|
World
War II Stories
War experiences of Uncle Hershel and others
Story #1, Part #1
I just found this file, and had forgotten about it. You guys out there might be
interested in it. Comments are welcome. These are a few vet stories, with some
possible exaggeration, but he is really fun to listen to. He was drafted into
the army at the age of 32. My uncle Hershel V. Mayo, for whom I'm named, was in
the 3rd division. He has lots of good stories to tell. I'll post a few. He was
awarded a Silver Star at St. Die, France for the following action. He was
asleep in an open-topped vehicle parked near the top of a hill overlooking
several other SP guns parked near the bottom. The crews were also asleep inside.
Around dawn, he got up to relieve himself, and noticed German infantry emerging
from a nearby wood line. He grabbed his rifle and started firing at them.
Incredibly, nobody was awakened by the gunfire. He continued to fire at
soldiers, who were trying to use panzerfausts on the parked vehicles, and killed
them as fast as he could aim and shoot. this went on for at least FIVE MINUTES
before anyone in the SPs decided to get up and check out what was happening.
When they did, they started shooting up the hill at my uncle with rifles. He
started yelling and cussing at the top of his voice until they figured out that
he definitely was not a German, and directed their fire the proper way.
One time, he was in a perimeter fox hole with several other soldiers, when a
lone German emerged from the woods. He was wearing only a greatcoat, and a soft
field cap. He walked toward their outpost, and began firing from the waist with
the rifle. The American soldiers nearest him simply froze, and were killed one
by one as the German approached. My uncle was screaming, "Kill him, Godd**nit!!
Kill him!!" Three Americans, all with loaded weapons, were shot, one by one.
When the German was close enough, my uncle drew a captured Luger pistol, and
shot him. He described how the German seemed to fold over in the middle like he
was hinged. To this day, he is perplexed about why the German did what he did,
possibly an intentional suicide. He can not figure out why three men let
themselves be killed without firing a shot.
He talks of seeing men horribly wounded recovering and returning to duty, and
compares that to another man he saw who collapsed and died instantly from a
bullet wound through the calf, normally an insignificant wound.
After his unit entered Munich, he and several other men discovered a bank and
decided to blow open the safe. They found some engineers with explosives, and
packed the front of the vault with them. The blast blew the whole front of the
building off, but didn't scratch the vault. Later when they were walking away
from the bank, they ran into General Patch himself who asked them, with a big
grin, "What are you boys up to?" "Wiping out a nest of krauts," one of them
said. General Patch laughed hard, and told them to be careful next time."He knew
what we were up to." said my uncle.
He and several others broke into a warehouse, and found it filled with chocolate
bars, sardines, and cheese in toothpaste-like tubes. They loaded up with the
stuff. Later, when they occupied a private house, my uncle gave one of the
chocolate bars to the woman, and her family who lived there. The woman thanked
him and said that American chocolate was very good. He then told her that it was
not American, but German. The woman said that was impossible, because there had
been no chocolate available for years. My uncle fished the wrapper out of his
pocket and showed it to her. He said that the wrapper had SS runes on it
somewhere. The woman became very angry and made several nasty remarks about the
Nazis, and the Hitler regime.
He and several other men vandalized what he described as "some kind of
headquarters" and pulled a "big fancy banner on a pole" out into the street, and
broke it up. I pressed him for a better description of it, and what he gave was
a pretty good description of an NSDAP "Deutschland Erwache" Party standard. I
know these were all supposed to be in Berlin, but He is sure that this is what
they tore up. I've only seen one genuine one, and his description of the size
and color of the wooden pole matched exactly. A detail he could not have gotten
from a photograph. I told him what it would be worth today, and I thought he
was going to faint.
Another odd-ball story he told was that they capture German officers wearing
daggers. I was skeptical, but he insists that he remembers taking them off the
officers and throwing them in the mud. He then went out of the room and a couple
of minutes later came back with a beautiful ground Roem SA dagger. He wouldn't
sell it to me, but wanted to give it to his grandson. He adamantly insisted that
this dagger came off a captured officer. Can this possibly be true?? Anybody
have any speculations about how this could be possible? My uncle's platoon
encountered a machine gun nest, and pulled back to safety. Two officers came up
from the rear, and began walking past his position. He told them to stop, that
there was a machine gun ahead. The two ignored him, and went on anyway. The next
morning, he found their bodies on a small path, filled with bullet holes from
the gun he warned them about.
His platoon was approaching a small village and heard a roar of rapid gunfire,
and grenades exploding. An old Frenchman was walking toward them laughing and
smiling. They found out from him that a unit of Germans had occupied the second
floor of a small factory during the previous day, and a group of Americans had
moved in and occupied the first floor during the night. In the morning, they
discovered each other.
