World War II veteran's calling card a red ball
By Ron Simon
Telegraph-Forum staff
Anton Feiler
MANSFIELD -- For Anton "Tony" Feiler, 90, World War II was spent behind the wheel of a tanker truck carrying tons of volatile gasoline.
From Utah Beach to the Elbe River in Germany, Feiler said a red ball was planted on his truck's front bumper.
"The red ball meant we had priority on the road. The only time we didn't was during the Battle of the Bulge. Our tanks had priority then," Feiler said.
"We drove day and night non-stop. One of our drivers plowed his truck off the road and into the mud just to get some rest," he said.
Even for the men of what was called "The Red Ball Express," there were close calls.
"We were always looking out for buzz bombs and near Paris a sniper made me run from the truck and hide until our guys nailed him," Feiler said.
Some of the places he slept overnight, including a castle near Liege, were soon reduced to rubble by German artillery.
At the Rhine River, the Red Ball men crossed on a newly constructed pontoon bridge.
"We had men all along the bridge shooting at anything they saw floating down river because it might be explosives," Feiler said.
"That bridge swayed and went up and down while we crossed." He said that crossing was one of the most nerve wracking moments he could remember from the war.
Once in Germany, the rule was not to fraternize with the local people.
"As we drove by they would lean out windows and yell at us. One told us 'You better keep going all the way to Moscow.' "
But the Elbe River in central Germany was the end of the road for the Red Ball Express in its loads of food, ammunition and gasoline.
Feiler said until that time, enemy fire rarely let up. Supply lines were targets.
Still, it was better than the infantry.
"When I joined up I got a choice and I took infantry. Instead, I was assigned to trucks. I guess that was pretty lucky for me," he said.
A native of Gladstone, N.D., Feiler said his father was an original homesteader. He said Gladstone is about 100 miles south of Canada and 50 miles east of Montana.
Feiler came from a large family and every hand was needed to keep the farm operating.
But during the Depression he worked at a nearby ranch.
"They were paying me $10 a month to work from before dawn to after sunset every day. Then they wanted to cut me to $5. I couldn't survive on that. So I joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and worked on parks and dams in Utah."
A brother found work in far off Mansfield, and Feiler said he hitched rides to join him. Once in Mansfield, he quickly found work at the Humphreys plant.
In late 1940 he got home from work only to be told by his landlady that she had heard his name on the radio.
"They announced I was number 117th in the local draft. So I went down to the Richland Bank (where the draft office was located) and they told me to wait until January 1941," Feiler said.
At that point he was sent to newly built Camp Shelby, Miss.
He was immediately turned into a truck driver and mechanic.
He remembers the famed Louisiana Maneuvers very well.
"In Mississippi there were signs outside bars saying that dogs and soldiers were not welcome. But in Louisiana people came out to bring us food," he said.
He was playing a game of baseball one December afternoon when the word came that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.
"I knew then that I wasn't getting out of the army anytime soon," he said.
Not at least until late 1945.
Feiler and his fellow drivers moved from camp to camp, often being roused at 2 a.m. to pack and catch trains or form convoys.
Finally, in 1944, his unit was sent overseas aboard the Queen Mary.
He said that at one point a huge wave hit the great passenger ship, nearly pushing it on to its side.
The Queen Mary survived and so did the men on board, who joined their trucks in Scotland and traveled to the south of England.
"Down there we were being bombed by the Germans nearly every night," Feiler said.
His unit trucked loads of gasoline into American bomber bases.
"The B-17s would make quite a roar as they took off. There were maybe 30 or 40 of them. But not many would come back. That changed once those P-51 fighters went with them," he said.
During a leave in the city of London, Feiler stepped outside his hotel while Germans were bombing the city.
"A Bobbie (British policeman) told me, 'Bloody Yank, get inside or you'll get killed,' " Feiler said.
But Feiler walked the streets anyway, sure that he would not be harmed.
"I wanted to see what was going to be coming at me before very long," he said.
At Utah Beach he would find that out as he spent the next 11 months keeping American tanks and trucks supplied with gasoline.
When the war ended, Feiler was one of the first to come home.
After a quick visit to North Dakota, he returned to Mansfield, and went to work at Westinghouse.
In 1951 he married his wife, Hilda, a nurse, whom he met at the Sons of Herman and at Leiderkranz parties.
They had two children, John and Susan, and now have six grandchildren.
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World War II veteran's calling card a red ball
For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman
