World War II Chronicles - American Veterans Center · 2017. 11. 22. · Wrapping up the discussion was Captain Lillian K. Keil, former Army flight nurse and believed to be the most

Participating in the Seventh Annual Conference werecountless youth organizations, such as the Young Ma-rines, veterans support networks, including the Ameri-can Gold Star Mothers Association, and various organi-

zations, who, like the WorldWar II Veterans Committee,are dedicated to promoting thelegacy of the World War II gen-eration. They were all joinedat the Conference by hundredsof World War II veterans andtheir supporters, includingChairman of the Joint Chiefsof Staff General RichardMyers (pictured left withMedal of Honor recipientHershel “Woody” Williamsand World War II VeteransCommittee President James C.

Roberts), members of the Band of Brothers, the unitmade famous by the HBO miniseries by Tom Hanks andSteven Spielberg, Winston S. Churchill, grandson of thePrime Minister, a number of recipients of the Medal ofHonor, representatives from the embassies of the AlliedNations, and countless more distinguished veterans and

guests.

Stephen Ambrose wrote of the veterans of WorldWar II, “They were the sons of democracy, and theysaved democracy. We owe them a debt we can neverrepay.”

Ambrose was correct. We can never repay the WorldWar II generation for their bravery and sacrifice. Butwe can honor and remember their deeds, preservingtheir legacy for later generations. As you will readthroughout this issue, through the World War II Vet-erans Committee’s Seventh Annual Conference, thisis exactly what we have set out to do. WWII

On a weekend in which tens of thousands of people fromacross the country gathered in Washington, DC to thankthe generation that survived depression and defeated Na-zism and fascism, the World War II Veterans Committeeheld its Seventh Annual Con-ference, by far its largest andmost spectacular conference todate. From May 27-29, theCommittee welcomed hun-dreds of veterans, their fami-lies, friends, students, celebri-ties, and current military per-sonnel for a weekend devotedto learning about, and from, theGreatest Generation.

The Seventh Annual Confer-ence featured three days ofspeaker panels on a number oftopics and issues concerning World War II, as well aswreath-laying ceremonies, a Choral Evensong churchservice in honor of World War II veterans, the dedica-tion ceremonies of the World War II Memorial, and theSeventh Annual Edward J. Herlihy Awards Banquet (pic-tured below).

World War II Chronicles A Quarterly Publication of the World War II Veterans Committee ISSUE XXVI, Autumn, 2004

Seventh Annual COnference Held in

Washington

D-Day: Sixty Years Later

Addressing members of the “Greatest Generation” and lat-est generation alike, General Andrew J. Goodpastergave an inspiring speech in what has become histraditional keynote address to begin the World WarII Veterans Committee’s Annual Conference.Goodpaster, who was Staff Secretary to DwightD. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander ofNATO, and Superintendent of West Point, ad-dressed conference attendees on the forces thatled to the war in Europe, as well as the strategiesthat led to victory.

Speaking on his experiences as a “Screaming Eagle” of the101st Airborne was Donald Burgett (pictured left). Burgett,whose book Currahee! is the only book from World War IIendorsed by General Eisenhower, saw some of the mostintense fighting of the war as his unitslogged across Europe, often finding it-self behind enemy lines. The constantfighting took its toll on Burgett’s unit.“When the war ended there were only 11of us left from the original group,” Burgettrecalled. “We had recently taken Hitler’s‘Eagle’s Nest,’ and those 11 of us sat to-gether on Hitler’s bed and drank Hitler’s schnapps.”

Continuing the discussion was Maj. Gen. J. Milnor Roberts(above), glider infantry officer and aide-de-camp to Gen-eral Leonard T. Gerow. “These gliders were not dull,” Gen.Roberts joked. “They were made of composite materials;they had plywood floors, and canvas covered wings.”

Wrapping up the discussion was Captain Lillian K. Keil,former Army flight nurse and believed to be the most deco-rated woman in American military history. During WorldWar II, Capt. Keil flew over 250 medical air evacuationmissions and never lost a single patient. She became quitea celebrity after the war, with her experiences profiled inthe movie Flight Nurse and on the television show, “This IsYour Life.” Capt. Keil joked that she even had a few dateswith screen legend Cary Grant. Still, Capt. Keil has soughtto use her fame to keep the legacy of the World War IIgeneration alive. “Preserving what is left is more impor-tant than mourning what was lost,” she told the assembled.

WWII

When General Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the order toembark upon the “Great Crusade,” he was speaking di-rectly to the thousands of men and women responsible formaking the greatest military operation the world had yetseen a success. Nearly sixty years to the day following theD-Day invasion, five of its heroes came to speak of theirexperiences at the Seventh Annual Conference.

Leading off the D-Day panel was Captain Frank T. Hayden,who in June of 1944 served in the Merchant Marine as aKings Point Cadet Midshipman on the S.S. William N.

Pendleton. While crossing theEnglish Channel to deliverkey supplies, the Pendletonwas hit directly by a 100-pound German bomb only afew feet from where Haydenwas standing at the time. Mi-

raculously, the bomb was stripped of its detonator by theship’s mast and did not explode. “What were the odds thatcould happen?” Hayden rhetorically asked. “Two millionto one? We just weren’t set to die yet, that’s all.”

Following Captain Hayden was Lt. Commander JosephVaghi of the 6th Naval Beach Battalion. Lt. Cdr. Vaghiplayed the unique role of “Beachmaster” of Easy Red Sec-tor, Omaha Beach. A Beachmaster, as described by Lt. Cdr.Vaghi, was a traffic cop, of sorts, at a very busy intersec-tion. Only this intersection was in the middle of a ragingbattle. “We played one of the most important parts of thelandings,” Vaghi explained. “Not only did we direct all ofthe landing crafts, we evacuated the injured as well as anyGerman prisoners that were captured.”

The Road To WarGeneral Andrew J. Goodpaster

World War II Chronicles - Autumn, 2004 - 2

~Seventh Annual Conference Review~

With so many students in attendance, General Goodpasterfittingly stressed the importance of young peoplein overcoming Nazi tyranny, and how that sameresolve must be shown today. Speaking directly tothe students, Goodpaster said, “Americans todayare called upon to rise to the challenges. Thoughthese are different challenges, terrorism directedtowards non-combatants, they are no less demand-ing. And now it is time for new generations to stepup and show what they are made of. We can be

confident that they are made of the same solid substancethat gave us victory in World War II.” WWII

“By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and otherunits of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting totheir country which only history will be able to value fully. Amongthe Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor wascommon virtue.” - Chester Nimitz

Recalling what was one of thebloodiest battles in the historyof mankind, the veterans whomade up the panel on Iwo Jimagathered on May 27 in whatproved to be one of the mostemotional moments of the en-tire conference.

Frederick Gray landed on Iwo Jima on February 19th, 1945at 9 AM. “We hit the beaches on Iwo, and we thoughteverything would be a piece of cake,” Gray (pictured aboveleft, speaking with panel member Jim White) said. Unfor-tunately, soon after hitting the beach, all-hell broke out.Gray, whose 476th Amphibian Truck Company was as-signed to bring men and equipment ashore, came underintense fire from the Japanese defenders, narrowly escap-ing being shot. Luckily, Gray survived the war and re-turned home to become the Founding President of theBlack Iwo Jima Veterans Association.

“Midnight, February 28th. The Japanese started to infil-trate our area. I’ll never forget that night. I spent ten dayson Iwo Jima, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’tthink of it.” Thus began Donald Mates’ recollections ofthe carnage that was Iwo Jima. Mates, along with panelmember Jim White (pictured with Frederick Gray, sittingright) and their friend Jimmy Trimble, was assigned to an

elite eight-man reconnaissance team ordered to scout outJapanese positions.

As the night wore on, the Japanese attacks intensified.Mates and Trimble were able to fight off successive wavesof advancing Japanese until, suddenly,two grenades came flying into theirfoxhole. Though they scrambled to getout of the way, it was too late. Thegrenades exploded, severely injuringMates and leaving Trimble grievouslywounded. Somehow, Mates was ableto pull himself out of the foxhole. Ashe reached a hand out to help Trimble,a Japanese soldier strapped with explosives leapt into thefoxhole, blowing both him and Trimble to pieces in frontof Mates’ eyes.

Pinned down in a nearby foxhole, Jim White could hearMates screaming in agony. Running to his aid, White wasable to pull Mates to safety and dress his wounds as best ashe could. Though the attacks continued through the nightand into morning, White was able to hold out, almost single-handedly beating the Japanese back.

Concluding the panel was Hershel “Woody” Williams(above). As a flame thrower demolition specialist, he tookout seven Japanese bunkers while under intense fire, forwhich he was awarded the Medal of Honor. “I was told,the day after this medal was placed around my neck byPresident Truman, by the Commandant of the MarineCorps, that this medal did not belong to me,” Williams ex-plained. “He said that it belongs to all those Marines whodid not get to come home. And you are their representa-tive.” WWII

Rosie the Riveter

Iwo Jima



When war broke out at the end of 1941 and America’smen left to serve in Europe and the Pacific, mil-lions of opportunities were created for womento get involved and help in what was truly a to-tal war effort.

One of the most famous icons of World War IIwas that of “Rosie the Riveter.” Speaking on therole of the thousands of women who went tothe factories to produce the machines and muni-tions that won the war was Dr. Frances Carter(left), herself a former “Rosie.” “Everybody did some-thing during the war,” Dr. Carter said. “Six million women

worked in jobs as welders, riveters, workers in steel, lum-ber, and textile mills, chemists, bus drivers, andso on.”

Attesting to the vital role that women played inmanufacturing was Frances Carter’s husband, Dr.John Carter, himself an Army paratrooper. In ad-dition to the billions of rounds of ammunitionand hundreds of thousands of tanks produced,“Rosies” assisted in the production of almost300,000 airplanes, some of which, he joked, he

had the pleasure of jumping out of. WWII

Perhaps the most popular and fascinating story of the Sev-enth Annual Conference was that of Ambassador John E.Dolibois (pictured right, speaking with fellow speaker GuyStern). Born in Luxembourg, Dolibois moved to the UnitedStates as a young boy. Following his graduation from Mi-ami University in Oxford, Ohio, he enteredthe Army, where his degree in psychology andfluency in German and French led him to aposition working in strategic intelligence.

In the summer of 1945, there was worldwidespeculation as to the location of the surviv-ing leadership of the Nazi regime. Some be-lieved that they had fled to South America.Others feared that they had fled to the Alpsand were planning their revenge against the Allies. In truth,they had been rounded up by the British, French, Soviet,and American forces and sent to a small resort town in theDuchy of Luxembourg where they were to be probed forinformation prior to being put on trial for war crimes. Itwas in the town of Mondorf, in a building code named“Ashcan,” that the surviving Nazi leadership, men such asGoering, Streicher, Doenitz, Jodl, Keitel, and Ribbentrop,were being held.

The Special RelationshipChurchill’s Britain and Roosevelt’s America

Interrogating the Nazi War CriminalsThe Honorable John E. Dolibois, Former U.S. Ambassador to

Luxembourg



Celia Sandys, Granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill

Discussing the leadership of Sir Winston Churchill wasCelia Sandys, granddaughter of Sir Winston and notedauthor of such books as Chasing Churchill, We Shall NotFail: The Inspiring Leadership of Winston Churchill,and Churchill: Wanted Dead or Alive.

In the dark days of the war, following the fall ofFrance and the defeat at Dunkirk, it was the powerof Churchill’s leadership that held Britain together.It seemed, Sandys explained, that Churchill’s willalone was what kept Britain in the war. “If thislong island story of ours is to end at last,” shequoted him as saying at the first meeting of hisWar Cabinet, “let it end only when each of us lies chokingon his own blood...We shall go on to the end. We shalldefend our island, whatever the cost may be.”

Not only did Churchill’s determination rally Britons to hiscause, it gained admiration from abroad, particularly fromthe President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt.

Sandys noted, “The friendship that developed be-tween Churchill and Roosevelt was the beginningof the special relationship that lasts to this daybetween the United States and the United King-dom.”

Truly, though the relationship between the two na-tions has been long indeed, it was the charm, de-termination, and clarity of purpose of the half-American, Winston Churchill, that brought about

the “special relationship” that has made Britain the UnitedStates’ strongest ally.

WWII

Because of his expertise in strategic intelligence, youngJohn Dolibois found himself assigned to be one of fivemen charged with interrogating the Nazi leadership at“Ashcan.” Throughout the summer of 1945, Dolibois gotto know each of these men intimately, gaining a perspec-

tive on their motives that few others in his-tory could claim.

Dolibois noted that rather than confine theprisoners to their cells, they were allowed tomove freely about the complex and speak witheach other. “We encouraged that. They wouldcompare notes and subsequently squeal oneach other.” He went on to explain that thisled to the breaking of the prisoners into three

distinct groups: the Nazi party leadership, the military lead-ership, and government bureaucrats. Each disliked theother and were all too happy to provide information. “Theseguys talked,” Dolibois said. “They talked too much! Wehad to work overtime on their interrogation reports.”

