A Soldier Strips the Romance Out of Life at War - Page 6

Mr. V · #**126** (**permalink**) October 14th, 2008, 07:09 AM

Strip away the romance, peel away the patriotism, remove the death, suffering and misery and what do you get?

The one true, legacy of WW II: the so-called Theater of the Absurd.

"Theater of the Absurd came about as a reaction to World War II. It took the basis of existential philosophy and combined it with dramatic elements to create a style of theatre which presented a world which can not be logically explained, life is in one word, ABSURD."

Nothing romantic about WWII, but it did usher in the profound realization of the fundamental absurdity of the human condition.

Anti-Romanticism, actually.

JCFalkenbergIII · #**127** (**permalink**) October 15th, 2008, 01:00 AM

In the October/November issue of World War II magazine there is an excellent article by the title of "The End of the 'Good War' ' by Robert R. Mackey. It gives some good examples of what the war could do to the men who fought it at the end of the war. What seeing the things the Nazis had done and the average soldiers reactions to it and what they did.

JCFalkenbergIII · #**128** (**permalink**) October 16th, 2008, 09:59 PM

Heres the link to the article,

http://www.historynet.com/the-end-of...april-1945.htm

JCFalkenbergIII · #**129** (**permalink**) October 16th, 2008, 10:21 PM

Words of Reassurance from a Brutal Front

By Andrew Carroll

From the July 2008 issue: Words of Reassurance from a Brutal Front
Just two months after the Battle of Guadalcanal, twenty-five-year-old Arthur W. Hodan, a sergeant in the 23rd Infantry Division, handwrote a sixteen-page eyewitness account of his regiment’s fight to take Hill 27. Hodan had the letter smuggled home to his parents in Cicero, Illinois; in it, he describes in vivid detail what he and his men endured in a campaign that claimed some eight thousand American lives but marked a turning point in the war. (Line breaks and minor punctuation have been added to the letter for clarity’s sake.)
April 11, 1943
Dearest Mom & Dad:
Hello, Sweetheart, here is your little soldier boy again and Moms, I am really feeling fine and getting fatter everyday….
Dad, I suppose you are anxious to hear how I was wounded. Well I shall tell you….
When we were at the base of [Hill 27], word came back that the first platoon was on the hill and there was no Japs up there so we continued on up. We were half way up when all hell broke loose….
Moms I didn’t worry about myself all I was worried about was my boys, all the time I was up there I never dug a hole for myself. I was running from one gun to another keeping the boys on their toes. All during this time our boys were dropping. The Japs were on the right giving the first platoon hell they were caught halfway down the hill. Lt. Siesel was on top of the hill with the artillery captain who was directing the artillery by phone. They were sure throwing plenty of shells.
The first one hit was Corp. Olihaff from Milwaukee. He was trying to crawl up to a Jap machine gun and had his ear shot off. Then Corp. Bickwermer was hit in the chest and then all you could hear was Lt. Siesel calling for a litter and aid man every other second, the boys sure were dropping. Platoon Sarg. Greico went out to get one of his boys who was shot in the tummy and while he was carrying him out he was shot in the ass and it came out in front fracturing his pelvis. The boy he was carrying was dead. Marty Jayce was his name. Sarg. Smola was killed and they couldn’t get him; so was Beirboth and Grok and many others. Sarg. Bilest was wounded and while getting him out on the stretcher they hit him again and killed him. Big Boy Richards walked into a machine gun which made a mess of him and his buddy Whity….
Moms I was at the machine on the knoll watching Harry Dolan rolling some rocks down around him for protection when he slumped over on his face, he was hit and hit bad. Sgt. Hodgen and Ben Walker took a stretcher and ran out there for him, they threw him on the stretcher and dirt was flying all around them, they got Dolan back and he was shot through the lung missing his heart by a half inch. He is okay today, thank God, they gave him three blood transfusions out there in the field.
By this time the Japs circled through the jungle and were now on our left. They were dropping mortar shells all around the top of the hill. The third mortar squad which was on top of the hill was firing away, that was my old squad. Well they, the Japs, landed a mortar shell right in their lap hitting all the boys but Henry Donahue, the lucky Irishman. Baumhardt, La Cross, and Barrett were each hit in the arm. Theohalt was hit in the neck and Stanford had his glasses broken and was hit in the face.
