 16,000 casualties there, and victory allowed the US island-hopping campaign to pick up its pace and eventually place heavy bombers within reach of the Japanese mainland. Campbell makes an effort to put the fight into perspective and also delves into the refusal to follow orders that followed the disaster at Port Chicago.

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On the Port Chicago docks, sailors had been pressed to load ever-increasing amounts of dangerous materials onto ships headed for the Saipan fight and the central Pacific island depots. The facility’s naval commander ignored concerns about lax safety procedures and the handling and shipping of explosives. After the explosion (gauged at two and a quarter kilotons of TNT, one-fifth the force of the Hiroshima atomic bomb)—which vaporized the loading dock and pier, the US liberty ship A E. Bryan, a coast guard fire barge, and the vessel Quinalt Victory; killed 202 black enlisted men and 118 white personnel; and wounded 390 oth-

ers—surviving black sailors were transferred to facilities near San Francisco and were expected to continue loading ammunition. A significant number of these sailors refused this work and were threatened with court-martial, imprisonment, and perhaps capital punishment. The case of the Port Chicago sailors who refused the work dragged on beyond the end of the war and involved the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and future US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Though no sailor was meted out the ultimate penalty, mutineers were imprisoned while African American newspapers and civil rights advocates pressured the navy into a succession of appeals and court reviews. How the affair was resolved has interested civil rights historians for decades. —John E. Stanchak Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A 78 RPM

Should’ve Played Ball

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TAN KENTON WAS an imposing man. And he liked to stand up on his conductor’s rise, all six foot six of him waving and gesturing at the musicians spread out before him, demanding to be bowled over by screaming horns. Not everyone in Kenton’s audience shared his appreciation for blaring brass. “It’s great to screech with complete abandon,” George T. Simon, editor of the jazz magazine Metronome, wrote in 1941, “but you’ve got to screech at the right time.” It seems the right time for Kenton was all the time. He became famous, or infamous, for his “wall of sound”—and that wasn’t meant as a compliment, as it would be for producer Phil Spector in the ’60s. Many jazz aficionados wished Kenton had stuck with sports back when he’d shrugged off his mother’s pestering about practicing piano and played ball instead. But as a teenager, he warmed up to music after some cousins introduced him to jazz. By the summer before America entered World War II, he was 29 and leading his own band in his adopted home state of California, at the Rendezvous Ballroom at Balboa Beach. He also had a short-lived recording contract with New York City’s Decca label that yielded the hits “Adios,” “Tabu,” and “Gambler’s Blues” in 1941 and 1942. After the gig at the Rendezvous and the Decca contract expired, the upstart Capitol Records in Los Angeles signed Kenton in

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1943, and things started looking up again. He had a hit early on with “Artistry in Rhythm,” which became his theme song and the name of his orchestra. A stint as the band for Bob Hope’s national radio show seemed even more promising, but it was cut short in May 1944 after only eight months. About that same time, Kenton hired sax soloist Stan Getz and Anita O’Day, an upcoming singer with the melodic and harmonic sensibilities of an instrumentalist. “Eager Beaver,” a tune with a driving, memorable riff, rose to number seven on the sales charts. A couple of other hits followed before June Christy, whose good taste outweighed her other talents, took over the mike from O’Day in 1945 and hit the charts with “Tampico” and “Willow Weep for Me.” In the following years and decades, Kenton reaped the success he seeded during the war and became an icon in the jazz genre critics dubbed “progressive.” As big bands continued to shrink, Kenton’s kept growing. In the end, some of his harshest critics said that his plodding rhythms and lack of swing had a hand in killing jazz as a dance music. Kenton didn’t argue. “It was much too stiff,” he said of his music. “Some people with lots of nervous energy could feel what we were doing, but nobody else could.” —Carl Zebrowski editor of America in WWII

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COMING SOON

WWII EVENTS

CALIFORNIA • July 21, San Francisco: 68th annual commemoration of the Port Chicago explosion. 10 A.M. Showing of a new Port Chicago film follows. Reservations required by July 7. Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial. 925-228-8860, extension 6520. www.nps.gov/poch July 21 and Aug. 18, Alameda Point: USS Hornet Flashlight Tour. Behind-the-scenes look at the carrier, including spaces not yet open to the public. The three-hour guided tour begins at 8:30 A.M. Reservations required. 510-521-8448. www.uss-hornet.org COLORADO • Aug. 17 and 18, Vernon: Vernon Days Battle for Nuremburg 1945. Produced by the WWII Historical Re-enactment Society. www.worldwartwohrs.org IDAHO • Aug. 11 and 12, Nampa: P-51 Mustang Rally at the Warhawk Air Museum. Includes flyovers by the plane and speech by Mustang ace Clarence “Bud” Anderson. www.warhawkairmuseum.org LOUISIANA • Through July 8, New Orleans: Special exhibit on the Doolittle Raid and the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. National WWII Museum. www.ddaymuseum.org MARYLAND • July 28, Baltimore: “This is Living History!” Six-hour cruise aboard the Liberty ship John W. Brown, featuring two meals, big band music, military reenactors, flybys of WWII aircraft, ship tours. 10 A.M. Reservations required, 410-558-0164. www.liberty-ship.com MASSACHUSETTS • Aug. 4 and 5, Chicopee: The Great New England Air Show with WWII and modern planes. www.greatnewenglandairshow.com

The quintessential Brit fires the quintessential American military rifle.

