436th FA Battalion

SLIP

Yeah, I was wondering about that possibility too. Don't know which way they did it. Would be good to dig that up.

Bill

 

OK, another mini-story:

This concerns a guy in Basic, name of Roger Mudd, from Connecticut. When I tried to track him down a few years ago, I ran into Roger Mudd in Connecticut ... but it was the wrong Mudd. That Roger was the famous TV commentator from the '60s on.

Well, my Roger Mudd, as far as I'm concerned should have been more famous .. because he had an exceptional character and personality. He had been a student at Yale, majored in English, and Poetry (ck that out as a background for a combat soldier). Now Rog was a neat guy, good sense of humor, straight arrow, friendly, generous, you-name-it.

So what was his ambition after he finished Basic with us? Well, he was determined to volunteer for the paratroopers. Why would he do that -- shortening his expected military life span by probably a 1000%? According to him, simply this: "Well, I need to find out what makes a paratrooper tick, and the only way to do that is to become one." As far as I know he ended up there, but I lost track of him when the outfit was flown to Europe.

He's a hero to me.

I'll add a pic of him later this evening.

Bill

 

He's my military hero -- an intellectual, and a poet to boot!

Bill

 

I've got another hero: Bob Buschen.

Bob was the president of our class of 1943, Richmond Hill High School, Queens, LI, NY. A neat guy -- modest, unassuming, yet a true, quiet leader. Everybody loved him, not only the girls.

Well, he volunteered for the paratroops. First one in our class to be KIA.

God Bless Bob,

Bill

 

OK, y'all, here's one of the biggest stories in my tour of duty:

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PRIVATE CHILDERS FROM KENTUCKY

The setting was summer 1944, a short time after D-Day in Normandy, and our artillery outfit was in basic training at Fort Sill, OK. We were fighting the 'good war', against Mussolini, Hirohito, but especially against Adolph Hitler, whose special interest apart from taking over the world, was his "Final Solution" to the Jewish 'problem' -- exterminating every last one of them (including me.)

The other significant setting was that Ted Theobold and I had applied to OCS (Officer's Candidate School) and I had to watch my every behaviour -- any irregularity and you were out, as far as acceptance was concerned. So with that background I will describe what started happening every night as I returned to the barracks from evening pass, after 'lights out.' As I would pass by Private Childer's bunk I would here in a loud stage whisper, "Dirty Jew Bastard!"

After about a week of that I was going nuts -- my natural inclination was to grab hold of him and beat the living s**t out of him, or vice versa (although I was pretty good at doing a job on guys bigger than I, when I entered my rage zone.) However, I had my eye on OCS, and a Second Lt. commission, so I held back. And of course Childers knew that was why I didn't bite the bait. So he continued on for the rest of our 17-week basic training program.

Well, when Basic ended on November 17, 1944, our outfit expected the traditional 2 weeks furlough, to say goodbye in many cases forever, to our family and friends. But what happened instead was -- the entire outfit was flown in by cargo plane directly into Europe. No 2-week furlough. The first time that convention was violated in WWII. Were the top brass in need of extra artillery, pronto? Who knows?

But what I knew for sure, and Private Childers knew for sure was:

as soon as we got into the combat zone the very first shell out of each of our M1 Carbines would be aimed not at the Germans in Europe, but at each other. I knew I would do that, because I knew Childers realized I was ready for that .... he figured, correctly, "Why would Schenker see a difference in a Jew-hater in a German uniform or one in an American uniform?" So I realized that Childers would want to pre-empt me on that one, by firing first. So we were both ready to pre-empt. The bottom line for me was: I was dead either way -- either I let him shoot first, or else I shot first, in which case I'd end up court-martialed and in front of a firing squad for murder.

The resolution of this dilemma? Well, the entire outfit was flown into Europe -- except for two of us, Ted Theobold and me. Why? We both figured it was because our records were still in Washington, awaiting disposition on our applications to OCS. Thus we stayed behind at Fort Sill.

And I never found out what happened to Pvt. Childers, but I know the outfit saw action in the Bulge (which was practically the only time in the ETO that Field Artillery outfits were confronted with hand-to-hand combat.) I have never dwelt on his ultimate fate, never had the desire to, to this day.

But I do have another story, turning on what happened to Ted and me after being left behind. That's coming up next. An interesting story.
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Bill

 

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INCOGNITO IN FORT SILL, OKLAHOMA

So there we were, Ted Theobold and I, in Fort Sill, OK, in December, 1944. By then the rest of our outfit was stuck in the middle of "The Battle Of The Bulge" in the Bastogne Forest in Europe, not an envious location.

And what were we doing? Well, no one seemed to know of our existence -- the new training battalion had come in to camp to replace our outfit that was gone. We apparently were on no one's duty roster. We were never called out for KP, or "cigarette butt cleanup duty," or even morning inspection. We never had to fall in in the morning, never had to go out for calisthenics, nor sit through the "Mickey Mouse" films (educational films warning us, with graphic scenes in hospital wards, of the dangers of tertiary syphilis -- the patient was lying in bed screaming and jumping like a hounddog -- and gonorrhea; you can be sure we took our antibiotics after our sojourns to the ladies of the night), nor long marches and truck trips out to maneuvers with live ammunition in our howitzers.

All that was left for us to do every day was to head down to the mess hall for our three squares a day, and spend the rest of the time at the USO, listening to good music, and ogling the pretty hostesses. While the rest of our outfit was getting shot at!

We finally figured out that Washington had lost our records. We could sit out the rest of the war right here in Fort Sill. Nirvana! We did that gig for 5 weeks, till the middle of December.

Then it finally it dawned on us -- the downside to all this was that we were locked into Camp -- no evening passes and no weekend passes -- because we had no First Sarge to issue our passes, 'cause we had no outfit.

And then the final blow: we weren't going to be able to go on the traditional 2-week Christmas furlough available to most of the GIs who were stateside at the time.

With that realization we bit the bullit and presented ourselves to the First Sergeant, with the story that apparently our records had been lost in Washington and we wanted to go home for Christmas. His immediate response was a harsh "get the h..l out of my office, NOW, or I'll give you KP for a week!"

Outside his office we milled around for a 1/2 hour, then bit the bullit again. We told him, again, "No Sarge, it's for real -- we're from the previous training battalion, that finished up November 17th, and we've just been hanging around doing nothing since."

His eyes narrowed down, looking at us suspiciously, and said, "If you guys are sh...tting me, your a...s will be in a sling pronto. I'm going to call Washington, and find out what really happened to you two. Now get out of my office -- I'll call you back when I get some news."

A half hour later he walked out of the office, quietly this time, and said, "You guys weren't sh..tting me after all. They actually did lose your records in Washington. They're going to issue you new records, and then send you back home for your 2-weeks Christmas furlough. Now get out of here and don't bother me any more!"

And that's how we were 'found' by the Army again, and how I finally ended up in a line outfit, preparing for combat, the 436th Field Artillery Battalion, in Camp Gruber, OK, near Muskogee, in January of 1945.

But first a mini-story about our train trip back to NY.

Bill

 

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A STOPOVER IN ST. LOUIS ON OUR WAY HOME TO NY

Oklahoma was a DRY state back then (still is?) -- all we could get was 'green' 3.2 beer in the PX. I told Ted "When we get our layover in St. Louis I want to get good and dronk on rum and coke -- and THEN GO P*SS IN THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER." Ted gave me a strange look (he had confirmed he was hanging out with a crazy kid.)

[But first, on arrival in St. Louis, we stopped at the USO, and cut a few small, "Victory" 78rpm records to send to the folks back home. A few years later when I replayed my record I was struck by the accent I had acquired in just 6 months living in the South -- it was pure Redneck. (I inherited that mimic trait from my Dad -- who developed a pure hi-brow English accent after a 1/2 year living in London, in med school, in the '30s.)]

Anyway on to the main story. We grabbed supper and then headed out for adventure. It was a miserable sub-zero, cutting wind blasting in from Canada that night. We ended up in a bar near the waterfront. I promptly drank till I was staggering. Then Ted led me to the wharf right at the edge of the river, in pitch darkness, near midnight.

I lurched to the wharf, added my urinary bit to the river, while Ted periodically grabbed me, repeatedly saving me from an instant frigid death.

He got me back to our hotel room, alive, and I slept the whole thing off. Wouldn't have missed the gig for anything.
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Bill

 

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BOTH DAD AND I COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

My dad had volunteered for the Medical Corps in '42. We all were impressed by his patriotism. (Only later did I find out it was a continuation of his pattern to vacate his responsibility as a father and a husband --- that's also why he chose med school in London, when there were multiple fine med schools right in the Big Apple.)

Be that as it may, he got leave from Camp Atterbury, IN, we met in Buffalo, and proceeded home together on the NY Central down the east side of the Hudson River to Grand Central Station. The whole family treated us royally. We also had a twosome picture made of us. Here it is:


View attachment 2629

Bill

 

SLIP

Well, our outfit in Basic was Btry A, 29th BN, 7th TNG REGT. But when shipped over I'm sure they went into "Repple Depple" (Replacement Depot). What outfit they then ended up in I don't know.

Bill

 

OK, here comes a good story.

Now, y'all recollect that story I told near the beginning of this thread, about Lt. Col. Goodwin, our Battalion Commander. He had been a Point man in the '30s -- should have been some kind of general officer by 1944, but wasn't. Also, he was obviously an oddball, wanting a live bugler for his outfit. Well, here's the rest of the story.

