My Father’s Service in the US Army 1942-47

 

Like many GI’s that returned to America after WWII, whether from the European or the Pacific Theatre, my father wanted to get married, have a few children and settle down to a quiet life. It was something servicemen asked one another as the war began to wind down.

“What are you going to do when you get back?”

“Kiss my mom, get a job, find a girl, and get married.”

“In that order?”

“Pretty much.”

With each wave of service men and women returning home, the weddings and children born months later began what we now call the baby boom. My father was one of those GI’s who came home searching for a job and a wife.

One night in a moment if nostalgia, as my father and I watched an old black and white war movie called “The Malta Story” starring Jack Hawkins, he told me how much he wanted to get married when he came home. He was twenty-eight and had put his career and life on hold for four long brutal years and couldn’t wait to get back to normal. When he met my mother with her auburn hair and green eyes, he was stunned.

How could either of them anticipate that my father had what they called shell shock and we now call PTSD?  How could any of the men who returned from WWII communicate what would creep up in the dark of night, or shake them watching fireworks on the 4^th of July, or of the backaches sleeping on soft mattresses? How could these men explain their bouts of depression most tried to cover with drinking, the tempers that would flare up over simple errors, and their need to be alone for long periods of time?

It was hard on many of these marriages. It was particularly hard on my parent’s marriage.

There is one more element for me to weave into this story, at this time, which was the 1950’s, Wisconsin Senator McCarthy searched for Reds, Spies and Communists under every rock. Conformity was rule one, don’t cause any trouble, and don’t speak out.  Think about it, anyone who went to a psychiatrist or went into therapy was labeled weak, soft in the head and a nutcase. If word got out he could be fired and shunned by society. One of my father’s closest friends suffered this stigma when he had a nervous breakdown. Where else could they turn?

My father found solace in speaking to priests.

I realize the Catholic Church has suffered scandals and disgrace in the last decade with child sexual abuse, rape and hiding the perpetrators. For that they need to both atone and change policy or risk losing everything in a generation. But considering the many good priests that stayed up all hours to speak with GI’s and most likely still do, for that I will be ever grateful.

It was another fateful night of watching TV with my father, ‘The Longest Day” was going to be shown over two consecutive nights as the movie was over four hours long. As we watched John Wayne gather his troops on the shores of Normandy, my father jumped up and screamed ‘It wasn’t like that, goddammit!”

In my fifteen years of stupidity I asked, “Well, what was it like?” Thinking to myself that there was no way he knew. And then he told me of his story.

He was a WWII veteran; he landed on the beaches of Normandy 6 days after D Day. (He called it D Day 6, sounds like all the action was over, it wasn’t.)  He fought from San Malo and to Saint Brieuc as he said rooting out desperate Nazi soldiers fighting bitterly for their lives.

He walked through the Arch de Triumph in Paris during the wild celebration when it was liberated. He marched to Niece protecting German POW’s from angry French citizens and retaliating American soldiers. The American soldiers were the worst because they didn’t want any German soldiers to recover enough to return and fight another day.

 When the Nazi Panzers broke through and the Battle of the Bulge began, he along with all the boys born in northern states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, South and North Dakota and Minnesota, fought under the leadership of General Patton. The northern boys were recruited because the December of ’44 was horribly cold and upper management felt these men would have a better chance of survival as they’d grown up with hard winters.

FYI, the Battle of the Bulge was a Hail Marry Pass. It’s a last ditch effort to turn the tide of a war. This one almost worked. If not for the tenacity of the 101^st Airborne and the savvy strategy of General Patton we might have a very different world today.

My father told me Patton was both inspiring and funny. Patton famously pissed in the Rhine River as he crossed it in March of ’45 to let Hitler know he was coming. He promised he’d do just that when the troops met him in Northern Italy to fight against the Nazi’s at the bulge.

After Hitler died, my father was assigned to a team of spies going behind enemy lines, finding German scientists, and helping them escape the onslaught of the Russian Army. Stalin had ordered a massive ‘search’ for them. (Read, kidnapping.)  My father and friends helped Werner Von Braun slip through the fingers of Russian soldiers. Later, I’ll tell you that story too.)

From 1942-47 my father saw more death and destruction than you or I can imagine. Dead cattle, horses, pigs, men, women, and children in every field, forest and bombed building. He said the smell of death was everywhere. He was cold, dirty and hungry all the time. And he learned how to drink in the Army, 'Dutch Courage' it was called. 

I was humbled that day and I don't think I did my father service in my fifteen-year-old capacity to listen to his suffering. But that night we bonded in a way we'd never done before. We were pals, soldiers together. He was my friend. 

No one else in my family understood what he went through, they just saw his strange behaviors and pitied my mother for putting up with him for as long as she did. I knew. I never told anyone until I was fifty.

 

Next post: My eighteen-year old mother marries for many reasons