It must be noted that Ambassador Dolibois’ story is far tooextraordinary to be given justice in a short article as this.His book, Pattern of Circles, available from the Committee,gives insight into the minds of the Nazi leadership in amanner that only one who knew them personally could do.

WWII

the men resent him quitea bit. But the one thingthat you could say abouthim was that he made thecompany tough and hewouldn’t make anybody doanything that he wouldn’tdo himself, including run-

ning up that damn mountain, Currahee!”

Sobel was eventually replaced, and the company came un-der the command of Richard Winters, a man each of thepanel members reveres to this day. Under his leadership, ECompany survived Normandy, Holland, the freezing coldof Bastonge, the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp,and the final push into Germany, where they celebratedthe end of the war drinking Hitler’s private stash of co-gnac and whiskey at his Eagle’s Nest.

Toward the end of the discussion, the inevitable questionarose as to what the actual Band ofBrothers thought of the HBOminiseries. In general, each of thepanel members were pleased withthe way their unit was portrayed.There were two individual perfor-mances, however, that all agreedstood out above the rest. “I tellpeople that the 101st had three cam-paigns during the war, but if youcount Capt. Sobel, we had four,”joked Darrell “Shifty” Powers. “Thegentleman who played Captain Sobel (actor DavidSchwimmer, also star of the TV series Friends), did an out-standing job. I don’t think I saw Sobel smile the wholetime I knew him. The man even looked just like him!”“Shifty” later continued, “And the actor that played BillGuarnere. He had it down pat.”

Joining the proceedings at the Edward J. Herlihy AwardsBanquet, William “Wild Bill” Guarnere (pictured aboveright), emphasized the feeling of all of the men of EasyCompany that they were merely one company of soldiersamong many. “We are not heroes,” Guarnere said. “Weare lucky survivors. You men and women of the WorldWar II generation are my heroes.” WWII

From Currahee to Britain. D-Day to Holland. The Bulgeto Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. Europe in 1944-45 experiencedwar the likes of which mankind had never before seen.Yet at every turn, in that final drive from Normandy toNazi Germany, it seemed that Easy Company, the “Bandof Brothers” was there. Made famous by historian StephenAmbrose and the HBO miniseries directed by Tom Hankswith executive producer Steven Spielberg, the men of EasyCompany have in recent years become some of our mostcelebrated veterans from World War II. The World War IIVeterans Committee was honored to have had the com-pany of a number of the men of Easy Company at theSeventh Annual Conference.

Joining the dis-cussion panel onFriday, May 7,were nine mem-bers of “TheBand of Broth-ers,” including(pictured abovefrom left to

right) Lynn “Buck” Compton, Edward Joint, Clancy Lyall,Donald Malarkey, Earl McClung, Amos “Buck” Taylor,Darrell “Shifty” Powers, Edward Shames, and Jack Foley(William “Wild Bill” Guarnere and Ed “Babe” Heffronwould also join us for the Edward J. Herlihy Awards Ban-quet).

At the outset, it became clear just how much respect ex-isted among the men of Easy Company. “I feel that oneof the great breaks of my life was to be able to join andserve with this outstanding company of guys,” Lynn“Buck” Compton said to begin the discussion. This unityof purpose existed from the beginning, in the summer of1942 at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. Under the command ofCapt. (then-Lt.) Herbert Sobel, E Company underwentsome of the most intense training of any soldiers of thewar. Though they came from varied backgrounds, the mencould all immediately agree on one thing: they hated Sobel.

Asked to share a memory of Capt. Sobel, Donald Malarkey(pictured second column, top) let out a hearty laugh andreplied, “He was a tough commander and he had a lot ofpetty things that he did to guys in the company that made



E Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment,101st Airborne Division

The Band of Brothers



MidwayThe Turning of the Tide

If you travel to the World War II Memorial on the Na-tional Mall, you will notice a small inscription, carved ontosolid granite, dedicated to the Battle of Midway. It reads:THEY HAD NO RIGHT TO WIN. YET THEY DID, AND IN DOING SO THEYCHANGED THE COURSE OF THE WAR...EVEN AGAINST THE GREAT-EST OF ODDS, THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE HUMAN SPIRIT - A MAGICBLEND OF SKILL, FAITH, AND VALOR - THAT CAN LIFT MEN FROMCERTAIN DEFEAT TO INCREDIBLE VIC-TORY. - author Walter Lord

Perhaps the most crucial battle ofthe Pacific war was the Americandefense of Midway. Failure to holdcontrol of the Midway atoll wouldhave given the Japanese Empire aninvaluable air base from which itcould easily launch raids on theHawaiian Islands and beyond.

Recounting their experiences atMidway were Navy Captain Albert Earnest (standing atpodium) and Army Air Corps Colonel James Muri (seated),both pilots who were assigned to attack the advancing Japa-nese fleet. Earnest, speaking first, remembered that he hadquite a few doubts about attempting an attack in the newlydeployed Grumman TBF Avengers he and his fellow pi-lots were assigned to. “They ordered me to a torpedo squad-ron, and that didn’t really sound like the type of job Iwanted to do,” said Earnest. “I knew that they were sup-posed to come in low and slow, drop a torpedo, then try tofly away. There was very little chance to escape unscathed.”

Earnest had reason for worry. Leading the American as-sault on the Japanese fleet, Earnest’s group of six TBFAvengers came under a tremendous barrage of fire andflak from not only the Japanese fleet, but also from thecountless Zeroes swarming about. The unrelenting Japa-nese attack left Earnest’s turret gunner dead, and his radioman severely injured. It took all of his skill as a pilot toevade the Japanese fire, while at the same time making anattack run and dropping his torpedo, before limping backto Midway. Of the six TBF Avengers, only the one pilotedby Earnest returned.

Meanwhile, piloting one of four B-26 Marauders that hadtaken off shortly after the TBF’s from Midway, James Murijoined the battle. Ignoring the pounding his plane was tak-ing, he broke through the Japanese fleet’s outer defensesand trained his eye on a carrier in the distance. Flying head

on into the carrier’s antiaircraft fire, Muri held course justabove the water and released his torpedo. Immediately hepulled up, as he was so low he had to climb to avoid slam-ming into the carrier. As Muri’s B-26 buzzed the carrierdeck, his bombardier grabbed the single .50 caliber gun inthe nose and sprayed a long burst into the island of the

carrier, sending dozens of Japanesesailors scrambling for cover. Muriwas then able to break free fromthe attacking Zeroes and guide hisplane back to Midway.

At first glance, it had appearedthat the attack had been a failure,as the unescorted torpedo bomb-ers, vastly outnumbered andforced to fly low and slow, provedeasy targets for the Japanese Ze-roes. Of the six TBF’s, only the

one piloted by Earnest would return. Of the four B-26’s,only one besides James Muri’s escaped the battle. Unrec-ognized, however, was the strategic impact of the attack.Having already sent one wave of an attack against Mid-way itself, Admiral Nagumo of the Akagi had been pre-paring to launch an attack against American ships, shouldany appear. Following the attack by Earnest’s TBF’s andMuri’s B-26’s, Nagumo became convinced that Midwayneeded to be hit again. Assuming it was safe to do so, asthe American fleet had at that time not yet exposed itself,Nagumo ordered that all of his torpedo-laden bombers bede-armed and reloaded with bombs, a very time-consum-ing task. When the American carriers were spotted, Nagumorealized that he needed torpedo planes in order to attack.By this point most of his planes were hung with bombs.The ensuing confusion meant that when the American divebombers from the previously hidden Enterprise andYorktown arrived for their attack, the decks of the Japa-nese carriers were jammed with planes that were unpre-pared for battle.

It was because of the sacrifice of the American torpedobombers that the skies were cleared for the dive bombersthat were able to deal the Japanese fleet its final death-blow. Many historians believe that without this first attackby James Muri’s B-26’s and Albert Earnest’s TBF’s, vic-tory at Midway would not have been possible.

WWII



Escape from CorregidorThe Honorable Edgar Whitcomb

The Tuskegee AirmenWilliam Broadwater

Women and Air Power

One of the most inspiring stories from World War II is thatof former Indiana Governor Edgar Whitcomb. As warloomed in the middle of 1941, Whitcomb left Indiana Uni-versity to join the Army Air Corps and was sta-tioned in the Philippines. “I told my father whenI headed out that if the Japanese were foolishenough to start something, it will be over in sixmonths,” Whitcomb remembered. “Well I wasright. It was over in six months for 20,000 ofus...20,000 Americans who were taken prisoneron April 8, 1942, just four months after the warstarted.”

Clark Field, where Whitcomb was stationed in the Philip-pines, was attacked just days after the strike on Pearl Har-bor. Whitcomb was part of the well chronicled defense ofthe Philippines, and was present at the fall of Bataan. Hemanaged to flee to the fortress island of Corregidor, stillheld by the Americans, in a small row boat. WhenCorregidor fell, Whitcomb attempted a second escape,swimming for eight hours through shark-infested watersback to the Bataan peninsula, where he hoped to find helpfrom sympathetic locals.

Hiding out for weeks in the jungles of Bataan, Whitcombsaw his opportunity to escape disintegrate when he wascaptured by Philippine collaborators who turned him overto the Japanese. Realizing that if, under interrogation, his

identity as an American serviceman were discovered hewould be immediately killed, Whitcomb assumed the per-sona of a fictional mineworker named Robert Johnson,

complete with fictional parents, friends, a birth-day, and even a hometown.

Still, though he was able to fool the Japanese, hewas unable to escape the brutal treatment inflictedon American prisoners. Recounting a particularlycruel episode, Whitcomb said, “The interrogatorwent into such a rage, he was out of control. Heyelled at me, ‘You think you’re better than Japa-nese?!? You get on floor!’ So I got on my knees on

the floor. He went into such a rage, he started slapping meacross the face before kicking me in the side, he was just amadman.” Whitcomb continued, “He later grabbed a pieceof pipe, and he dealt me a blow across the back, one, thenanother. The first few were terribly painful, but after that Icouldn’t feel them. It went on and on, and he finally said,‘You cry? You woman?’ I said, ‘I’m no woman, but if you’regoing to kill me, shoot me! Don’t beat me to death!’”

After months of living in a cramped cell, suffering con-stant beatings and threats of execution, Whitcomb wasfinally freed in a prisoner exchange. Over 3 1/2 years fol-lowing the attack on Clark Field, Whitcomb would returnto the Pacific, take to the skies, and help finish the warthat he had seen begun. WWII

Wearing the unmistakable red blazer ofthe legendary Tuskegee Airmen was Wil-liam Broadwater, veteran of the first out-fit of black pilots in American militaryhistory. The Tuskegee Airmen claim aperfect record of never having lost abomber they escorted to enemy fighter

attack during the entire war. Broadwater explained that thisrecord can be attributed to the leadership of their command-ing officer, General (then-Colonel) Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.Davis not only taught the men fighter tactics, he instilledthem with the discipline it took to complete their mission.Rather than break away from their escorted bombers to mixit up with the German Luftwaffe, Davis stressed that themen forsake the personal glory of knocking down fightersfor the good of the mission at hand. WWII

World War II not only was a timewhen black Americans, like theTuskegee Airmen, found new oppor-tunities to serve their country, but alsoa time when women were given achance to prove that they had what ittook to succeed in our military. Speaking on the role ofwomen in the air war of World War II were Christine Sleeperand Lorraine Rodgers. Sleeper, who earned her pilot licensein 1941, worked as one of three female air-traffic control-lers at a military base in Boston, where she made sure thatAmerican military planes, mainly B-24’s and B-17’s, gotoff safely to Europe. Lorraine Rodgers (pictured at theEdward J. Herlihy Awards Banquet with General RichardMyers), was part of the Women’s Air Force Service PilotsProgram (WASP), the first women in American history tofly military aircraft in training and support missions, open-ing the door for all women who serve as pilots today. WWII



Interrogation Tactics

The Four ChaplainsProjectKen Wales

The Work of the LatestGeneration

Medicine in World War IIWorld War II was, by far, the bloodi-est and most costly war in terms ofhuman lives the world has ever seen.And when each battle ended, count-less wounded soldiers relied on thehelp and knowledge of the dedicatedsurgeons, medics, and nurses to savetheir lives and nurse them back to

health. Speaking on the role of medicine in World War IIwere Col. Walter Teague (pictured above), his wife Eda,and former Army Surgeon, Dr. George Sharp.