He and his squad were walking across the field of the Munich airport. It was
morning, and very misty. As the reached the middle of the field, they realized
that the far side was lined with Luftwaffe men armed with everything from
pistols to a quad 20mm flak gun. There were women with them, who were clearly
frightened and crying. My uncle realized that there was no way to escape, and
there was lots of potential for a real ugly situation. He lowered his rifle and
told the other GIs to do the same if they wanted to live much longer. He grinned
as wide as he could manage, and walked toward the Germans. When he reached them,
he tore open a pack of cigarettes, lit one up and put it in the lips of one of
the crying women, and passed the rest around. The Germans breathed a sigh of
relief and threw down their guns and surrendered.
Larry Mayo
Story #1, Part #2
Since a lot of people contacted me and liked the first Uncle Hershel stories I
posted, here are a few more. He was in the 30th Infantry, Baker company. He
lives today in Kenova W.Va. on Poplar St. If anybody in that area wants to give
him a call, I'm sure he would be glad to talk. My aunt recently died, and he
has a lot of time on his hands. These are from memory of several conversations I
had with him about the war. My aunt would listen with great interest. She told
me that SHE HAD NEVER HEARD HIM TALK ABOUT THE WAR, and these were all new to
her. There is a lesson here, guys. The vets are far enough from the pain of the
war now, that they are finally willing to talk about it. All too often they
think nobody cares, so there is nobody to tell their stories to. These bits of
history are being lost so get out there and pry at these guys. Don't let their
initial resistance put you off. If they realize that you are really interested,
they will open up. I have yet to find ANY veteran who absolutely refused to talk
about the war, no matter what. These men are facing the end of their lives now,
and talking it out may be as much a final healing for them as it is a priceless
source of information to you. It is a win-win experience for all involved. How
much history was lost because nobody took down the memories of the enlisted men
who daily moved General Lee's personal camp, and cooked his food? Don't let this
happen with WWII.
He and his men spotted two German tanks prowling around, and decided to pull
back toward their own lines. On the way they found six Sherman tanks, and their
crews hidden in a grove of trees. He went up to one of the tank commanders and
told him that there were two "Kraut tanks over the hill there." The tank
commander was very interested in their position, and quizzed my uncle to make
sure he knew exactly where they were. A minute later, the crews all fired up
their tanks and took off in the exact OPPOSITE direction from the Germans. He
said that the German artillery never took more that two shots to find their
target. He said of the SS, "You had to kill them, they wouldn't surrender.
They were crazy. They would kill their own people before they would let them
surrender." He was crossing a river bottom with his men in deep snow. When they
were half-way across a large open field, they heard an engine fire up in the
nearby woodline. They all exchange a "Were f***ed" look, turned around and
started to run as fast as they could in knee deep snow. A German tank came out
of the woods and stopped. THey expected the tank to open up on them with its
machine gun. But it never did. "They could have killed us ten times over, but we
got all the way back to cover and he didn't do anything." My uncle said that
there were several time he could have killed German soldiers who were smoking or
lounging around in the open. He said he couldn't bring himself to kill
somebody who wasn't attacking him. He and several other men walked into range
of a German machine gun He hit the dirt as the gun started to rake them. A
bullet skimmed the ground, grazed his chest, penetrated the fat over his
stomach, skittered along between the layer of fat and muscle, and exited the
bottom of his paunch and between his legs. (I've seen the scar} I asked him what
he did. He said "I didn't do a damn thing, I wanted that kraut to think I was
dead." I asked him if it hurt, and he gave me one of those looks, "Hell, yes it
hurt, but I wasn't going to go squirmin' and moanin' when I could hear those
bullets landing all around me. That bastard had one chance to kill me already."
Every time they stopped somewhere, they tried to cook up some hot food. However,
as soon as they started a fire under some rations they were ordered to move out.
He saw one guy get really mad and kick a ten-pack of rations down the street.
One man in his platoon killed two German POWs he was supposed to take to the
rear for questioning. This guy began to fall apart mentally day by day, and
described how one of them was "a kid" and they were kneeling and begging him for
their lives. After a couple of weeks, this guy couldn't handle the guilt and
cracked up. "We killed guys that surrendered too, but it was when they would put
out a white flag, then shoot at you and kill several of your men, and then
surrender because they ran out of ammunition. One of our Lt.s got killed that
way, and we liked him. Then, the bastards came out with their hands up. We shot
the Hell out of them! You bet we did." When they captured prisoners wearing GI
boots, they would make them take them off. "We knew they took 'em off our dead
men." "I saw one POW wearing a real fancy leather suit with sheep skin lining
in it. I really wanted that and told him to take it off. One of my guys
said,""Hershel, that guy's going to freeze to death if you take that"". I had
second thoughts and let him keep it. But boys I wish I had that. When we wanted
a souvenir, we would just reach up and snatch something off a prisoner's
uniform." I described a Knight's Cross to him and asked him if he saw any of
those. "Oh, yea, you mean the ones on their necks? We would tear those off and
throw them on the ground." I told him how much they were worth today. "Godd**n,
for one of those!? I must have thrown away a couple of dozen of 'em! Hell, I
could have been rich" "We captured this one officer who came driving up in one
of their jeeps with his driver, who would suck up to him and open the door, and
all that. We took him in tow, and told his driver to get over with the other
prisoners. He didn't want to go. I told him his flunkying days were over and to
get the Hell over there." He told an interesting story about being stuck with a
prisoner who was a young officer, no more than 17 years old. He was ordered to
take him back to a POW holding area in the rear. "Every now and then, some GIs
would come up and say, ""Let's kill that son-of-a-b***h,"" I told them Hell no
you're not, this is my prisoner. I even pointed my rifle at a couple of them and
threatened to shoot them. That kid tucked in behind me like he was scared.
Pretty soon another little boy came up to us and started to talk to him in
German. After a second I could tell they looked alike and they were probably
brothers. They were saying something about Mutti, Mutti, and I figured out they
were talking about their mother. the older kid wrote a note and gave it to the
younger one to take. I guess this town was his home, and he was letting his
mother know that he was alright. We walked the rest of the day, and it started
getting dark, and I was real tired. I wanted to sleep. We went off the road
behind a wall, and I pulled out my blanket. I told him that I didn't want him
pulling any s**t. We layed down under that blanket and spent the rest of the
night there. I guess he could have got away, or done something to me, but he
didn't. Next morning, we found a POW column, and I told him to get in it, and
that he would be safe there. When he left, he thanked me in English. He never
let on before that he spoke English." He wonders if this guy is still alive
somewhere in Germany today. He would be in his late 60s now, and probably live
in southern Germany. I asked him where the worst place he ever slept was. He
said it was a foxhole filled with water. He said that they would try to put
boards in the bottom, but that did little good. He said that France was really
odd in the fact that no matter where you dug a fox hole water would always come
up in it, even on the top of a hill. When they were nearing the Danube at
Donnerwoerth, they were told it was narrow and shallow enough to wade across.
When they got there, they saw it was as wide as the Mississippi, and deep enough
that there was barge traffic. (I have crossed the modern bridge there, and it IS
very wide, a real intelligence screw up). My uncle has always been an avid poker
player, and told my parents that before crossing a river ( maybe the Danube)
they were told to get rid of all excess baggage. He tossed a dufflebag with
$40,000 in cash into the drink because he had no time or place to mail it, and
was afraid that everyone was going to be shaken down by the officers to make
sure all excess stuff had been dumped. In those days a house could be bought for
$8,000. His foxhole was approached at night by English speaking Germans
attempting to infiltrate American positions. "I heard somebody nearby in the
dark asking me, ""What is the position of your commanding officer?"" No GI
talked like that. I shot him. The next morning there was a dead German laying
out there." He and his squad captured a cook wagon. He opened it up and started
to eat the food. The other men thought it could be poisoned. He told them it
wasn't likely that the Germans expected this food to be captured. The food was
bread, and large noodles. The bread was tasteless, and had no smell at all. They
threw it away. The noodles weren't great,but tasted O.K. He recalls one time
marching all night on the autobahn passing American tanks and flack wagons lined
up for miles. At Berchtesgaden, he recalled seeing men looting various things.
He saw one man with a large chandelier on his back. Another man had unscrewed a
toilet seat and was carrying it home. He was making jokes about how Hitler's ass
probably had set right there. I have been there myself, and asked him to
describe the area as he remembered it. The description was pretty much correct.
He had several small paper booklets he looted from a tourist shop nearby, with
pictures of Hitler, and a postcard with Hitler's picture. He finished the war
in Salzburg. I asked him if he went up to see the castle. He said,"Hell no, some
guys went up there, but I'd walked enough and climbed enough because I had to. I
had enough climbing for one war, and I wasn't going to do any more."