The 436 was one of the first FA outfits to be organized at Camp Gruber. By January '45 ALL THE OTHER OUTFITS HAD BEEN ACTIVATED FOR OVERSEAS AND GONE TO THE ETO IN COMBAT --- EXCEPT THE 436.

Why?

Well, our outfit turned out to be the repository for all kinds of miscellaneous organizational debris. A good many in our outfit, probably the majority, were coal miners from Pennsylvania, hailing from such places as Williamsport, and Mckeesport, and other western PA towns. They were tough hombres.

They had spent a one/two year tour in Adak, Alaska -- a true hellhole of an assignment -- no USO, no women, hardly any sunshine, or green grass. It was the equivalent of being "Shanghai'ed" in WW2.

Then there were the recidivist 'winos' and AWOL types. One guy repeatedly got out of the stockade, and the next week he'd be back in -- having again gotten soused on filtering barbershop Bay Rum through bread.

Also, we had mess sargents in and out of trouble -- almost always alcohol related.

And a few guys like me, lost from their original outfit.

So at Gruber our Bn got a notorious name --- we were known as "THE F*CKUP FOUR THREE SIX." I kid you not!
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The next story well illustrates the appropriateness of our moniker.

Bill

 

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LT. LOUIS GANZ AND 'FRIENDLY FIRE'

I ended up in January 1945, in "A" Battery of the 436th Field Artillery Battalion, in Camp Gruber, OK, near Muskogee. We were out in the Oklahoma Hills, in bad winter weather, on live ammunition maneuvers. I was Radio Op for our Battery Captain, Ralph T. Unterzuber, a good guy, and rode shotgun next to him in his jeep. He was acting as FO, or Forward Observer, for the battery. This means he was about to 'direct fire' for our four big eight-inch howitzers (That's guns firing shells eight inches in diameter, and about four feet long.) We were situated up on top of a high ridge forward and to the right of the battery which was down in the valley far below us. The time was dusk, and night was closing in fast.

Down at the battery was Lt. Ganz, our Exec, or Executive Officer, 2nd in command after the Captain. It was his duty to take the firing orders from the Captain, over the radio, and pass them on to the gun crews. The information he had to relay was the 'site' and 'elevation' of each firing order. That means he had to tell the gun crews in what direction and how high to point the gun barrels, in order to land the live ammunition in the right location 1000s of yards in front of our position.

Now Lt. Ganz was an interesting character. If I recollect he was from Flushing, NY. Of course coming from New York automatically made him something of a 'wise guy' (as most of us New Yorkers were known in the service, often with good reason.) But he was something out of the ordinary. He was noticeably overweight, unusual among lower rank officers during WWII. But what put him in bad with us soldiers were little things he used to do. For example, our battery would be out all day long in the bitter cold and snow and ice, and often we'd miss our lunch because we were too far out in the field. When we'd come back at 5 o'clock or so, we'd find that our sandwiches were missing. What had happened? Lt. Ganz had grabbed them and eaten them up by himself!

Anyway, the Captain started directing fire, and I was operating the radio in his jeep. He gave the first order, Lt. Ganz relayed it to the guns, and they fired off their first rounds. A moment later the Captain and I heard this whizzing sound along with a fiery trail passing directly over our jeep, maybe 5 feet or so, on its way to its target. IT WAS CLOSE ENOUGH TO FEEL THE HEAT FROM THE SHELL AS IT PASSED OVER OUR HEADS!!! The Captain yelled out a gross profanity, and barked out to Lt. Ganz what he had just done to his fire command relay.

Then the Captain gave the order for the next round. A moment later another shell came over our jeep even closer! TALK ABOUT A HOT FIREBALL!!! The Captain immediately called down to Ganz to close down the battery, and strike camp. By the time we got down off the ridge and back to the battery the word had gotten around about what had nearly happened to the Captain and me. Our outfit, instead of heading back to our bivouac area, ended up back at Camp Gruber, with most everybody more quiet than usual.

The next morning, bright and early, we fell in to inspection formation in the battery quadrangle. And there was Lt. Ganz, standing off to the side with his duffle bag and orders in his hands. Where was he going? Off to Adak, Alaska. That was near Siberia, and equivalent to it -- it's where a lot of military 'fu...kups' got 'shanghai'd' to when they screwed up. I'm sure to a man everyone in our outfit was thinking "Good riddance -- may you freeze your a...s up there, AND rot in H*ll, both.")
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I'll try to add some pics of typical radio msgs I was relaying down to the Exec Officer now:

View attachment 2630

Bill

 

Thanks for this great thread Bill. I look forward to reading more!!

 

So much to read! I'm most impressed by Roger Mudd's story. it's incredible that he chose this way to do his share and ended up with the ultimate sacrifice.

 

OK, the next post is not a "fun" post. Why? Because it deals with what most people would "sweep under the rug."

As I mentioned earlier my dad enlisted as a doc in the Medical Corps when he was 'over the hill' .. 40+ years old. Part of his motivation was obviously patriotism (and he was Jewish and Hitler was out to get every last one of us). But there was more to it as I mentioned in an earlier post -- it gave him another chance to get away from the responsibilities of family.

There's another aspect of Dad's personality that played out in his military tour of duty. He was quite bright and talented. He and his brother, Sam, helped design the Pratt Whitney radial engine of the '20s. He also was inventor of the gas stove safety pilot light. He also invented the jig to set fractured long bones -- pinned both halves in the jig and then wrapped it all in plaster of Paris. Prior to that the ortho surgeons would align the two fracture segment by xray and then apply the plaster. Of course within a short period the fragments would go out of alignment and the patient would spend the rest of his life with a 'bowed' arm or leg.
He also invented the inflatable cuff that 'milked' the venous blood out of peoples legs post-operatively -- saved many a patient from a fatal lung clot.

The other side of his personality was that he couldn't get along with anybody he worked for or with. (During the '20s he had his own successful machine/engineering company. That worked.) So what happened when he joined the Med Corps? He promptly got in trouble with his C.O.'s, no matter what outfit he was in. He was first stationed Camp Atterbury, IN, then Ft. Knox, KY. Always a discontent. Ended up only as a Captain, when the rest of his outfit all made Major or higher.

When I was a kid I wanted two careers: music, and (snow) ski racer. He said no way -- had my piano broken up for scrap, and when I wanted to apply to Dartmouth College (in the '40s their ski team meant an automatic Olympic team birth). "No way ... you're going to be a doctor, not a ski bum."

Keep all the above in mind when I post one of the two most important events in my tour of duty, later in this thread.

Here's a pic of Dad:


View attachment 2635

Bill

 

I shall certainly keep these details in mind. Nothing to sweep under the rug. On the contrary: something you could be proud of. As to the strong personnality: well boys will be boys. Nothing to judge here if yo ask me.

 

Some "fun" mini-stories:

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One of the guys in the 436 I'll never forget was a fellow from Lincoln, NE. He didn't have much of a personality, but boy, could he play "partner hearts." In the entire year I watched him play he never lost a game (a hand, yes, a game, no.) I'd never been a cardplayer -- couldn't remember the cards or the strategies. But watching over his shoulder I finally learned the game. In later years wherever I went I was usually the winner.
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One of my pet peeves in the 436 was having to listen to the barracks radio blaring out all day long, month after month: Ernie Tubb's "I'm Walkin' The Floor Over You," and other such country hits. My ears, attuned to Yankee tastes longed for Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller. And for my love of classical music I'd have to go down to the USO and play the Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms records. So I could never have predicted that: starting in 1948 I developed a sudden love of any music that came from the South -- black blues, backwoods folk, country-western, Bluegrass. I ended up, in 2000 in Alabama, in a pickup band playing and singing, among other pieces: "I'm Walkin' The Floor Over You." Loved every minute of it!
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The guys in the 436 knew I was a Yankee from NYC, who preferred rum-and-coke to beer. So one night they set out to "educate" me. They took me, arm-in-arm down to the PX and set me down at a table, with 13 bottles of beer lined up in a row. "OK, Schenker, start drinking." I got through maybe 6-7 bottles and said that was enough. "Nothin' doin,' Schenker ... you've got to finish them all." I don't know how I did it but by closing time I had accomplished their mission -- I was soused. So they jostled me back to the barracks and I hit the sack.

About 3AM I suddenly awoke and had that awful urge to throw up. But I never could stand vomiting -- I'd do anything to avoid it. So I jumped up, ran out to the upper floor balcony, and started pacing back and forth. As long as I could keep pacing I felt cool enough to hold it all back. (It was a hot July night, and I was out there naked as a jaybird.) I kept doing that, by a full moon, for the entire night. And by 5AM the weather had cooled off enough, and I was sober enough to climb back in bed for the next hour before Reveille.
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Here's a not-so-fun story:
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When we switched to 8" howitzers, our officers told us it's OK sleep right next to our cannons when the nighttime replacement team came on duty -- we'd get used to the noise and it wouldn't damage our hearing. WRONG. Ever since, all we guys who'd slept night-after-night near the guns ended up with "discrimination loss" -- wasn't picked up by ordinary hearing tests .. but in a crowd I can't understand anything -- have to hear solo voices only. Didn't find that out till after discharge in '46.
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oops so long for the discrimination loss, you could have applied for more than 16% otherwise

The 13 beers story is great. When Yanks come to Europe, they have a hard time with our beer that is usually stronger

 

SKIP

Oh yeah, that 13-beer episode well prepared me for "es Glas Dunkel Bier, bitte!" at the "Stube"s and "Keller"s in Bern, Schwyz.

Bill