Witnessing first hand some of the most horrifying carnageof the war, Walter and Eda Teague served together withthe 44th General Hospital in Australia, New Guinea, andthe Philippines. Dr. Sharp, who was awarded the BronzeStar and Combat Medical Badge for his service, servedwith the Teagues in the Pacific Theater as a Battalion andRegimental Surgeon for the Sixth Infantry Division. At atime when 40% of America’s doctors were serving in themilitary, Dr. Sharp was quick to note the importance ofmedics, those who supplied the first line of treatment towounded soldiers. “It was their stabilizing treatment thatbrought them from the battlefield to my hands,” Dr. Sharpremembered. WWII

Speaking on the upcoming major studiofilm project on the Four Chaplains wasnoted film producer Ken Wales. Wales,who worked as a producer on the PinkPanther movies and executive producedthe TV miniseries “Christy,” spoke of hispersonal commitment to bring back the

making of positive, uplifting films to Hollywood. The storyof the Four Chaplains, who gallantly sacrificed their ownlives to save the lives of others when their ship was sunkduring World War II, is one that is personal to Ken Wales.His father, a minister himself, was a classmate at Yale withClark Poling, one of the Chaplains. “When I was 11 yearsold,” Wales recalled, “my dad told the story of the Chap-lains and quoted the text from John 15:13: ‘Greater lovehath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for hisfriends.’ He said to tell this story so that it will never beforgotten. And at age 11 I told him, ‘I will dad, I will.’”

WWII

Though the Greatest Generationis slowly fading from the scene,their legacy continues on throughthe work of countless others whorecognize the value of their sacri-fices. Many of the most dedicatedhistorians of the World War II generation are today’s youngpeople. The 2004 conference provided a forum for manyof these young people to share their work with not onlyeach other, but with World War II veterans themselves. Join-ing the conference activities were dozens of students fromthe Stories of Service project, a national initiative dedi-cated to training young people to produce video documen-taries of veterans’ wartime experiences. A full descriptionof the Stories of Service project can be seen at their website, www.stories-of-service.org. Also sharing his experiencesas a young historian was Justin Taylan (pictured above re-ceiving the 2004 Hunter Scott Youth Award). Justin hasbeen instrumental in tracking down artifacts from WorldWar II in the Pacific that have been lost to this day.

WWII

A crowd favorite at the WorldWar II Veterans Committee’sAnnual Conference is Profes-sor Guy Stern (pictured ad-dressing the audience at break-fast Saturday morning). Bornin Germany, Stern immigrated to the United States at 15,and joined the Army in 1942, where he was trained in mili-tary intelligence at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, by our ownJohn Dolibois. He would go on to serve as sergeant in chargeof the survey section of the POW enclosure of the 1st U.S.Army in Europe. Realizing that the most effective meth-ods of interrogation were to play on German prisoners’ lovesand fears, Stern and his partner developed their own uniquemethod. “The Germans greatest fear, and it took no geniusto figure out,” Stern said, “was to be placed under Russiancaptivity.” Stern and his partner devised a “good cop/badcop” method of interrogation, in which Stern played thebad cop, disguised as a Russian officer, complete with forgedautographed photo of “Comrade” Stalin. Under the name“Commissar Krukov,” Stern would rant and rave, frighten-ing the prisoner into believing he would be taken to a Rus-sian work camp. “90% of the time the prisoner would tellus everything we wanted to know,” Stern said with a smile.

WWII



In Honored GloryWreath Laying Ceremonies

Among the most moving moments of the Seventh AnnualConference were the Committee sponsored wreath layingceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arling-ton National Cemetery and at the Navy Memorial in down-town Washington, DC. A procession led by World War IIveterans Julian Gore and Robert Balfour (left) placed a wreathupon the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, our nation’s mosthollowed gravesite. For over fifty years, the tomb has beenguarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, regardless of weatherby sentinels from the 3rd Infantry Division, known as the“Old Guard.”

On Friday, May 28, the World War II Veterans Committee spon-sored a wreath laying ceremony at the Navy Memorial (right) inhonor of the World War II veterans who braved the stormy seas inthe Atlantic and Pacific. The United States Navy Memorial is lo-cated in downtown Washington, DC, directly across the street fromthe National Archives. The memorial centerpiece is a 100 foot di-ameter granite map of the world surrounded by sculptural depic-tions of historic events in U.S. Naval history. The Naval HeritageCenter is located directly adjacent to the memorial and houses atheatre and an electronic log displaying the names of 500,000 Navyveterans.

Taking part in a number of programs at the World War II VeteransCommittee’s Seventh Annual Conference, including the wreath lay-ing ceremony at the Navy Memorial, were members of the YoungMarines (left). The Young Marines is a youth education and serviceprogram for boys and girls ages eight through eighteen. Focusing oncharacter building and leadership, the program promotes the mental,moral, and physical development of its members. Founded in 1958in Waterbury, Connecticut, the Young Marines has grown to over200 units in 38 states with over 11,000 members nationwide.Throughout the Seventh Annual Conference, Young Marines at-tended speaker panel sessions and the Edward J. Herlihy AwardsBanquet, assisted in the wreath laying ceremonies, and took part inthe Choral Evensong church service in honor of the veterans ofWorld War II.

WWII



A Choral EvensongIn Honor of World War II Veterans

On the evening of May 28, the World War II VeteransCommittee sponsored a Choral Evensong in honor ofWorld War II veterans at the historic Church of theEpiphany (pictured bottom) in downtown Washington,DC. The annual service welcomed conference attend-ees of all faiths to celebrate the spirit and sacrifice ofWorld War II veterans.

Music for the service was provided by the Choir of theChurch of the Epiphany, members of the CathedralChoral Society, and members of the Washington Sym-phonic Brass. Leading the service was the Rev. RandolphCharles, assisted by the Rev. Arnold Taylor, veteran ofthe 99th Division, and the Rev. Msgr. Peter Vaghi, Pas-tor of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. Lessons were readby World War II veterans themselves (pictured bottom-left). In addition to the scores of World War II veteransin attendance, the service was joined by representativesfrom the embassies of the Allied nations, the AmericanGold Star Mothers, the World War II Orphans Network,and members of the Young Marines (pictured left).

WWII



The Dedication Of The

World War II Memorial

“The years of World War II were a hard, heroic and gallant time inthe life of our country. When it mattered most, an entire generation ofAmericans showed the finest qualities of our nation and of human-ity. On this day, in their honor, we will raise the American flag over amonument that will stand as long as America itself.”

With these words, President George W. Bush (pictured be-low) accepted the World War II Memorial on behalf of thepeople of the United States of America. A major highlightof the Seventh Annual Conference was the dedication cer-emony of the newly built World War II Memorial on the Na-tional Mall. Conference attendees (left) joined hundreds ofthousands of fellow veterans and their families and friendson the Mall in a ceremony that was long overdue, but wellworth the wait.

Joining President Bush in dedicating the memorialwere former President and World War II veteranGeorge H.W. Bush, former Senator and World WarII hero Bob Dole, actor and director Tom Hanks,who was instrumental in raising the funds to buildthe memorial, and journalist Tom Brokaw, author ofthe acclaimed book, “The Greatest Generation.” Onstage with President Bush were many of the remain-ing recipients of the nation’s highest award, TheMedal of Honor, including 2004 Chesty Puller Awardrecipients Jack Lucas and Hershel “Woody” Williams.

As the Memorial’s announcement stone reads:

Here in the Presence of Washington and Lincoln, One the Eigh-teenth Century Father and the Other the Nineteenth Century Pre-server of our Nation, We Honor Those Twentieth Century Ameri-cans Who Took Up the Struggle During the Second World War andMade the Sacrifices to Perpetuate the Gift Our Forefathers Entrustedto Us: A Nation Conceived in Liberty and Justice.

So was the dedication of the World War II Memorial an op-portunity for veterans of every era to honor the sacrificeseach of them made in service of their country. All veteranshave a special bond among each other (evidenced left, asretired Marine Colonel Oliver North greets a fellow veteranat the dedication ceremony), as only they can truly appreci-ate the bravery and sacrifice that was necessary to preservefreedom and liberty. WWII

Youth Leadership program (HOBY), a renowned organi-zation that works to seek out and recognize leadershippotential in high school sophomores.

Though they achieved their greatest fame on the baseballdiamond, Hall of Famers Monte Irvin, Bob Feller, and BuckO’Neil (right) are perhaps more proud of their service totheir country duringWorld War II. All threegave up their promisingbaseball careers toserve in the militaryduring the war, withIrvin going to the Armyand Feller and O’Neilserving in the Navy.Each one attended theEdward J. Herlihy Awards Banquet, and were a part of theParade Salute to World War II Veterans in Washington onMemorial Day.

Following the presentation of the colors by the ArmedForces Color Guard of the Military Order of Washingtonand an invocation given by the Rev. Arnold Taylor, vet-eran of the 99th Infantry Division which began the event,Winston S. Churchill, grandson of the Prime Minister, tookthe stage to propose a toast to the World War II veterans inattendance.

“It is a huge privilege for me to be invited here this eveningto propose a toast to the ‘hero generation’ that saved theworld from Hitler and Nazi slavery and defeated the Em-pire of Japan,” Churchill said. “They may just have beenordinary men and women, but their courage, their valor,and their sacrifice proved them to be wholly extraordinary.”

The early proceedings of the Edward J. Herlihy AwardsBanquet focused attention on the role of today’s youth inpreserving the legacy of the Greatest Generation. Youngpeople were certainly well represented at the banquet, withscores of students and Young Marines in attendance. Ad-ditionally, thanks to the generous donations of variouscompanies and organizations from around the country,tables were reserved for Midshipmen from the United StatesNaval Academy, students from the U.S. Coast Guard Acad-emy Corps of Cadets, and ROTC students from the Uni-versity of Maryland, George Mason University,

On the evening of May 29, 2004, at the culmination ofthree days of speaker panels, ceremonies honoring WorldWar II veterans, and the dedication of the World War IIMemorial, the World War II Veterans Committee held itshallmark event, the Edward J. Herlihy Awards Banquet.

Upwards of one-thousand World WarII Veterans and theirfamilies joined offi-cials from today’smilitary, representa-tives from the Alliednations’ diplomaticcorps, and grateful

citizens for an evening honoring the bravery they displayed60 years ago, and the legacy they will leave for generationsyet to come.

Gathering for the festivities at the Hyatt Regency CapitolHill hotel were countless dignitaries, distinguished veter-ans, and celebrities dedicated to preserving the legacy of

the World War II gen-eration. Specialguests of honor in-cluded Chairman ofthe Joint Chiefs ofStaff General Rich-ard Myers (picturedabove with Navalmidshipmen from

Annapolis); Ambassador of France, H.E. Jean-DavidLevitte; Ambassador of New Zealand, H.E. John Wood;Ambassador of Guatemala, H.E. Jose Guillermo Castillo;and representatives of the Embassies of France, Great Brit-ain, Australia, Slovakia, South Africa, and Russia. Addi-tionally, several high-ranking members of the United StatesArmy, Navy, and Marine Corps were in attendance to rep-resent their branches of the service.

An especially popular guest among the nearly one-thou-sand banquet attendees was World War II veteran and ac-tor Hugh O’Brian (pictured above-center). Most famousfor his television role as “Wyatt Earp,” O’Brian also hasthe distinction of being the youngest drill instructor inMarine Corps history, having entered the service at the ageof 17 in 1942. He is the founder of the Hugh O’Brian



Seventh Annual Edward J. HerlihyAwards Banquet

at St. Albans, and was offered a contract to pitch for theWashington Senators. Though it was his dream to playprofessional baseball, he felt it was his duty to serve hiscountry during World War II.He joined the Marines, wherehe served heroically beforebeing killed on Iwo Jima,along with so many otheryoung men whose potentialwas never realized. Nomineesfor the award must demon-strate the same dedication toscholarship, devotion to country, honor, and integrity thatTrimble demonstrated in his all too short life.

On hand for the first time to present the Lillian Keil Awardfor outstanding service by a woman during World War IIwas Lillian Keil herself. Keil is widely considered to bethe most decorated woman in United States military his-tory, having served as a flight nurse during World War IIand Korea and taking part in over 250 medical air evacua-tion missions. Following the war, she worked as a consult-ant on the movie Flight Nurse, starring Joan Leslie andForrest Tucker, a film that was based on her experienceson World War II.

The 2004 Lillian Keil Award was presented to Dr. FrancesT. Carter (pictured above with Winston S. Churchill),founder of the American Rosie the Riveter Association.Dr. Carter, who was proud to accept the award on behalfof all the workingwomen of World WarII, worked as a riveter,making B-29’s in Bir-mingham, Alabamaduring the war, as wellas volunteering at aUSO near Camp Shelby,Mississippi. She wenton to earn her PhD in education from the University ofIllinois before spending a long career working with her hus-band, Dr. John T. Carter, Dean of the School of Educa-tion at Samford University.

During a brief intermission from awards presentations,banquet attendees enjoyed a video tribute to Jean Hay,host of the popular World War II-era radio show, “Reveillewith Beverly,” which was broadcast to weary GI’s aroundthe world. Jean, better known as “Beverly,” became so popu-lar that a feature movie was made about her, with AnnMiller playing the role of “Beverly,” and a cameo by Jean

Georgetown University, as well as members of the UnitedStates Marine Corps.

Awards Banquet Emcee Gene Pell, former Director of theVoice of America and President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, presented the first award of the evening tothe 2004 World War II Veterans Committee Student EssayContest winner, Jennifer Nicolaisen of the WakefieldSchool in Leesburg, Virginia. Jennifer’s essay, entitled“Fighting the Darkness,” recounted the story of hergrandfather’s experiences as a part of the Danish resistanceto Nazi occupation during World War II. Jennifer was pre-sented with a scholarship for $600, and each Awards Ban-quet attendee was given a copy of her story. Scholarships

were also given forthe essays that fin-ished in second,third, fourth, andfifth places.

Following a briefpresentation byHunter Scott, whoas a young boy

helped to enact legislation exonerating the court-martialedCaptain Charles McVay of the USS Indianapolis, the 2004Hunter Scott Youth Achievement Award was presentedjointly to Robert Corpus and Justin Taylan. Corpus is astudent leader in the “Stories of Service” program, in whichyoung people work with veterans to produce short videodocumentaries on the veterans’ experiences. Justin Taylanfirst became interested in preserving the history of WorldWar II veterans as a young teen, when he wrote a bookcalled, “No Place for a Picnic,” based on his grandfather’swar story. Since then he has done extensive research onthe Pacific war and is working to track artifacts and wrecksthat are still in the Pacific to this day, sixty years after theend of the war.

The Awards Banquet continued with the presentation ofthe 2004 James Trimble III Scholarship to Sarah Robbinsand Wayne Williams, both high school students and mem-bers of the Young Marines (pictured above with AwardsBanquet Emcee Gene Pell, Trimble’s fellow Marines onIwo Jima Jim White and Don Mates, Committee PresidentJames C. Roberts, and standing center, Trimble’s baseballhero Bob Feller).

Established in 2001 in partnership with St. Albans Schoolin Washington and the Young Marines, the James TrimbleIII Scholarship is presented in honor of Jimmy Trimble,who in the 1940’s was an outstanding scholar and athlete



an exploding mine that severed both of his feet. Despiteintense pain and massive loss of blood, Herrera was ableto pin down the enemy with rifle fire until a friendly squadcould flank the minefield and capture the enemy strong-hold. Herrera’s incred-ible courage and sacri-fice led to his almostsingle-handed capture ofeight prisoners and twoenemy positions.

Easily the most emo-tional moment of theentire evening was thepresentation of the Jimmy Doolittle Award for distinguishedservice in the Army Air Corps in World War II. The recipi-ent for 2004 was Col. Robert Morgan, pilot of the legend-ary “Memphis Belle,” the B-17 bomber that survived 25bombing missions unscathed over the hostile skies of Eu-rope. Sadly, Col. Morgan passed away not two weeks priorto the awards banquet. Though filled with grief, Col.Morgan’s wife, Linda (pictured above being consoled byGeneral Richard Myers) attended the banquet to acceptthe award on behalf of her husband.

Robert Morgan was dedicated to keeping the legacy of allWorld War II veterans alive, Linda explained, and he tried

to use his fame as pilotof the Memphis Belle todo so. “Bob would haveasked all of you to not letthe Greatest Generationbecome the forgottengeneration.” She contin-ued, “I am here, very gra-

ciously, not to accept this award for Bob Morgan, but toaccept it for the entire crew of the ‘Memphis Belle.’”

The recipient of this year’s Chester Nimitz Award for dis-tinguished service in the U.S. Navy was Captain AlbertEarnest, whose heroism at Midway was recounted earlierin this issue. Joined by 2003 Doolittle Award recipientJames Muri, Earnest humbly accepted the award on behalfof all of the crews of the torpedo bombers at Midway,who when faced with a near impossible mission, met thechallenges head-on, and led the way for the eventual vic-tory at Midway.

For their valor in the bloody battle for Iwo Jima, Medal ofHonor recipients Woody Williams and Jack Lucas were pre-sented with the 2004 Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller Award forDistinguished Service in the Marine Corps. Williams, who

herself. The film featured performances by a number ofthe top recording artists of the day, including DukeEllington, Count Basie, and a very young and very thinFrank Sinatra.

Reprising her role as “Reveille with Beverly” at the Ed-ward J. Herlihy Awards Banquet, Jean Hay introduced thesinging trio, Swing Shift, (pictured previous page, bottom),a group dedicated to the popular music of the World WarII-era. Singing such classics as “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy,”Swing Shift was accompanied by the 21-piece Difficult RunJazz Band, which provided music throughout the evening.

Returning to theawards program, the2004 Audie MurphyAward for distin-guished service in theUnited States Armywas presented jointlyto James Strawder and

Silvestre Herrera. Strawder (pictured receiving the awardabove), was featured heavily in the recent book, Blood forDignity, which told the story of the first integrated combatunit in U.S. Army history. Having served bravely and ad-mirably, Strawder was discarded by the Army following thewar, leaving him embittered and angry for years. Thirty yearsafter the war, by complete chance, he ran into fellow vet-erans of the 99th Infantry Division who convinced him toattend a reunion of the entire unit. The goodwill he foundamong the veterans he met at the reunion encouraged himto forgive the Army and his fellow veterans. He soon foundGod, and peace, and has spent the years since working tocontinue the legacy of the first integrated platoons of the99th Division. Upon receiving the 2004 Audie MurphyAward, Strawder remarked, “I am elated and proud. I neverthought the day would come when I would receive a rec-ognition like this.”

Also presented with the 2004 Audie Murphy Award wasMedal of Honor recipient Silvestre Herrera. On March 15,1945, as a soldier in the 36th Infantry Division servingnear Mertzwiller, France, Herrera was advancing with hisplatoon along a wooded road when they were suddenly at-tacked by a barrage of enemy machine gun fire. While therest of his unit took cover, he alone made a brash frontalassault upon the enemy stronghold, capturing numerousprisoners. Moving forward, the platoon found itself underattack from a second position that was protected by anextensive minefield. Pressing the counter-attack, Herrerarushed the enemy emplacement when he was cut down by



regime. Upon receiving the award, Dolibois told the audi-ence, “I would particularly like to thank you for this awardbecause it has the word ‘citizenship’ in it.”

The final honorees of the evening were the men of Com-pany E, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st AirborneDivision: “The Band of Brothers.” Following a movingvideo tribute that combined actual footage from the warwith clips from the HBO miniseries, the eleven men ofEasy Company in attendance took the stage (Pictured aboveleft, from left to right: Jack Foley, Earl McClung, Lynn“Buck” Compton, Darrell “Shifty” Powers, Amos “Buck”Taylor, Edward Joint, Donald G. Malarkey, William “WildBill” Guarnere, Ed “Babe” Heffron, Clancy Lyall, and kneel-ing, Edward Shames).

Speaking for all the men of Easy Company, Lynn “Buck”Compton told the assembled, “I would like to thank youfor this recognition and honor. I have to tell you that all ofthis hoopla, if you will, about the Band of Brothers, has adown side for us. We thinkit’s done a great service forthe country in building pa-triotism, helping kids tounderstand duty and ser-vice. The one thing wehave to continue to say isthat we don’t intend, by this movie, to claim that we didany more, or even as much as, thousands of guys thatslogged across Europe, or served in the jungles of the Pa-cific. We are just a microcosm of all the guys who served,and serve as a vehicle to build patriotism and a sense ofduty to country.”

“Wild Bill” Guarnere echoed the same sentiment, declar-ing that they were not heroes, but that the real heroes wereall the men and women of the World War II generationwho helped to preserve freedom. Showing some of histrademark pluck, “Wild Bill” offered a special thanks tothe veterans of the Navy in attendance when he said, “Youcan take it to the bank, without the U.S. Navy, we neverwould have won the goddamn war!”

The awards presentations over, banquet attendees weretreated to a performance by the Navy Band Sea Chanters(left), under the direction of Chief Musician Keith Hinton.The Edward J. Herlihy Awards Banquet wrapped up as allin attendance danced the night away with the traditionalswing dance (above), led by the 21-piece Difficult Run JazzBand. The celebratory atmosphere proved a fitting end toa weekend none could ever forget and an incredibly suc-cessful Seventh Annual Conference. WWII

had earlier spoken in the speaker panel on Iwo Jima at theSeventh Annual Conference, expressed the sentiments ofmany of the veterans of World War II in attendance in say-ing, “Today has been one of those days when many memo-ries have flooded back through the minds of thousands ofpeople, and that includes me. And I believe that God looked

down on this oc-casion today andsmiled, becauseHe had a divinehand in whattook place in mylife, and in thelives of millions.”

Jack E. Lucaswas the youngest Marine in United States history to be pre-sented with the Medal of Honor. Determined to enlist inthe Marines in 1942, one could say perhaps prematurely,Lucas signed on at the age of 14 after falsifying his enlist-ment papers to reflect his age as 17. Three years later in1945, Lucas found himself on the tiny Pacific island ofIwo Jima, in the middle of one of the most intense battlesever fought. On the day after the landing, Lewis’ patrol offour men was suddenly ambushed by Japanese forces. Whentwo enemy grenades landed at the feet of the four Marines,Lewis hurled himself on top of one and pulled the otherunder him, taking the full blast of the explosions. Miracu-lously, he survived, and his tremendous sacrifice saved hisfellow Marines from certain injury and possible death.

The 2004 Edward J. Herlihy Citizenship Award for pre-serving the legacy of the World War II Generation was pre-sented to a familiar and popular face in Ambassador JohnE. Dolibois (pictured previous page, bottom). Ambassa-

dor Dolibois, who wasborn in Luxembourgand came to Americaas a young boy, arriv-ing on IndependenceDay, was one of fivemen who served as in-terrogators of the Nazi

war criminals prior to the trials at Nuremberg. Years later,following the election of Ronald Reagan, Dolibois wouldreturn to the country of his birth as United States Ambas-sador to Luxembourg. He has recounted his story in thebook, Pattern of Circles, and has given hundreds of speechesin both the United States and Europe on not only the needto preserve the legacy of World War II veterans, but on theimportance to learn the lessons of the atrocities of the Nazi





Committee Leads Parade Saluteto World War II Veterans

Nearly sixty years following their victorious return home,the veterans of World War II were saluted with a paradein their honor along the streets of our nation’s capital.On Memorial Day, 2004, over 15,000 spectators gath-ered in Washington for the inaugural Parade Salute toWorld War II Veterans. The parade, which was the firstMemorial Day parade in Washington in over 60 years,featured more than 200 organizations, including theAmerican Legion, Catholic War Veterans, Tuskegee Air-men, Women’s Army Corps Veterans Association, andthe White House Commission on Remembrance. In ad-dition to the hundreds of World War II Veterans whoparticipated, the parade featured over 40 marching bandsfrom across the United States and Canada.Honorary Grand Marshal of the parade was Washington

Mayor Anthony Williams. “This is a bigger event thanthe Millennium (2000 New Year’s celebration) was forthe city,” Williams was quoted of saying regarding theweekend’s activities, capped off by the parade. JoiningMayor Williams as Grand Marshals were entertainersNancy Sinatra, Connie Stevens, and Paul Revere and theRaiders and World War II Veterans retired Army Maj.Gen. J. Milnor Roberts, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. WilmaVaught, and National Baseball Hall of Fame membersBob Feller and Monte Irvin, who both interrupted theirsports careers to serve in the war.

The World War II Veterans Committee is proud to haveled the effort to stage this inaugural parade, raising anddonating the tens of thousands of dollars needed to makethe event a success and serving as headquarters for theplanning phase of the parade. Committee President JamesC. Roberts was appointed director of the parade’s execu-tive committee.

Proving to be a tremendous success, theinaugural Parade Salute to World War IIVeterans was the first of what many hopeis an annual event to be held on MemorialDay in the nation’s capital. Planning fornext year’s parade is now underway, andthe World War II Veterans Committee willagain serve as parade headquarters. If youwould like to support the parade effort, oryou or your organization would like toparticipate in the 2005 parade, please con-tact the World War II Veterans Commit-tee at 202-777-7272.

WWII

Join the Combat Veterans of Iwo Jima

Reunion of Honor

60th Anniversary Tour

March 7-14, 2005

At 0900 on February 19, 1945, thousands of UnitedStates Marines stormed the volcanic sand beaches ofthe tiny island of Iwo Jima. Within minutes, the islandwould be engulfed in one of the bloodiest battles inhistory. Over 28,500 Marines and Naval Personnelwere awarded Purple Hearts for the battle, with over20% of those killed. Of the original Japanese garrisonof over 21,000 men, only 216 would be taken pris-oner. The rest would die in battle, or were buried alivein the tunnels and caves that wound underneath theisland.

