Filed under: 509th, German Perspective, Veterans, William Yarborough | Tags: Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, Dr. Geoff Megargee, Fort Bragg, Special Forces
I’m so excited! Today and tomorrow, I’ll be up in Carlisle to see Dr Geoffrey Megargee give a talk on the German High Command in World War II and conduct some of my own research. The Army Heritage and Education Center is located in Carlisle, so there are loads of records stored there. I’m going to start by looking at records from Fort Bragg in regards to his time in the Special Forces. I’ll also be doing some research on LTG William Pelham Yarborough, who commanded the 509th later in the war and, like so many airborne officers, had his future in the Special Forces.
Filed under: Marines, Veterans | Tags: Improvise Adapt Overcome, Leatherneck, Marines, Obituaries, Puci Blevins
Vester Elvin “Puci” Blevins passed away recently. He’d spent over 30 years serving as the Superintendent of the Oneida, Tennesseee, Water Department and on the local school board, but what struck me most was his determination. No, I’d not met Puci, but I did read his obituary in Leatherneck this month.
The Battle of Iwo Jima included some of the fiercest fighting in World War II. Some 21,000 Japanese soldiers stationed there fought ferociously, with only about 1,000 of them surrendering. Puci Blevins landed on the first day and fought there for all 38 days of the battle. He would have landed on either the Red or Green beaches and may have assaulted up Mount Suribachi – at the very least, he would later say that he “saw the first Iwo Jima flag raising from the foot of Mt. Suribachi.”
Blevins must have transferred from the 5th Marine Division, as he was in the 2nd Marine Division for the occupation of Japan, with his obituary noting Sasebo and Nagasaki.
The part that really caught me in his obituary in Leatherneck was that when Puci enlisted in 1943, it was his third attempt to enlist. He’d been rejected twice due to his poor eyesight. When he went in for the third time, Blevins followed a Marine mantra. Marines are often at the tail end when it comes to new equipment, so many units use “Improvise, Adapt, Overcome” as their mantra.
- Not being able to see the eye chart clearly, Puci improvised.
- His adaptation was memorization of the eye chart.
- A true leatherneck in his heart, he overcame the obstacle.
Semper Fi, Puci.
Filed under: Battle of the Bulge, Books, Veterans | Tags: 100th Infantry Division, Foxhole, Maurice Lloyd, Monuments, Operation Nordwind
When Private Maurice E. Lloyd went out to his foxhole on New Year’s Eve 1945, he may have cursed the cold, but assuredly, he must have thought he’d be warming up in one of the houses behind the lines before too long. Sadly, it would be 30 years before Maurice left the front line.
One of my Christmas present this year was Edward Longacre’s War in the Ruins.
The 100th Infantry Division, nicknamed the “Century” Division, moved into line on the 1st of November 1944 and fought their way toward Germany. When the Germans attacked to start the Battle of the Bulge, the Century Division, fell back a little bit to shorten up their lines as troops were rushed into the Bulge. The Germans tried to take advantage of this a few weeks later, launching Operation Nordwind.
The commune of Lemberg sits in the midst of forest northwest of Strasbourg. The patron saint of Lemberg is Saint Maurice, who Century Division historian Frank Gurley identified as having been a soldier who defended France in 303 AD. Thus, Église Saint-Maurice de Lemberg sits in the midst of the town, looking in modern photos like the tower was destroyed in the fighting and replaced after the war.
When the Germans attacked on New Year’s Eve, Lloyd stood his ground, fighting off Germans until he was mortally wounded. Longacre relates,
Because he refused to withdraw, his fate was preordained: at some point, a Mauser bullet spun him about and knocked him down. The enemy rushed past, leaving him for dead. Desperately wounded, “Mo” Lloyd dragged himself across the frozen earth into a dense thicket, where he found refuge in a log-covered foxhole. (p.14)
When the area was re-taken, the fight swept past Private Lloyd’s well-hidden position and he waited, BAR at the ready, for 30 years, until a local man and his some followed their hunting dog to Maurice Lloyd’s foxhole. Today, the only foxhole in France with a monument was defended by Private Maurice Lloyd for 30 years.
The Old Jarhead pointed me to the story of Marine Lieutenant Colonel Karl Trenker, 48, who was shot three times by two men who stole a gold chain his fiancee was trying to sell via Craigslist. They swiped the chain when he showed it to them and took off running. He drove around the neighborhood looking for them. When he found them, he gave them a chance to just put the necklace down and walk away. They ran again. The good Colonel pursued, for which they shot him three times. He merely plugged the holes with his fingers and called her to let her know he’d been shot. He told NBC that “If he [the gunman] didn’t have a pistol I would’ve whipped his butt.”
Filed under: Colmar Pocket
After the regular sessions for the day were finished on Friday, I turned to “my cameraman”, CPL Alex Apple, USMC, and asked, “How long have we been here?” We’d started at 0900 and it was almost 1800 at the time. It seemed like forever, though in an entirely enjoyable way. We’d started the conference Thursday evening and been at it all day. I couldn’t remember what the weather was like outside or what it was like doing my normal job. Being involved in these conferences is so immersive that it is difficult to remember having done anything else when the weekend ends. I’ve experienced that every time I’ve gone to France and on a number of other get-aways, but these events do it like nothing else. My executive coach has told me that I need to find a way to take the passion that I have for history and find a way to make that my career instead of my hobby. I couldn’t agree more.