You should have seen them coming down from the top of the hill hell bent for election. Then Conrayes and Sams mortar squad started to fire and I told myself to stay the hell away from them as Japs started to drop mortar shells around them. Moms, a shot rang out just about twenty yards from us and Corp Metzner slumped over the machine gun just a few feet from me, he was hit through the head. Red Painter the assistant gunner pulled him off the gun and swung the gun around and spotted the Jap in a tree and he cut the Jap and the tree right in half, even that couldn’t pay for Metzner. He was my no. 1 corp, a grand boy.
While Red was firing I jumped up and ran to the top of the hill right in between the 1st and 2nd mortar squads and called down to the aid station for a stretcher and aid man to get Metzner out when wham zam I got hit but didn’t know where as I couldn’t hear the explosion. All I could remember is that I was standing pretty dam straight and I felt as if I dived off a diving board and landed flat on my back. Boy did it sting.
I stood there about five seconds and then it dawned on me that I had better get the hell out of there and in a hurry. My face felt as though the left side was gone. I took off down the hill towards the aid station about thirty yards away. I got halfway when Ben Wallas grabbed me…. He told me a mortar shell landed about two and a half yards in back of me. I was hit by shrapnel but none of it went through me, it was all in me. Ha ha the scrap iron kid.
I asked Ben where I was hit and he said you got a piece in the right hand, one in the back, one in the left arm, a piece in both thighs, a piece in the left cheek, and a piece in the shoulder. Ha ha they didn’t miss a thing. Ben put on the sulfa nulamide and bandaged me up and gave me the sulfa pills and he took me to the aid station on the back side of the hill where they gave me a shot of morphine to stop the pain.
I sat down next to Sgt. Grens and smoked cigarettes and drank water. I asked him how he felt, he said his legs are paralyzed. We were kidding and laughing with Baunhardt, Theobalt, Barret, La Cross, Stanford, and others, we were glad our fighting was over for awhile.
We were all laying down in the jungle about thirty yards from the top of the hill where the boys were giving the Japs hell. The medical officer told us we could not get out until tomorrow and here it was three o’clock in the afternoon. I just dreaded the thought of spending a night in the jungle being surrounded. One feels so helpless.
Corp. Bickwermer was sitting up right near me when he took one deep breath and slumped over dead, God bless him. Sgt. Motel was brought down, a mortar shell landed along side of his hole, and he was shell-shocked. They had to hold him on the ground because every time a shell went off he screamed and wanted to get up and run, poor kid….
This all happened Jan. 2. That evening just after dark the Japs made two bayonet charges up the hill in front of my machine guns and the boys gave them hell. They bayoneted two of the boys from the second platoon, Gety and Little Eddie Drygowski who was made Corp a short time before. Eddie was one of the boys I brought back to Chicago on my New Years furlough….
Gety lived one hour. He pleaded with the boys to shoot him, God he suffered. Eddie was dead. There is six boys in the first platoon out of about fifty.
I didn’t think I would be alive when morning came. It was hell. I sure was glad to see the sun come up. The captain told us if the boys who think they can walk out the way we came in, we could start at one o’clock in the afternoon or there would be aid men to help us, so I said to myself I’ll be damned if I spend another night here in the jungle….We were shot at all the way out by snipers. Boy was I glad when we arrived in the hospital at the airport….
I was there two days then put aboard a ship for the Herberdies and on board ship they operated and took the piece out of my shoulder. I stayed in Cub one hospital in the Herberdies for about seven days, then boarded the hospital ship the Solas and sailed to Auckland, New Zealand….
I was sent to 39th General hospital here in Auckland, that is our army hospital. Here they operated on my face, they say I can have plastic surgery done in a year or so. Ha ha don’t worry, it isn’t much of a scar and it doesn’t hurt my good looks in any way ha ha….
Moms a New Zealand boy is taking this letter to America with him as he is going to complete his flying training there…. Moms I shall be going to the Fiji Islands soon as our company has been sent there in fact the whole American Division is there now. They have received replacements there for the boys who were killed….
So Moms please don’t worry. I still have shrapnel in the back and both thighs but it has healed up in me so they don’t have to take it out ha ha. To see me you wouldn’t know I was hit ha ha I feel great….
May God Bless you all
Your loving son
Arthur

http://www.historynet.com/words-of-r...utal-front.htm

Slipdigit · #**130** (**permalink**) October 17th, 2008, 12:03 AM

Good Lord, have mercy. That was a tough read.

JCFalkenbergIII · #**131** (**permalink**) October 17th, 2008, 01:14 AM

Its really different to read things about the war in a person's own words.

JCFalkenbergIII · #**132** (**permalink**) October 17th, 2008, 01:29 AM

"Sadashige Imanishi's voice falters as he recalls the piles of weapons left behind by dead Japanese soldiers in the jungles of New Guinea.

"That was the first time I thought of them and realized how cruel the war was," Imanishi, a member of the 144th regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army, says before asking the camera to stop filming.
Imanishi, who died last year at the age of 91, plays a central role in a new documentary that for the first time tells of the savage fighting between Japanese and Australian forces during World War II from both perspectives.
"Beyond Kokoda" features a collection of personal experiences, candidly shared by the men who battled each other and the adverse conditions of the Kokoda Track and northern beaches of New Guinea.
Using national archive footage and battle re-enactments, the documentary offers a balanced depiction of the bloody seven-month campaign that saw 6,500 Japanese soldiers killed on the Kokoda Track and 7,200 killed on the northern beaches.
Japan fared badly in the fighting, with the main 144th regiment from Kochi Prefecture seeing less than 3 percent of its members return home.
As veteran Masao Horie says in the documentary, "Java is heaven, Burma is hell, New Guinea is where no one comes back alive."
Australia lost 625 men on the Kokoda Track and 2,500 during the relentless fighting of the beaches campaign.
Soldiers from Japan's South Sea Detachment first landed on the north coast of New Guinea on July 21, 1942, intent on marching across the Owen Stanley Ranges to capture Port Moresby

and strategically isolate Australia from America."

Jerome · #**133** (**permalink**) October 17th, 2008, 07:57 PM

This WWI Poem says it all for me (I have x'd out the naughty word for our younger readers):

A Man of Few Words

Black eyed Corporal Farrell
was a man of few words other
than the usual Anglo-Saxons
sprinkled around the barrack rooms
and camps. he had no words
for the ragged shrapnel slicing
through his knee-caps but
used his morphia and that was that.
We sat side by side in the sun,
for "Lightning never strikes twice
in the same place" I had said.
Side by side wishing the frank
sharp crack and slap of shrapnel
would cease and leave us be.
He might have dreamt of England
and some soft hospital bed. I don't
know, and we just waited. And then
a sniper's bullet holed his head.
He looked at me reproachfully and barked
"xxxx!"
Melville Hardiment

JCFalkenbergIII · #**134** (**permalink**) October 18th, 2008, 12:08 AM

Thanks for the addition.

JCFalkenbergIII · #**135** (**permalink**) October 18th, 2008, 01:53 AM

__________________

JCFalkenbergIII · #**136** (**permalink**) October 18th, 2008, 07:41 AM

"Hodan had the letter smuggled home to his parents in Cicero, Illinois;"

I wonder why he had to have it smuggled home?

JCFalkenbergIII · #**137** (**permalink**) October 18th, 2008, 08:22 AM

A former POW remembers the horrors of WWII

Photo by Susan C. Moeller

Joe Mandese, here with his great-granddaughter, Julianna Frahm, was captured by Nazis during World War II in northern Africa, then transferred to a German prison camp in Italy. Eventually, Mandese escaped to the Italian countryside and reunited with American troops.
By Susan C. Moeller
Senior Reporter