Throughout the years, the legend of the heroes of IwoJima has grown, aided by the most famous image ofthe war, Joe Rosenthal’s photo of the flag raising atopMt. Suribachi. In the decades since Iwo Jima was re-turned to the Japanese, it has become a tightly securedmilitary installation with no tourist infrastructure.

This is your one opportu-nity to see one of theworld’s most hallowed andpreserved war sites.

Coordinated by Military Historical Tours of Alexan-dria, Virginia, the 60th Anniversary Tour of Iwo Jimawill take place March 7-14, 2005. This is your oneand only opportunity to honor the brave men who sac-rificed everything in this devastating assault on the Japa-nese empire at the site where it all happened. Join tourhosts and veterans of Iwo Jima Lt. Gen. Larry Snowdenand Maj. Gen. Fred Haynes, USMC, for what will trulybe a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Base Price for Main Tourto Guam and Iwo Jima:

$3,495 Per Person/DoubleOccupancy

Single Supplement Additional$695

Land-Only Tour $2595

Optional Pre-Tour Visits toSaipan and Tinian and Post-

Tour Visits to Peleliu andHawaii

Available

Main Tour Highlights Include:-- Welcoming reception on Guam

-- Full day of Guam battlefield tours and visit to AndersenAir Force Base

-- Governor’s Breakfast and Iwo Jima Anniversary Ban-quet with invited national and local dignitaries

-- Memorial Service and Wreath Laying at the Joint Me-morial overlooking the landing beaches on Iwo Jima

-- Visits to the Iwo Jima Landing Beaches, Memorial Sites,Green Beach, the base and top of Mt. Suribachi, Hospi-tal Cave, General Kuribayashi’s Headquarters, and more

-- Farewell dinner at John Gerber’s Ranch and Museum,hosted by the Guam Chapter of the Third Marine Divi-sion

-- Free time for individual touring, shopping, and leisure

-- Special events sponsored by the World War II VeteransCommittee

SPACE IS LIMITED...REGISTERTODAY!!!

To request additional information on joining theWorld War II Veterans Committee to Guam and

Iwo Jima (with optional add-ons), please send thisform to:

Combat Veterans of Iwo JimaC/O Military Historical Tours

4600 Duke St. Suite 420Alexandria, VA 22304-2517

703-212-0695; E-Mail- [email protected] be sure to mention that you wish to join

the World War II Veterans Committee contingent

Tour information can be viewed at:www.miltours.com

Yes! I would like information on the 60th Anniversary Tour to Iwo Jima and Guam. Please send a tourbrochure, full itinerary, and registration form to:

Name:_____________________________________________________________________

Address:___________________________________________________________________

City, State, Zip:______________________________________________________________

Telephone, Fax:______________________________________________________________

America can turn to its seemingly endless reservoir ofheroes. In this case, she relies upon one Forrest J.Robinson and the giants of the 104th Infantry Divi-sion of the First Army.

The Holocaust washumanity’s worst moment.For the sheer hatred dis-played, for the effort and re-sources invested in massa-cring innocent human be-ings, and for the inhuman ef-ficiency of the killing ma-chines the Nazis developed,the Holocaust is simply with-out peer in human history.

“After Auschwitz,” lamentedGerman social criticTheodor Adorno, “it is bar-baric to write poetry.” Fifty-five years have passed sinceAdorno made his famousremark, and the gap separat-ing the Holocaust from ev-eryday reality has become noless bridgeable.

For some American soldiers, however, the Holocaustwas not an event to be mourned over and mytholo-gized. It had to be confronted directly.

Army divisions often choose their insignias arbitrarily.One can imagine, say, a lion being selected to empha-size a unit’s bravery. The selections are easy, but ran-dom.

This was not the case for the 104th Infantry division.For this group, only the timberwolf would do. For thetimberwolf is a subspecies of the gray wolf, and isexceedingly rare. If any nickname ever suited a divi-sion, this was it: both rare and toweringly powerful.


Opposition to America and American foreign policyhas reached unprecedented heights. This hostility isnot confined to the Arab and Muslim nations of theworld, as the media often make it seem. Earlier thisyear, a writer in Canada’sToronto Star opined that “forCanadians, there are certainsimilarities” between NaziGermany and present-dayAmerica. “Like Central Eu-ropean nations of the1930’s,” he added, “Canadafinds itself next door to apowerful nation led by anunusually aggressive andperhaps slightly unhingedman.” The Star has the high-est circulation of any news-paper in the country.

Perhaps it might be helpful,in times when such sordidthings masquerade as rea-sonable commentary, for aCanadian, a foreigner, suchas me to remind the worldof the astonishing contribu-tions America has made-and continues to make-to thecause of humanity.

Even a quickly-compiled list of contributions fromjust the 20th century should be more than enough toextinguish the poisonous fires of anti-Americanism cur-rently swallowing the globe: the United Nations andthe Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the com-puter and the internet, jazz, Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr. and the Civil Rights movement, space travel, envi-ronmentalism, Rock N’ Roll, Hollywood movies, and,not least, contributing significantly to the defeat ofNazism and communism.

Alas, sometimes it takes an individual tale to bringhome what general references cannot. For that,

In Desperate TimesThe Liberation of Nazi Death Camps

By Jordan Michael Smith

A German girl is overcome as she walks past thebodies of slave workers murdered by SS guardsnear Namering, Germany. The bodies had beenexhumed by Allied forces and placed in the openso townspeople could see the attrocities commit-

ted by the Nazi regime.


The 104th was born as a reserve infantry division inthe wake of World War I. Its personnel were originallydrawn from the Western states of Wyoming, Utah,Nevada, Montana, and Idaho. When it turned into acombat outfit ready for training decades after its cre-ation, however, men from all over the country camewest to join the Timberwolves of the 104th.

Forrest Robinson was 21 years old when he became aTimberwolf. He joined the group in March of 1943,when the headquarters was located in Salt Lake City,Utah. He was first stationed in Camp Carson, Colo-rado. From there Dr. Robinson went to Sherborne,north through France, Belgium, and Holland. “Then,”he explained, “we finally pulled back and headed easttoward Berlin.”

The way Robinson speaks, you’d think theTimberwolves were on a cruise. They were not. “I waswith the Military Police Platoon. Our job was to clogup the traffic up front.” This means, essentially, thatRobinson and the Timberwolves were on the frontlines against the German juggernaut that had con-quered nearly all of Europe.

Documentation on the discovery and liberation of theNazi concentration camps is often scant because find-ing the camps was not the primarily military objec-tive. The soldiers-come-liberators usually found thecamps by chance.

The 104th came across Dora-Mittelbau, AKA Dora-Nordhausen completely by accident. Duderstadt, asmall town in Germany, had been captured by the 415th

on April 10th, 1945. Civilians and prisoners there gavereports indicating that the increasingly disorganizedNazi army had withdrawn to positions in the HarzMountains. Having received directions from their com-rades in the 415th, the 104th headed towards the moun-tains. On their way, they found Nordhausen.

In a similar scenario, the 4th Armored Division dis-covered the camp at Mauthuasen unintentionally. Theunit had orders to proceed to the city of Ohrdruf wherethey were to locate a huge communications center. Itwas thought that the German army intended to usethe center as headquarters as they retreated from Ber-lin. Colonel Richard Seibel, executive of Combat Com-mand B, 11th Armored Division, sent a patrol out toascertain the enemy’s position and make contact with

the Russians. While probing the area, the patrol acci-dentally located Mauthausen concentration camp.

The most common method of discovery, according toUniversity of Georgia Professor Theresa Lyn Ast, wastroops being told to see the camps by their friends andsuperiors. Prof. Ast’s dissertation, Confronting the Holo-caust: American Soldiers Who Liberated the ConcentrationCamps, is the most thorough collection of interviewswith American liberators yet published. She writes thatafter seeing the abominable conditions at Ohrdruf,Eisenhower insisted that all troops under his commandsee Dachau. He reasoned that they would see whatthey had been fighting for.

Other American units have reported literally stumblingupon camp prisoners and survivors. One veteran gavean oral testimony swearing he came across escapedprisoners literally dragging themselves along the street.Still other soldiers had specific agendas or tasks toaccomplish, such as compiling reports or investigat-ing diseases. Once entering the camps, they realizedthey were not dealing with any ordinary refugee or dis-placed persons camp. Some GI’s were notified by lo-cal inhabitants throughout Poland and Germany to “gosee the camps.” When unassociated, separate indi-vidual citizens from different countries gave Allied sol-diers specific information about the camps, it beliedtheir later claims that ordinary people had no knowl-edge of the camps or the extent of the Nazi crimes.

Hindsight’s benefit makes it easy to remember thecamps as being common knowledge among those liv-ing in the Allied countries. In truth, those who tried totell the world about the horrors in concentration campswere usually denounced as just government propagan-dists. Moreover, occupied countries were also simplyin denial that they were helpless to protect-or, worse,were complying with-Nazi round-ups and deportations.As late as March 31st 1943, for instance, the New YorkTimes reported that the Fighting French Headquarterswas skeptical about the World Jewish Congress’s claimsof “death convoys.” The Headquarters argued that “noinformation was available from the usually excellentsources in the homeland.”

Albert Schwartz, a member of the 104th, says his divi-sion had, typically, dismissed the rumors about thecamps as exaggerated. This repudiation made the al-


ready astonishing horrors all the more shocking. Battle-field scenes were the grim and necessary concomitantof war; ditches and warehouses piled high with na-ked, emaciate civilian dead were not. They were, infact, horrifying beyond any imagination or expecta-tion; very little imaginativeliterature in the precedingthousands years had everconjured up a fantasy astwisted and brutal as theones that lay before the104th’s eyes.

On April 11th 1945 the di-vision moved intoNordhausen. TimberwolfTracks, the official history ofthe division, relays Schwartzas telling that “the corpseswere scattered throughoutthe buildings and grounds ofthe large camp and all ofthem appeared to have beenstarved to such an extentthat they were mere skel-etons wrapped in skin.” In one corner, the text con-tinues with a matter-of-fact sparseness, “was a pile ofarms and legs.”

Corporal Robinson and his unit drove into Nordhausenon their jeep a day after Schwartz entered. He enteredthe hospital ward along with his commanding offic-ers. “I noticed the stench first,” Robinson quietly said.“I’ll never, ever forget that overwhelming stench. Aslong as I live. It was like burning garbage mixed withburning hair.” In the hospital ward, Robinson foundbarracks: beds lined up, stacked up. “There were bod-ies everywhere. Dead and dying side-by-side. Therewere people still living lying beside and on top ofpeople who had been dead for 2, 3, even 4 days.” Itwas the mishmash of alive and dead that struck Dr.Robinson most strongly: “They were barely alive.” Dr.Robinson’s voice rings with a mixture of amazementand horror when he tells me this.

Stacks of corpses were piled under the stairs, Dr.Robinson recalled, but these bodies were all lifeless.This is confirmed by other soldiers. Another liberatorwrote that “some were stacked like cordwood understairways.” A medic in the 329th Medical Battalion

noted that these corpses were “neatly piled-25 men orhalf-men.”

Dr. Robinson told the United States Holocaust Me-morial Museum that he ran out of the building and

back to their jeep, which heused to steady himself. Hewas so overwhelmed heleaned over the edge of thejeep and vomited.

Major Ernest C. James, Ser-geant Ragene Farris of the329th, had a similarly dis-arming experience. His rec-ollections are most strikingbecause he was a medic. Ashe put it, “we were battle-tried and combat-wise, andwe thought there was noth-ing left in the books wedidn’t know.” In otherwords, Major Ferris had as-sumed, quite naturally, thathe had become immune to

sights of violence and disease. “Blood and bandagesand all kinds of hell was the daily routine [sic]. Plasmabottles-cases of them- surgery, shock and death, allthese on a twenty-four hour basis.” Sgt. Farris hadmoved into a mental phase that is common to humanbeings under extreme circumstances. Retrospectively,he is incredibly honest and perceptive about what hap-pened to him: “in order to keep working efficientlyand smoothly, we had grown callous.” A survivalmechanism of humans’ forces us to repress our emo-tions when we see others in overwhelming pain.

When I asked Dr. Robinson how the prisoners reactedwhen they saw their liberators, his voice became no-ticeably more emotional. “They were pleading for help.Just pleading with us. There were cries for help all over.They were so grateful to us. And it was awful becausethere was very little we could do.”

The image that comes to mind is of men running tohug their newfound angels. But it is a false image. Mostprisoners were simply too weak to move more than afew feet. A large number were between 50-75 lbs. whenliberated, having been deliberately starved by theNazis.

Slave laborers at the Buchenwald concentrationcamp. Many had already died of malnutrition

when U.S. troops entered in 1945.


Major Ferris remembers that “I saw one man feeblystagger to attention and salute us as tears slowly trick-led down his cheeks. Too weak so walk, this man wasgenuinely moved to pay tribute to those who werehelping him-showing him the first kind act he had seenin years.”

