WW II vet recalls horrors of battle
By CHUCK CRUMBO - ccrumbo@thestate.com
A bullet hit the frozen ground in front of Mel Brandenburg’s foxhole, causing him to flinch. A second shot struck him in the upper left arm.
With the help of a buddy, Brandenburg used his belt to make a tourniquet. Then he walked toward the rear, looking for a medic.
“It was the worst walk of my life,” Brandenburg said Friday, his voice quivering with emotion. “I had to walk by my buddies who were dead in the field.”
Brandenburg, who was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, talked about his experiences during the annual World War II memorial program at the Dorn VA Medical Center.
Friday’s event marked the 63rd anniversary of the day in 1945 when President Truman accepted Japan’s surrender, ending World War II. Germany had surrendered four months earlier.
The Battle of the Bulge was one of the bloodiest and largest battles between U.S. and German Forces in World War II.
When the three-week-long struggle in the bone-chilling and dark forests of the Ardennes ended in early January 1945, the Americans had suffered 81,000 casualties, including 19,000 killed. The German toll topped 100,000.
At battle’s end, Hitler’s army, which had made a last gasp offense to split the allied forces, had been destroyed.
Brandenburg’s recollections of the battles he fought with the 78th Infantry Division held the attention of most veterans in the audience.
When Brandenburg, of Batesburg-Leesville, joked about going on too long, audience members told him to “go on, go on.”
Recounting the horrors of the battle and what it was like to see his buddies die brought nods from many in the audience.
Although he was deployed in the South Pacific, Joe S. Derrick, of Batesburg-Leesville, said the battlefield experience was similar.
“Especially the part about everybody getting killed,” said Derrick, a former Army MP. “It was just a matter of survival.”
James Fowler, of Newberry, also identified with Brandenburg’s experiences.
“I remember a lot of the things he was talking about,” said Fowler, who was a member of the Army’s Quartermaster Corps. “I went to the same places in England, France and Belgium.”
The one thing all veterans from any war could identify with was the 86-year-old Brandenburg’s recollections of the impersonal randomness of death on the battlefield.
Returning to his story about seeking aid for his wounded arm, Brandenburg said he tried to climb aboard an ambulance for a ride to a field hospital.
But there was no room, so Brandenburg had to wait.
“Minutes later, the ambulance took a direct hit, and none of them survived,” Brandenburg said.
“Only God knows why I’m still here.”
The vets nodded.
The State | 08/16/2008 | WW II vet recalls horrors of battle