Filed under: 3rd, Colmar Pocket, en Francais, Medal of Honor, Veterans | Tags: Audie Murphy, Colmar Pocket, Gordon Sullivan, Medal of Honor, Paul R. Smith
Last night, the seminar began in earnest. General Sullivan opened the seminar by talking about the “world-class soldiers” who fought in the battle, American and French, citing specific Medals of Honor awarded. This same spirit can be seen in the Army through Korea, Vietnam and today. He specifically mentioned SFC Paul R. Smith of the 3rd Infantry Division, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for action on 4 April 2003 in Iraq that recalls Audie Murphy’s action in WWII.
en Francais:
La nuit dernière, la conférence a commencé dans sérieux. Le Général Sullivan a ouvert la conférence en parlant « des soldats world-class » qui combattu dans la bataille, américain et français, citant les médailles de l’honneur spécifiques a attribué. Cet même esprit peut être vu dans l’armée par la Corée, Vietnam et aujourd’hui. Il a spécifiquement mentionné SFC Paul R. Smith de la 3ème Division d’infanterie, qui a été attribuée la médaille de l’honneur pour l’action le 4 avril 2003 en Irak qui rappelle l’action d’Audie Murphy dans WWII.
Filed under: Books, Marines, Weekend Wanderings, WWII | Tags: Bagram, Bears, Fallujah, Iraq, Marines, OSS
I haven’t posted a set of Wanderings of late, but have been accumulating some interesting links. Hopefully, you didn’t over-eat on Thanksgiving or, if you are not a celebrant, on a lovely fall weekend.
- Patrick O’Donnell, who wrote We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah
based on his time embedded with a platoon of Marines in Iraq, followed up with his Marines in an article for the National Review. As with all of his writing, this is particularly moving.
- We’ve talked about the Poles fighting in World War II, but I never realized they had an unfair advantage – they had a bear on their side! Hat tip to theglyptodon for pointing this one out.
- Over at One Marine’s View, there’s a nice photo of the Occupy Bagram folks….
- On Forbes, Chandlee Bryan dispensed some good advice on cover letters for job seekers when she wrote about Steve Adams, who wrote The Perfect Cover Letter, proposing that the OSS drop him into the Italian Alps during World War II.
Filed under: Henderson, Paratroopers, Veterans | Tags: Agent Orange, Bll Messner, Rangers, Route 1, Russ Littel, Saumur, Signal Corps, Viet Nam
I don’t know if it’s fair to say that I miss someone I’ve never met, but I do feel that I do. My father-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Henry Henderson, passed away before I ever met my wife and though I know he was not the easiest man to get along with, I suspect that Dick and I would have been friends.
Born in 1935 down in Uvalde, Texas, Dick grew up outdoors, competing with and conspiring with his brother, much as my own brothers and I had. He must have had the same wa
nderlust that drove me to find a way out of Michigan, but Dick found his escape in the Army. Commissioned in 1957, he “found a home in the Army”. As a young officer, he met his bride, Mary Lou Cammisa, and took her away from New York on an adventure around the country and the world. While he was stationed in Germany, they drove around Europe, exploring. The stories of the places they stayed and the mis-adventures pepper our conversations with my mother-in-law. Every time my wife and I turn in a rental car in Europe, I imagine Dick and Mary Lou sneaking away and breaking into a run as they leave behind the rental car in which a case of red wine had burst in the back seat. I can even, given the photos and descriptions from my wife, imagine Dick’s quiet, amused little snicker.
The Signal Corps was good to Dick, until it wasn’t. The good part was the training in technology and the advancement in both rank and leadership that occurred over the years. The bad part was over in Viet Nam. Signal Corps doesn’t sound so bad – you’re in the rear areas, and in some cases, he dealt with data processing. How dangerous can that be?
When Melissa and I went to France the first time, we visited the Loire Valley. I was able to connect with a retired US Army Signal Corps soldier – Bill Messner – who had married a French woman he’d met while serving at Signal Station Saumur in the 1950s. Bill had also served in Viet Nam and when we told him that Dick had cancer, Bill told us that a lot of Signal Corps men he’d served with in Viet Nam were dying of that as well. The bad thing about serving two tours in Viet Nam in the Signal Corps was that you had to drive up and down Route 1 a lot, checking and repairing the wires and equipment. So all those Signal Corps men got plenty of their share of Agent Orange.
Dick loved his girls, but Melissa never realized how much she’d miss him until the day of his funeral. He’d been a tough man, inspiring Melissa to write about growing up in his house as “Living with the Gestapo”. Of course, he was just trying to instill discipline and raise his daughter right. He didn’t make it easy for her to be close to him, but she tells me that despite the many times they’d butted heads even into her adult years, she wept uncontrollably at his funeral.
When we hold the Operation Dragoon and Colmar Pocket seminars, they always conduct a ceremony for the missing in action and prisoners of war, both at Arlington National Cemetery and again at the banquet. In this ceremony, a vacant chair and a place setting are laid out for the missing. I always think of the haunting lyrics of the Civil War era song, The Vacant Chair, “We shall meet and we shall miss him. There will be one vacant chair.”
At our wedding, Melissa and I wanted to include her father, so our good friend, Russ, who is a Sergeant in the National Guard (and will be deploying overseas next year) was able to get a Bronze Star with an Oak Leaf Cluster for Melissa to carry on her bouquet to signify his presence walking her down the aisle. When our brother-in-law Steve Murphy escorted Mary Lou down the aisle, he carried Dick’s flag from his funeral in Arlington. As the flag passed Russ, wearing his immaculate dress uniform, he rose to his feet and delivered a crisp salute. Steve placed Dick’s flag on a vacant chair next to Mary Lou, so that his presence would be known to all.
This year at Thanksgiving, and every year at family events, my mind may well drift to the man I know who would have been my friend. I will thank him for giving me his daughter and I will miss him.