The

Rifle The US-made M1 Garand semiautomatic was reliable, accurate, and deadly. And it was everywhere.

Look for our October 2012 issue on newsstands on August 14.

Find Even More Online! www.AmericaInWWII.com

MICHIGAN • Aug. 11 and 12, Portage: B-17 Flying Fortress flights at the Air Zoo. Featuring the B-17G Yankee Lady. Reservations required. 269-350-2812. www.airzoo.org

John & Annie Glenn Historic Site

MINNESOTA • July 14 and 15, Eden Prairie: AirExpo 2012. With WWII aircraft flyovers and static displays. Flying Cloud Airport, 10110 Flying Cloud Drive. 952-746-6100. www.airexpo-mn.org MISSOURI • July 2–4, St. Louis: Fair Saint Louis Air Show. With WWII and modern aircraft in flight. 314-434-3434. www.celebratestlouis.org/fair-saint-louis/air-show NORTH CAROLINA • Aug. 25 and 26, Winston-Salem: Winston-Salem Air Show. With WWII and modern aircraft displays and flyovers. www.wsairshow.com PENNSYLVANIA • Throughout July and August, Carlisle: Omar Bradley exhibit. US Army Heritage and Education Center. www.carlisle.army.mil/ahec Throughout July and August, Gettysburg: “Ike and the Men of D-Day.” Thirtyminute program about D-Day GIs, including display of their weapons, equipment, and uniforms, some unique to the invasion. Eisenhower National Historic Site. 12:15 P.M. and 3:15 P.M. www.nps.gov/eise Aug. 9–11, Butler: Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival at the birthplace of the Jeep. Parade, car show, professional driver demos, speakers, vendors, road rally, music, food. www.bantamjeepfestival.com TEXAS • July 4, Fredericksburg: Independence Day parade. National Museum of the Pacific War. www.pacificwarmuseum.org Aug. 17, Fredericksburg: Battle of Midway 70th anniversary commemoration. With Craig Symonds, professor emeritus of history at the US Naval Academy and author of a recent book on Midway. 2 to 4 P.M. National Museum of the Pacific War, Nimitz Ballroom. www.pacificwarmuseum.org WISCONSIN • July 1, Greendale: World War II encampment at Trimborn Farm. Produced by the WWII Historical Re-enactment Society. www.worldwartwohrs.org

New Concord, Ohio

Learn about life of the Home Front during WWII through a captivating living history presentation. johnglennhome.org

(740) 826-3305

Your Ship, Your Plane When you served on her. Free Personalization!

www.totalnavy.com 718-471-5464 AUGUST 2012

AMERICA IN WWII 63

A GIs

A Honeymoon Cut Short

PHOTOS COURT ESY OF JEREMY AMICK

Ensign Eugene Earle Amick, Jr., was killed by a Japanese shell that hit the heavy cruiser USS Astoria in August 1942. On May 27, 1943, the navy launched the destroyer escort USS Amick in his honor.

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1942 WAS A BUSY MONTH for Eugene Earle “Gene” Amick, Jr. On the 14th, he completed the officer candidate course at the US Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s School at Northwestern University and was commissioned an ensign in the US Navy; three days later, he got married; and a week after that, he left his native Missouri to report to the US heavy cruiser Astoria (CA-34) as a communications officer. Soon the ship headed into the Pacific. Amick was married only three months when the Japanese attacked the Astoria while it was guarding American beachheads off Savo in the Solomon Islands. Shelling demolished the ship’s Radio Station No. 1 on the night of August 8–9, and all hands there were killed. Amick commanded Radio Station No. 2. To reestablish communications for the ship, he realized he needed to retrieve cable from the destroyed station. He dashed there through a barrage of shellfire and found two reels. On his return, he was struck and killed instantly. A fellow sailor told Amick’s father that AY

when his son’s body was found, his hands were still clutching the reels. By the time the attack ended, the Astoria had been hit dozens of times. She sank just after noon on the 9th. To honor Amick, the navy named a destroyer escort after him. Construction began on the USS Amick (DE-168) on November 30, 1942, and she was launched on May 27, 1943. She served for the remainder of the war, and on September 2, 1945, the day of the official Japanese surrender, she hosted the surrender of forces in the northern Palau islands. In 2011, sailors who had served on the Amick attended a reunion in San Antonio, Texas, where they visited the National Museum of the Pacific War and dedicated a plaque in tribute to the ship and the young ensign for whom she was named. A Submitted by JEREMY AMICK, cousin of Eugene Amick. Jeremy is the public affairs officer of the Silver Star Families of America, a nonprofit organization that honors and supports wounded and ill veterans.

Have a GIs photo and story? E-mail them to [email protected] or mail to: GIs, America in WWII, PO Box 4175, Harrisburg, PA 17111 64 AMERICA IN WWII

AUGUST 2012

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