A frontline chaplain with the 104th wrote that survi-vors hadn’t eaten for a long time but asked for Jewishreligious items-not food-and to get in touch with theirrelatives, usually in the United States. Liberated pris-oners were always eager to make contact with soldierswho could converse with themin their own language; thismight include any of the Euro-pean languages or Hebrew. Lan-guage barriers notwithstanding,prisoners were grateful to talkto anyone who would listen, andappreciated all efforts to com-municate; they all had stories totell, experiences to relate. Serv-ing as a medic at Dachau, Ser-geant Glen Stranberg tried tocommunicate by sign languagethat he was there to help them,“because they had the idea thatthey would be killed.” American GIs who could notsurmount the language barrier still found ways to com-fort the survivors; they held sick and dying inmates inthe arms so they would not feel so terribly alone. KayNe, an entertainer attached to V Corps, 1st Army, whospent time at Buchenwald, remembered that, “I lookedinto the eyes of death in these people and I did what Icould, I hugged them and kissed them and cried withthem and murmured to them in a language that mostdid not understand. And I watched a number die whileI was there…”

Concentration camp carnage affected soldiers moreintensely than typical scenes of war wounded anddead. The veterans themselves made this distinction.Liberators, more than non-liberators, appear to havesuffered continuing symptoms of severe trauma di-rectly related to the graphic horror of the camps. Whilemany war veterans are subject to emotional and physi-cal trauma, Prof. Ast compiled data that indicated thatliberators underwent even more pain than was usual.

Dr. Robinson was not the only member of the 104hto mention the stench of Nordhausen as a definingmemory. Many of the other liberators have done so.And Dr. Robinson was not the only liberator, unfortu-nately, to speak of his difficulty with attempting tolive with his experiences, years after World War II:“whenever I am camping and burn my hair or some-thing accidentally, I literally get sick to my stomach.”Nearly all liberators report at least some type of psy-chological difficulty readjusting to civilized surround-ings. According to Prof. Ast, “only the tiniest percent-age of liberators described their readjustment process

as easy or effortless.”

But Dr. Robinson was the onlyGI in the 104th to take picturesof what he saw. “I had a smallGerman spy camera,” he says, asif it is no big deal. It is one. Hispictures are nothing short of as-tonishing.

There are now five pictures inthe Holocaust Museum filedunder the “Dr. Forrest J.Robinson Collection.” By coin-cidence, Dr. Robinson had just

donated his photographs to the Museum when I con-tacted him. When I went to the Museum, I found thathis pictures had not been completely filed. Through abureaucratic mix-up, I was able to examine and copythe original pictures themselves, unencumbered by anyartificial enhancements or even protection.

Picture 1 is perhaps the most graphic. A pile of corpses,some no more than skeletons, rests in front of a par-tially destroyed building. The black ink inscription onthe back reads: “Nordhuasen Concentration Camp/April 12, 1945.”

The exact count of people found at Nordhausen seemssomewhat hazy. We do know that 500 survivors wereremoved from the camp and taken right to the 51st

Field Hospital. 3,000 individuals were later buried,according to Prof. Ast. Dr. Robinson says that theArmy counted 5012 bodies. Earl Ziemke, in his studyThe U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, reports that3.000 unburied bodies and 2,000 prisoners too weakto have been evacuated were found. In TimberwolfTracks, the number is put at 5,000 corpses among 6,000inmates.

Corpses at the Nordhausen ConcentrationCamp


Liberation is not popular. That is, the idea of the lib-eration makes people uncomfortable. It does so fortwo reasons. First, the idea that something as depravedas Western civilization could free something tyranni-cal makes moral equivocators squeamish-they makesure to always include the term in quotation marks.They forget what Prof. Ast reminds us: “some Holo-caust survivors have described liberation as any in-stance when Allied troops arrived at, and opened thegates of a camp, accepting administrative and sup-port responsibilities for the camp. These individualsidentify as a liberator not only the soldiers who en-gaged German guards in battle at the concentrationcamps, but any Allied soldier who provided assistance,of whatever kind, in the first days after the campswere uncovered.” The liberated rarely have troubleidentifying who it was that brought them freedom.

Secondly, and more importantly for the purposes ofthis article, the liberation of the Nazi camps recalledthings people preferred to forget. As recently as 1979,historian Yehuda Bauer was able to correctly arguethat the liberation was being ignored among subjectsattracting the newly developing Holocaust studies.

This has now changed. In late 1978, President JimmyCarter formed the President’s Commission on theHolocaust to issue a report on the state of Holocaustremembrance and education in America. One of thecommittee’s recommendations was that “a living me-morial be established to honor and ensure that the les-sons of the Holocaust will be taught in perpetuity.”

As the plans began to come together, SigmundStrochlitz and Benjamin Meed, co-chairmen of theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Council Days ofRemembrance Committee, wrote to then-Secretary ofthe Army John O. Marsh, Jr., requesting that the Army“present its colors and those of the units that partici-pated in the liberation for permanent display” in theforthcoming Museum.

Historian Edward J. Drea identifies the dual purposeof recognition: first, to honor the officers and men ofthe liberating division and, second, to remember thevictims of Nazi tyranny.

Drea, who was then chief of the Staff Support Branchfor the Council, met with Dr. Brewster S. Chamber-lain III, the Council’s Director of Archives and Li-

brary, to discuss guidelines that would govern recog-nition of liberating units. Working with the Instituteof Heraldry, Drea and Chamberlain decided that:

a) Eligibility for liberation credit would not belimited only to the first division to reach a camp,but would include follow-on division that arrivedat the same camp or camp complex within forty-eight hours of the initial division. They wereaware, of course, that entire divisions did not par-ticipate in liberating camps, but decided it wouldbe overwhelmingly difficult to assign credit toeach small unit involved.

b) Primary source evidence found in unit andother contemporary records was essential for lib-eration credit. Oral history or testimony, whilevaluable, would not suffice for liberation credit.The Council was meticulous in ensuring accuracywas primary, and this explains the focus on offi-cial documentation. Considerable time and effortwere spent engaged in research at the Washing-ton National Research Center in Suitland, Mary-land to locate the unit records that confirm trooparrival within the stipulated 48-hour limit.

c) Recognition would occur only at the divisionlevel. Unit records, Drea writes, are fragmentaryand simply too vast: the very amount of flags forunits below division echelon would be over-whelming.

d) The Center and the Council worked withveterans who had requested recognition, to en-sure that there was no favoritism.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum wasbuilt on land donated by the U.S. Federal Government,but constructed entirely with funds raised by privatecharities. It is fitting then that there is a wing on thesecond floor devoted to American liberators.

The photograph on the next page consists of multiplerows of bodies laying side-by-side on the ground. Theinscription on reverse reads: “Nordhausen, GermanConcentration Camps. There are nearly 60 bodies inthis picture. Many of these are partially burned asthough it was done as torture. They all suffered star-vation, many dying from it. German civilians wereforced to clean up the camp and bury the 5,000 dead.Most of these were poles [sic] and Russians.”


Dr. Robinson told me that he helped in rounding upGerman citizens and told them they had to bury thebodies. This was not uncommon. In many areas aroundliberated camps the general civilian population wasadequately fed and liberators felt justified in takinglocal stores of provision for the use of survivors.The local men were required to pick up bodies andbury them in mass graves, without masks. Keep in mindthat the stench was unbearable. Since the local mayor-a ‘Burgomaster’ in the German language-had fled, thedeputy Burgomaster was forced to roundup townspeople to clean up the camp. TheGerman citizens claimed they had noknowledge of the camps, even though thecamps were visible from the town!

Often liberators did whatever was neces-sary to produce food for the survivors intheir care. The men of the 802nd Field Ar-tillery Battalion stationed nearNordhausen canvassed the local Germanpopulation and made them gather food-stuffs for Russian survivors. In onecamp a bakery lacked only a watersupply, and the military governmentreported that Army personnel trans-ported 500 gallons of water to thebakery. The water made daily pro-curement of 1,500 additional loavesof bread possible.

It is important to note that Nordhuasen was a concen-tration camp, not an extermination camp, likeAuschwitz. Most prisoners in concentration camps diednot from executions, but from starvation, disease andoverwork. Of course, the conditions in concentrationcamps were no less horrendous than their extermina-tion-based counterparts. In his book Inside the ViciousHeart, historian Robert H. Abzug records the astound-ing statistic that “of the 60,000 Jews in camps at thetime of liberation, twenty thousand died within aweek.”

Nordhausen was an aircraft and missile factory. It wasa satellite camp of Buchenwald, 50 miles south ofthe main camp. Its inmates had been transferred toperform labor in missile factories. One book, writtenshortly after the war, stated that over 10,000 slavelaborers were used to build the underground-and few

survived. Inmates worked in the factory in the tunnelwhere V-1 and V-2 rockets and Messerschmidt planeswould be assembled and built.

Two miles northwest of Norhausen a huge under-ground V-bomb factory was uncovered. Two big tun-nels led into the factory, with railroad trains and trucksbeing able to run directly into the mountain. It wastwo miles in length, approximately fifty feet in widthand height, and was connected laterally by forty-eight

smaller tunnels. The work was done in thesmaller tunnels, while the two big tunnelsserved exclusively for traffic. More than25,000 prisoners had toiled here formonths in production of V-1 and V-2bombs. The SS were in charge of the fac-tory and the camp, with German criminalsacting as straw bosses. On the slightestsuspicion of sabotage, the workers wereshot. No workers were permitted to leavethe camp, and when they became too weakto work, they were abandoned to die. Their

bodies burned at the crematoriumwithin the grounds. Reports indi-cated that approximately one hun-dred bodies were cremated per day,and there were about thirty corpseson the ground awaiting such treat-ment. Millions of dollars worth of

the finest equipment and machinery, thousands of V-bombs, and parts of other bombs were found withinthe factory, many loaded on freight cars ready for ship-ment.

The photograph on the next page shows an SS officerstanding against a wall. The man is in obvious pain,and Dr. Robinson explained to me why. “This wasrather traumatic.” When a soldier who lost his hearingat the Battle of the Bulge tells you something is trau-matic, you listen. After Nordhausen he went to a forcedlabor camp: Tenenberg. Sometime after Dr. Robinsonarrived at the recently liberated camp, he saw 200 pris-oners, the ones who could still move-mostly Poles andRussians-jumping on this SS officer. They had him upagainst the wall and were running and jumping againsthis head and groin with full force. “After each beat-ing, he would stand up and give a terse ‘Heil Hitler!’Well, this of course enraged the prisoners, who would

A horrifying sight awaited the Ameri-can liberators of the Nazi concentra-tion camps. Thousands died at the

Nordhausen camp.


jump at him again. And then-and I’ve always disagreedwith this-an American soldier put him out of his mis-ery. He shot (the SS officer) in the head.”

The picture, Dr. Robinson adds, is of the SS officerjust before he gave his last ‘Heil Hitler!’

There is an intellectual debate surroundingthe liberators’ actions. One perspective,held by Dr. Abzug, holds that soldiers wereovercome with revulsion and disgust at thesurvivors. They avoided and neglected thesurvivors to the point of callousness.

The second view, held by Prof. Ast, pointsout that “on the whole, GIs responded tothe survivors with compassion and sensi-tivity.” She feels that Abzug’s analysis iscorrect only when applied specifically tothe Displaced Persons camps. Becausethey did not see the camp, as liberatorsdid, the occupation troops who arrivedwell after liberation had markedly dif-ferent attitudes and responses to the sur-viving camp inmates.

Abzug writes, “An almost unbearable mixture of em-pathy, disgust, guilt, anger, and alienation pervadedeach entry into a camp, compounding the palpablehorror that greeted the liberator in each barracks andon every parade ground.” He emphasizes the reactionsof disgust and alienation toward the survivors, to theexclusion of much empathy and compassionate con-cern for the victims.

There were two groups of soldiers who worked withthe concentration camp inmates. The first group, theliberators, first encountered survivors in the finalweeks of the war. They saw the full horror of thecamps and were acutely aware of the treatment of theoccupation army, soldiers trained to handle civil af-fairs and military government in defeated Germany.Most of these individuals never saw the camps in theiroriginal condition and never separated the living sur-vivors from among the countless dead. The work ofcleaning up the camps and disposing of the bodieswas largely accomplished by the time they arrived.Occupation troops, by mid-summer, were still dealingwith very frustrated and impatient Jewish DPs. Thebulk of the testimony cited in Inside the Vicious Heart

comes from occupation troops, newspapers, and maga-zine reports; little testimony comes from the libera-tors, the men who first entered the camps.

I would say that the liberators, as a group, did not thinkof the survivors as animals, creatures, or sub-humans.

They were certainly sickened and revoltedby the conditions in which the camp in-mates had been forced to live, but this didnot lead to any wholesale rejection of thesurvivors themselves. Only the smallesthandful of the liberators described the vic-tims as sub-human or animal-like. Theoverwhelming majority of the liberators didnot view the camp inmates in those terms.American soldiers saw the dreadfully sick,abused, and dirty survivors as fully human,and they treated them with the care and

respect due fellow human beings. Liber-ating soldiers went to great lengths totreat the survivors with patience andkindness and their most often most of-ten mentioned feelings were sorrow,compassion, pity, and sympathy.