Larry Mayo
Story #1, Part #3
For those of you who remember my postings about the war experiences of my uncle
Hershel, I got a few more out of him recently. When he first arrived in Europe,
he was issued a bolt action rifle. He threw it away as soon as he was able to
pick up an M1 from a KIA. He said that if a new replacement could last for
three weeks without being killed, he would usually make it. He told the new guys
to do exactly what he did, no more or less if they wanted to stay alive. He
told them,"You get down when I do, and stand up when I do. You run when I do and
don't shoot until I do. You don't even drop your pants to s**T until you see one
of the older guys do it." He said that most of the new guys did exactly what he
said, and stayed alive. There were a few "smart asses" that didn't, and he told
them they were going to get killed. They did get killed pretty quickly. The new
junior officers were usually smart enough to listen to the vets, they usually
turned out to be good leaders. They cut off the bottom of their greatcoats
because any GI seeing a silhouette of somebody with a long coat presumed it was
a German and shot him. He mentioned that he was surprised at how clean the
Germans were that they captured. They always seemed to be washed and clean
shaven. He said that captured Germans always had several large linen
handkerchiefs in their gear. He would always take a few of them for various uses
when he had the chance. He felt that the German soldiers were better than
Americans, and mentioned that any GI that served in combat had a very high
respect for their enemy. "If they had had the men and supplies we did, we would
have been s**t out of luck." He mentioned that army shipping clerks stole most
of the good war booty that GIs wanted to ship back to the states. He latched
onto a silver-plated shotgun that was cased in a velvet-lined custom wooden
case. He was really mad when it disappeared in shipping. Later, one of the
young guys in his platoon came to him and told him that a matched pair of Lugers
he was going to send home had disappeared after he had given them to some
shipping clerks. My uncle got particularly angry about this after the shotgun
incident. He grabbed the kid and went with him back to the clerks. He pulled
his .45 and told them he would blow both their heads off if they didn't find
those guns. Needless to say, they suddenly remembered where they had mislayed
the two Lugars. I asked him about haircuts. He said there seemed to be a barber
around often enough that they could always get it cut whenever they needed it.
He always looked forward to regular supplies of dry socks. He really liked
having new, dry socks as often as possible. They would always stop when they got
them, change on the spot, and throw the old ones down in the street. The
civilians would always pick up the old ones as soon as possible. I asked him
about Audie Murphy. "I never saw him. Hell, he was just a kid."
Another Story
My grandmother had a cousin,
Charles Halmilton, who joined the Army Air Force in the late 1930s. He went on
flying status, and eventually became a gunner on a B-17. His group was assigned
to Clark Field in the Phillipines and was there when the Japanese attacked
Clark. After this point, the story gets fuzzy. One version is that he was killed
in a vehicle accident before the fall of Bataan. The other story was that he was
captured by the Japanese and was taken to the hell they called a POW camp, where
he died. My Grandmother told me that they still have the telegram that was sent
to her family by the War Department. I'm hoping to get a copy of it when I go
out there next year.
Warren Whitby
wwhitby@worldnet.att.net
I have enjoyed reading the posted stories. I thought I would post one of my own.
It is somewhat along the lines of the brothers of SPR however. My dad's
cousins, Hugh and Dean were born in 1918 and 1921 respectively. They grew up in
typical depression era fashion, but perhaps even slightly worse in that they
lived in Oklahoma during the thirties (dustbowl and all). Their father was a
farmer and likely both could have been classified as essential war workers.
Neither selected that route and they both volunteered for pilot training in the
USAAF. Both were selected and completed training. Hugh went to the CBI flying
B-25s. Dean went to the ETO flying P-51s. Here is where the story departs from
the nice and neat. In Jan '44 Hugh, now a MAJOR was KIA while leading a mission
in his B-25. In Aug '44, Dean a 1LT was KIA flying close air on the drive for
Paris. This branch of the family tree was effectively clipped. Within seven
months, a mother and father had lost both of their sons and a wife and son had
lost their husband and dad. They got some small solace in that following the
war, both sons' remains were brought home. The family (parents and 2 sons) is
buried in the small SW Oklahoma town of Frederick. No one seems to know what
ever became of Hugh's wife and son following the war. Partially because she was
an Army nurse and not from around his hometown. Partially because she likely
wanted to get on with a new life and simply stopped any contact with a painful
past. I consider Hugh and Dean and their parents. That is the ultimate
sacrifice for all of them. I can't help but shed a tear when I visit their
graves. I am lucky that I am stationed nearby and can do this occasionally. It
really helps me keep life in perspective. You might ask why I posted this. I'm
sure many don't care, but this is what WWII was like. Families ripped apart. The
War Department was concerned with winning a war, they could not remove every man
that had a brother killed. I enjoyed SPR, but I don't think it truly captures
the emotions so many families experienced.....NO ONE CAME HOME.
Jim Rice, Lawton, Oklahoma
|