Liberators were more tolerant of the appearance andbehavior of survivors; they were able to view them inthe context of the worst excesses of the concentra-tion camp system, something soldiers arriving on thescene later would naturally have greater difficulty do-ing.

Dr. Robinson’s tale has an epilogue-and perhaps itserves as an epilogue to the tales of all the Americanliberators.

As he was departing from his meeting with the Holo-caust Museum curator, a Holocaust survivor ap-proached him. With tears streaming down his face, Dr.Robinson kissed her on her cheek. As he bent down,she whispered something in his ear: “Thank you.”

As the world once again gets swallowed up in anti-Americanism, perhaps his story is something we shouldremember.

Jordan Smith is currently pursuing a Master of Arts degree in Inter-national Relations at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. He isa graduate of the University of Western Ontario and worked as anintern for the World War II Veterans Committee in 2004.

WWII

The SS officer atTenenberg shortly before

being shot dead.


Col. Melvin Rosen received word that Bataan hadfallen at 6:00 AM on April 9, 1942. In his heart, heknew that dreadful days were approaching. Yet, noman could have envisioned what the Japanese had instore. Their treatment of American and Filipino sol-diers was cruel and merciless. The tragedy bestowedupon those who fought in the Philippine cities onBataan, Corregidor, and so on was a burden that couldonly be carried by great heroes. Many men died, andthose that lived were tortured bythe images of their suffering com-rades.

The conditions of Bataan werenot pleasant. There was a highconcentration of Malaria in thePhilippines and the climate wasstifling. The situation was onlyworsened by the fact that theAmerican forces were not properlystocked to handle an invasion.Col. Rosen recollects taking twoquinine tablets every day to wardoff malaria. “When the supply be-came even sparser, we took a tea-spoon of liquid quinine. After thatran out – we got malaria,” reflects Rosen.

Throughout the time in Bataan nearly 6,000 men werestricken with malaria or other diseases. These elementsalone were enough of a struggle for most of the men.The coming invasion of the Japanese and the terribleprisoner treatment to follow only added to the harshconditions.

Gen. Jonathan Wainwright assumed Gen. DouglasMacArthur’s position in the Philippines onceMacArthur was ordered to Australia. On April 9th,Wainwright felt a sickly calm and silence settle overthe Philippines. Unbeknownst to him, Gen. EdwardKing, the Luzon Force commander, had just surren-dered to the Japanese. This surrender was the largestin American history – over 70,000 Americans and Fili-pinos.

Upon receiving word that Bataan had been surren-dered, Rosen – a field artillery commander in the USArmy – was ordered to direct his men to destroy alltheir weapons and artillery so they did not fall into thehand of the Japanese military. Word had gone out thatthe Japanese invaders were taking any piece of USweaponry and artillery and using it against Americanforces. Rosen vividly remembers the strange feelingof taking a sledgehammer to all his cannons and artil-

lery. After dismantling and de-stroying everything but their twotrucks, Rosen and his mendumped the smashed artillery inthe Manila Bay.

Also in preparation for the inva-sion, Rosen was ordered to takehis two trucks to Fort Statsenburgand secure supplies from the ware-house. Because the warehousewas not ideally stocked for such asituation, Rosen decided on hav-ing his men load the trucks withsacks of sugar. Other soldiersfilled their trucks with sacks offlour, and thus, between the two

– the sugar and the flour – these men subsisted formany days.

Returning from Statsenburg, Rosen and his men heardfire coming from a nearby trail. In scouting the trail,Rosen noticed Japanese tanks stopping Americantrucks waving white flags. The Japanese approachedthese American trucks kicking the surrendering sol-diers out of their vehicles and confiscating them whiletaking the American prisoners. Rosen, knowing thathe would eventually be stopped and taken in as a pris-oner, decided to pour sugar in the gas tanks of his twotrucks in an attempt to thwart the Japanese from get-ting much use out of them. “They wouldn’t be get-ting very far in those trucks,” remembers Rosen.Shortly after, Rosen and his men were forced to sur-render.

Tragedy in the PacificA Personal Reflection on the Bataan Death March

By Joel DiGrado

Captured Americans, hands tied behindtheir backs, take a rest during their forcedmarch from Bataan to the prison camp at

Cabanatuan.


The Death March

As a prisoner of war, Rosen witnessed incredibleatrocities to those around him. Immediately upon sur-render, the Japanese separated the Americans from theFilipino scouts. Then, the POWs were assembled ingroups of thousands – the Death March was not ofone large group, but consisted of these groups of thou-sands.

Rosen and his men surrendered on the trail where theyhad previously seen the Japanese seizing Americantrucks. The men were order to kneel and sit. Rosenvividly recalls this first instance of imprisonment be-cause of the outright cruelty hewitnessed:

In the field where we met theJapanese, there was a large rect-angular latrine off to the side.One American soldier had todefecate, and so he ran over tothe latrine. A Japanese patrol im-mediately went over and stabbedthe American with his bayonet.Now, sometimes a bayonet doesnot come out cleanly, so the Japa-nese patrol shoved the man offhis weapon into the latrine. Anearby Japanese patrolman waslaughing. You do not know frus-tration until you have witnesssomething of the likes of this.

This treatment was typical along the marches. Therewas no stopping for water and no food provided. Ascompanions collapsed from starvation and exhaustion,fellow Americans were not allowed to help and carrythem without risk of being killed. The roads werelittered with hundreds of Americans and thousandsof Filipinos. Rosen noted that the infamous pictureof soldiers carrying fellow men is mislabeled. Thatphotograph is actually from Camp O’Donnell wheremany men were buried.

After marching miles, the men were stuffed into rail-road box cars in San Fernando-Pampanga and takento Capas. The railcars were horrible – men were piledon top of each other and the heat was stifling. “Mendied that couldn’t lie down,” remembers Rosen. FromCapas, the POWs marched to Camp O’Donnell.

Camp O’Donnell was a makeshift camp intended tohouse the Filipino mobilization division. This campcould barely support the 12,000 people it was builtfor, much less the 55,000 POWs it received. The wa-ter facility was poor at best and the supplies of medi-cine and food were lacking. The American soldierswere kept there for 3 months while the Filipinos re-mained. “1,500 Americans were buried at CampO’Donnell, but 26,000 Filipino soldiers died there,”Rosen recalled – his voice trembling.

The Hell Ships

More dreadful than the Death Marches were the “HellShips.” POWs remark that theDeath March was easy in com-parison to their experiences onthese hell ships. Rosen rode onthree different Hell Ships: theOryoku Maru, Brazil Maru, andEnoura Maru as he and manyother able-bodied men wereshipped to Japan for slave labor.Able-bodied meant any manthat could stand.

From Camp O’Donnell, Rosenwas moved to Cabanatuan andeventually ended up at Bilibidprison in 1944. Once in Bilibid,

Rosen and his fellow POWs boarded the Oryoku Maru.In this vessel, the POWs were stuffed into the ship’shulls: “611 were stuffed in the forward hold, 189 inthe center hold, and more than 800 in the after hold.We pleaded with the Japanese to spread us out moreevenly, but they were not responsive,” recalls Rosen.

In Rosen’s hold (the forward hold), bodies were piledon top of each other. The conditions were overwhelm-ing with men fainting within the first hour of beingforced into the hold. The POWs were not providedwith proper provisions, including latrines. After muchpleading, a few buckets were lowered, but not enoughto satisfy the needs of so many men. Quickly, thosebuckets were overflowing and the men were force tostand and live among their own filth, as well as thefilth of others.

These unclean holds were breading grounds for bacte-ria infection and dysentery. No sick bay was provided

The infamous photograph of Americanprisoners using improvised litters to carry

their comrades who could not go on.


because there was no room. With no way to quaran-tine the sick, these tight, humid, and hot environmentsonly aided the already drastic spread of malaria andother disease carried from Bataan.

Rice and tea were lowered through the hold’s onlyhatch in large tubs, but there was no real way to dis-tribute these rations. Many prisoners died of thirstand starvation. At night, the hold ofthe ship was pitch black. People weregoing mad – slitting throats to drinkblood, drinking urine, etc. “It was ab-solute pandemonium,” reflects Rosen.

On the morning of December 15th, theOryoku Maru anchored in the SubicBay near the Olongapo Naval Reser-vation. From here, the men wereforced to take off their shoes and leaveall they might have had aside and swimashore. In the water were Japaneseguards with orders to shoot any menthat even slightly appeared to makean escape while swimming. In fact,groups of men that rode makeshiftraft ashore were gunned down.Those that had the strength to swimdid so with caution.

Once on shore, the men were grouped and organizedinto a fenced-in tennis court. Rosen remembersOlongapo beach as a place he would take militarynurses on dates. Now, the naval reservation was noth-ing more than a concentration camp. The heat, onceagain, was unbearable and only heightened by the con-crete tennis court that they were forced onto. No shadeor protection from the sun was made available to theseprisoners. So packed were the men in this court thatsoldiers were sitting on each others’ laps.

For the first few days, the POWs were not given anyfood. There was but one water fountain for the wholeencampment and it only trickled out water. When theywere finally given food, the prisoners were allowed onespoonful of raw rice. Rosen recalls the bitter situa-tion with detail:

We were forced with a dilemma. We could use the smallamount of water we were allowed for the day to softenthe raw rice to prevent its explosion in our stomachs, or

we could digest the raw rice and use the water we hadfor drinking.

Rosen and his group were brought back to SanFernando Pampanga and reloaded into boxcars. Theywere taken up to San Fernando La Union and boardedon a second Hell Ship – the Enoura Maru. This vesselhad just recently transported horses. The Japanese then

loaded the POWs onto this ship with-out giving it a proper cleaning. Rosenhas mixed feelings about this: “I hateto say it, but some of the horse ma-nure contained undigested oats, andmany of the men made use of this tofight off their starvation.” This onlyfurthered the dysentery already broughtonto the ship by many of the men.

On the Enoura Maru, the men werebrought towards Takao Harbor – whatis now Taiwan. There the ship wasattacked by American aircraft fire.

Rosen recalls the hit and then los-ing consciousness shortly after.Once regaining consciousness, heremembers seeing the entire hold inshambles. Rosen, himself, was in-jured in the attack, receiving twoholes in his ankle and some shrap-

nel in his flank.

After keeping the dead and wounded down in the dev-astated hold for more the five days, the Japanese low-ered nets and ordered the live prisoners to load theirdead in large nets. Once completing this task, the sur-vivors were relegated to a third ship, the Brazil Maru.They stayed on this ship for ten days until embarkingon a trip from Takao to Moji.

Liberation

Rosen’s long and dreadful journey ended in Koreawhere he was working in fields as a prisoner of theJapanese. Considering his awful trip and constantmovement since the surrender in Bataan, Rosen andhis fellow prisoners lost complete track of the war.Rosen was not sure if the war was over, until he sawAmerican planes flying over his fields one day. Heremembers waiving to the planes trying to advise themto get out of the area in fear of them being shot down.

One of the “Hell Ships” on whichprisoners were held, the Enoura

Maru, as it is bombed by Americanforces while stationed in Takao

Harbor.


Once witnessing their safe passage, they had a cluethat something was changing.

One day, a Japanese military official running the campcame in and embraced one of the American men call-ing him a comrade. The suspicious American prison-ers began to believe that their freedom was coming.Rosen recalls the time when the Japanese soldiers camein and warned the American POWs about the crueltyof the Koreans. They cautioned the Americans to stayin the camp because, “They were concerned about oursafety. We all found it amusing because we knew abouttheir cruel treatment of the Koreans and we knew thatthey worried more about their own safety,” Rosenmuses.

What Rosen and his fellow men could not know untilmuch later was that Gen. MacArthur had made hisprophetic return to the Philippines and began the up-swing in the Pacific theater that led to the end of thewar in that region. MacArthur was concerned that thePOWs in Manila and surrounding areas might starveif the United States did not act. His arguments withnaval command over this stance are well documentedin history.

The initial landings on the Philippine Islands began onLeyte on October 20th. Crucial to the plan was thequick building of airports to support MacArthur’s con-tinuing moves north into the Philippines. Tokyo madean attempt to thwart the landing at Leyte, but theAmericans won the day relying heavily on AdmiralHalsey’s carriers. This win was the most decisive sincethe Battle of Midway in 1942 and ended any futureJapanese navy surface ship actions.

Following the victory in Leyte, there was a delay inthe closing of the Manila Bay. The primary reason forthe delay was the beginning of the Japanese kamikazeattacks. This drastic fighting style was nonethelesseffective with one in 25 kamikaze attacks resulting insinking a ship. Worse, the delay in closing the bayallowed the Japanese to move the POWs north. Even-tually, the American forces stabilized the region andfreed those men that survived their horrendous timeas Japanese POWs.

Reflections

Every soldier has a unique opinion about his wartimeexperiences and Rosen is no different. Though many

soldiers felt ashamed of the surrender of Bataan, Rosenfelt different. In, 1941 Japanese Gen. Homma wasgiven fifty days to conquer the Philippines. Then, hewas to move a large portion of his forces to NewZealand. The United States and Filipino forces heldthe Philippines for over one hundred and fifty daysuntil they ran out of every piece of ammunition avail-able. Rosen is quite proud of holding out that long, aswe all should be. These great men’s courage and char-acter were simply unparalleled.

Rosen has no real explanation as to why he survivedthe Death March and the Hell Ships when so manyothers had perished. Col. Rosen believes that the fateof each man was in other hands. He was fortunateenough to be grouped in the sections that he ended in.One example of his good fortune was his ending up ina hold that was not completely annihilated in theEnoura Maru – his hold was devastated, but still hadthe most survivors. “It all came down to where youwere standing in line,” Rosen explains.

WWII

World War II Chronicles

A Quarterly Newsletter of theWorld War II Veterans Committee

Issue XXVI, Autumn 2004

David Eisenhower, Honorary ChairmanJames C. Roberts, PresidentMichael Paradiso, Publisher

Tim G.W. Holbert, Program Director/Editor

World War II Chronicles ispublished quarterly by theAmerican Studies Center

1030 15th St., NW, Suite 856Washington, D.C. 20005

202-777-7272

The World War II Veterans Committeeis a project of

The American Studies Center,a 501 (c) (3) non-profit

public education foundation.


The Greatest GenerationOn the radio with...

Airing across the nation on the Radio America network,The Greatest Generation continues to tell the stories of themen and women who fought and won the Second WorldWar. Featuring archival recordings, historical documen-taries, and live interviews with veterans and historiansof World War II, The Greatest Generation is the only radioprogram devoted to the sounds and events of an era thatshaped a people and defined a nation. The Greatest Gen-eration is a joint project sponsored by the Radio Americanetwork and the World War II Vet-erans Committee.

Entirely devoted to World War II,The Greatest Generation is comprisedof contemporary live interviewsand documentaries, as well as thoserecorded at the time of the SecondWorld War. A particularly popularsegment features “Vox Pop,” whichwas the title of a radio show thatoriginally aired between 1932 and1948. “Vox Pop” was hosted byParks Johnson, Wally Butterworth, and Warren Hull andcontributed to the war effort in World War II by travelingto over 200 military bases, hospitals, and defense plantsacross the country. Clips of this unique series are beingbrought to the public through the preservation efforts ofthe World War II Veterans Committee in association withthe Library of American Broadcasting at the Universityof Maryland.

Segments of the radio documentary, “World War IIChronicles,” are reproduced and are a staple feature ofThe Greatest Generation. Hosted by the late great, “Voiceof World War II,” Edward J. Herlihy, “World War IIChronicles” was originally produced to mark the 50thAnniversary of World War II from 1991-1995. A tre-mendous hit that aired on over 500 stations nationwide,The Greatest Generation is proud to air segments of thisaward-winning documentary series that was the forerun-ner to this publication.

The highlights of The Greatest Generation, however, arethe live interviews of the veterans and historians of World

War II in-studio by the hosts of the show, Maj. Gen. J.Milnor Roberts and his wife, Priscilla (pictured below).General Roberts, himself a veteran of the D-Day land-ing at Normandy, has served in numerous positions dur-ing his long and distinguished career, including a seven-year term as the head of the Reserve Officers Associa-tion. Priscilla Roberts spent years working as a legisla-tive aide on Capitol Hill, and was personally responsiblefor legislation enabling one of the few remaining LST’s

from World War II to be repaired andreturned from Europe to America.

In a recent edition of The GreatestGeneration, General and Mrs. Robertswelcomed Richard Horrell, founderof a service called World War IIConnections. As we lose our WorldWar II veterans at an alarming rate,the interest in their service contin-ues to rise. Increasingly, familymembers of veterans are seeking tofind out more about the service his-

tory of their loved-ones. This is where Richard Horrellcomes in. As Horrell explained, World War II Connec-tions works as an intermediary between those seekinginformation and the libraries and archives that carry theinformation they are looking for.

While searching for a family member’s records is easiestwhen the veteran’s unit name or discharge papers areavailable, Horrell noted that there are a number of othermethods he can use. “If they have wartime correspon-dence,” Horrell said, “we can look at where it was sentfrom, as either the address or the return address will listthe name of the unit. Also, photographs or arm patcheswill yield some clues, as well.”

Attempting to navigate through the countless piles ofmilitary records can prove a daunting task for the uniniti-ated, Horrell pointed out, and World War II Connectionshelps to make your work in finding the history of yourloved-one a little easier. For more information on theservices provided by World War II Connections, visit theirweb site at www.ww2connections.com, or call 973-770-0205. WWII


The World War II Book ClubFeaturing Books About World War II

THE WORLD WAR II MEMORIALTHE WORLD WAR II MEMORIALTHE WORLD WAR II MEMORIALTHE WORLD WAR II MEMORIALTHE WORLD WAR II MEMORIALA GRATEFUL NATION REMEMBERS

by Douglas BrinkleySmithsonian Books; 288 pages $39.95 (Hardcover)

Assuming its rightful place of honor on theNational Mall between the Lincoln Memo-rial and the Washington Monument, theWorld War II Memorial is an eloquent andmoving tribute to “The Greatest Genera-tion.” Sixteen million Americans served inthe armed forces—more than 400,000 gavetheir lives—and millions supported the wareffort from home, all in the name of protect-

ing that which we, as Americans, hold most dear: freedom.

The World War II Memorial, published in conjunction with the dedica-tion of this long-overdue memorial, commemorates the everydayAmericans who in countless ways rose up to defeat one of history’sgravest threats to freedom. Veterans—including George H.W. Bush,Sen. Daniel Inouye, former senators Bob Dole and George McGovern,Yogi Berra, and many, many others—contribute their own personalstories while leading historians look at the military campaigns of thewar. The memorial’s architect and its sculptor provide insights intohow it symbolizes the fortitude and perseverance of a generation, andthe exclusive photographs present the memorial through all stages ofconstruction. Fittingly, this historic tribute falls in the 60th anniver-sary year of D-Day, a time when our nation once again reflects on itsgreatest sacrifice and greatest victory in the name of freedom.

AND IF I PERISHAND IF I PERISHAND IF I PERISHAND IF I PERISHAND IF I PERISHU.S. ARMY NURSES IN WORLD WAR II

by Evelyn Monahan & Rosemary Neidel-GreenleeKnopf; 528 pages $30.00 (Hardcover)

More than 59,000 nurses volunteered to serve inthe U.S. Army Nurse Corps alone: 217 lost theirlives (16 by enemy action), and more than 1,600were decorated for meritorious service and brav-ery under fire. But their stories have rarely beenheard. Now, drawing on never-before-publishedeyewitness accounts—many heroic, some mun-dane and comic—Monahan and Neidel-Greenleetake us to the front lines, to the withering fire on

the beaches of Anzio and Normandy, and to the field and evacuationhospitals, as well as bombed and burned hospital ships. We witnessthe nurses—and the doctors with whom they served—coping withthe physical and psychological damage done to the soldiers in combat.We see them working—often with only meager supplies and over-whelmed by the sheer number of casualties—to save the lives andlimbs of thousands of wounded troops. With them we experiencethe almost constant packing up and moving on to keep up withadvancing troops, foxholes dug under camp beds, endless mud, andtreacherous minefields. The vividness and immediacy of their recol-lections provide us with a powerfully visceral, deeply affecting senseof their experiences—terrifying and triumphant, exhausting and ex-hilarating.

THE BURMA ROTHE BURMA ROTHE BURMA ROTHE BURMA ROTHE BURMA ROADADADADADTHE EPIC STORY OF THE CBI THEATER IN WWII

by Donovan WebsterFarrar, Straus and Giroux; 384 pages $25.00 (Hardcover)

The Burma Road tells the extraordinary story ofthe China-Burma-India theater of operationsduring World War II. As the Imperial JapaneseArmy swept across China and South Asia at thewar’s outset—closing all of China’s seaports—more than 200,000 Chinese laborers embarkedon a seemingly impossible task: to cut a seven-hundred-mile overland route—which would becalled the Burma Road—from the southwestChinese city of Kunming to Lashio, Burma. But

with the fall of Burma in early 1942, the Burma Road was severed,and it became the task of the newly arrived American General Stilwellto re-open it, while, at the same time, keeping China supplied by air-lift from India and simultaneously driving the Japanese out of Burmaas the first step of the Allied offensive toward Japan.

In gripping prose, Donovan Webster follows the breathtaking ad-ventures of the American “Hump” pilots who flew hair-raising mis-sions over the Himalayas to make food-drops in China; tells the truestory of the mission that inspired the famous film The Bridge on theRiver Kwai; and recounts the grueling jungle operations of Merrill’sMarauders and the British Chindit Brigades. Interspersed with vividportraits of the American General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, the exceed-ingly eccentric British General Orde Wingate, and the mercurial Chi-nese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, The Burma Road vividly re-cre-ates the sprawling, sometimes hilarious, often harrowing, and stilllargely unknown stories of one of the greatest chapters of WWII.

NO GREANO GREANO GREANO GREANO GREATER GLTER GLTER GLTER GLTER GLORORORORORYYYYYTHE FOUR IMMORTAL CHAPLAINS AND THE SINK-

ING OF THE DORCHESTER IN WORLD WAR II

by Dan KurzmanRandom House; 250 pages $24.95 (Hardcover)

The sinking of the troop carrier Dorchester in theicy waters off Greenland shortly after midnighton February 3, 1943, was one of the worst seadisasters of World War II. It was also the occasionof an astounding feat of heroism-and faith. Aswater gushed through a hole made by a Germantorpedo, four chaplains - members of differentfaiths but linked by bonds of friendship and de-votion - moved quietly among the men on board.

Preaching bravery, the chaplains distributed life jackets, including theirown. In the end, these four men went down with the ship, their armslinked in spiritual solidarity, their voices raised in prayer. In this narra-tive, author and journalist Dan Kurzman tells the story of theseheroes and the faith - in God and in country - that they shared. Draw-ing on extensive interviews with the chaplains’ families and the crewsof both the Dorchester and the German submarine that fired the fataltorpedo, Kurzman re-creates the intimate circumstances and great his-toric events that culminated in that terrible night.

World War II Veterans CommitteeA Project of The American Studies Center1030 15th St., NW, Suite 856Washington, D.C. 20005

NONPROFIT ORG.U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDWALDORF, MDPERMIT NO. 30

Letters to the EditorThe World War II Veterans Committee is dedicated tohonoring the bravery and sacrifices of America’s vet-erans. Many of our veterans, even all these years later,still feel their sacrifices on a daily basis as a result ofinjuries suffered in the service of their country andrequire treatment at our many VA hospitals and clin-ics. The Committee is proud to donate copies of WorldWar II Chronicles to almost 200 VA hospitals, clinics,and vet centers across the country. We are gratefulfor the many kind words we have received from ad-ministrators and have reprinted a few of them here.

Dear World War II Chronicles:Please accept our sincere thanks on behalf of ourhospitalized veterans for your organization’s donationof the “D-Day: 60th Anniversary” edition of WorldWar II Chronicles. The patients enjoy informative read-ing materials during their stay at the medical center.We depend on the generosity and thoughtfulness ofour friends in the community and members of our ser-vice organizations to provide many of the supplemen-tary items and activities that might not otherwise beavailable.Thank you again. Your donation was most welcome.Sincerely,Gloria A. MancusoVoluntary Service Program ManagerVAMC, Providence RI

Dear World War II Chronicles:I am a female Disabled Veteran, a minority group whoserved during Desert Storm/Shield. I understand thehardships we faced in that war and have listened tomany war accounts at my VFW Post 662. I especiallyenjoyed the story in your publication from CaptainLillian K. Keil, who flew 175 missions in the bittercold at Ardennes.I am writing just to thank you for sending World War IIChronicles to our Department of Veterans Affairs Out-patient Clinic. Our Veterans that frequent the clinichave enjoyed reading the stories.Again, thank you and do continue to send us WorldWar II Chronicles.Regards,Nancy WojkiewiczPrimary Care ServiceLowell VA Center, Lowell MA

If you know of a VA hospital, clinic, or vet center inyour area that you would like added to our mailinglist, please contact us at:World War II ChroniclesAttn: Editor1030 15th St., NW Suite 856Washington, DC 20005

WWII

Documents

World War II Chronicles - American Veterans Center · 2017. 11. 22. · Wrapping up the discussion was Captain Lillian K. Keil, former Army flight nurse and believed to be the most