The second installment in a two-part series

LYNDHURST (Sept. 18, 2008) — If war is hell, then war’s captives must be likened to prisoners of hell.
So it would seem for Lyndhurst resident Joseph Mandese, who endured a German prison camp during World War II. The memories still cause him to yell in terror when he remembers his capture and prolonged stay behind enemy lines.
Approaching 90 years old, Joe, who has lived in the township for 30 years, sits with his wife, Ann, close at hand, and a small, old-fashioned suitcase of memories on his lap. His face is lined, but not ancient.
Details about his captivity emerge slowly; some not at all. Mandese’s wartime experience spanned two continents; its aftermath, a lifetime.
Ann fields some of the questions. She’s torn between a desire for people to know her husband’s story and a desire to protect him from some of his most harrowing recollections. She emphasizes the severity of her husband’s situation by pointing out that he weighed 95 pounds after his ordeal.
Joe was drafted into the Army in his early 20s in 1942. Eventually, his four other brothers would take part in the war as well.
Joe was assigned to the Army’s 1st Armored Division and eventually landed in Tunisia, part of WWII’s northern Africa theater. The same year he was drafted, Joe was taken captive. “I was captured by Gen. Rommel, the Desert Fox,” he said.
Joe and eight other captives were transferred to a prison camp in Italy, run by Germans. “I wouldn’t wish my experience to a dog,” Joe said.
Ann said that the guards threw rice on the ground for the prisoners to eat. Dead bodies were left in the camp to be moved by other prisoners.
In September 1943, Mandese and four others escaped the camp. They spent the next few months — almost a year — on the run, assisted by Italian families who helped to shelter and feed them.
The Enrico Cardinale family kept Mandese alive with food. He still has their picture. The Cardinales were certainly taking a chance when they helped Mandese — the Germans dropped pamphlets threatening anyone who helped soldiers. “I didn’t sleep in their house,” Mandese said. “I slept in the open for a year. … It was cold, very cold.”
Back in the United States, Mandese’s family had been told that he was dead. They were shocked when they got word that he had survived.
When Mandese received news that it was safe to leave his Italian hideout, he set out to find the Americans. He came first to a Polish division of the British Army. They transported him to Foggia, Italy, where he met up with the American 12th Airforce. It was the 4th of July.
With a nod to the emotional difficulties he had endured since his imprisonment, Joe wonders aloud how his wife could put up with him.
She doesn’t miss a beat, dismissing the comment with a quick, “There’s nothing to leave. You were fighting for our country.”
The brutality of the war isn’t something one forgets. Joe and others like him certainly haven’t. “They relive it,” Ann said. “They relive it.”

http://www.leadernewspapers.net/modu...9&new_topic=18

Slipdigit · #**138** (**permalink**) October 18th, 2008, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JCFalkenbergIII

"Hodan had the letter smuggled home to his parents in Cicero, Illinois;"

I wonder why he had to have it smuggled home?

It probably would not have gotten past the censors as it was written. Too much information.

JCFalkenbergIII · #**139** (**permalink**) October 18th, 2008, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slipdigit

It probably would not have gotten past the censors as it was written. Too much information.

LOL Thats what I get for writing so late at nite. I forgot. Duh!

JCFalkenbergIII · #**140** (**permalink**) October 19th, 2008, 04:49 AM

"We stayed in Ederen until the morning of the 23rd of February when we were the first company in the regiment to cross the Roer. We had grouped up and advanced a ways when we were ordered to halt because we had encountered a mine field. We were told that there were engineers trying to figure out how to get through it. Mortars began zeroing in on us. I was lying on my left side digging with my entrenching tool trying to get underground when a mortar exploded right beside me. I felt like someone had thrust a red hot poker into my right thigh. I remember screaming with pain. The concussion numbed me and I thought both my legs had been blown off. I frantically reached down and found that I was still in one piece. The one fragment that had hit me had fractured my femur. I was carried back out of mortar range and left alone"

http://carol_fus.tripod.com/army_hero_charles_rose.html

JCFalkenbergIII · #**141** (**permalink**) October 25th, 2008, 03:10 AM

More images of what war is really like and what can happen.

Gallery of the horrors of war. Warning - explicit contents
"Although one could easily paint the portrait of tank warfare as that of knights in shining armour, it is important to remember the fate of many a tank crew member who has been killed in a war in which they were only a small piece. Many of the victims died a most horrendous death, and thousands still remain on the battlefields, the family not knowing the fate of a father, brother, husband or son.
The nature of war is grimmer than can be portrayed on any photograph, but the evidence is frightning enough. Only proceed to this photo gallery if you are aware of the graphic facts of the nature of war.
Please verify if you are aware of the nature of war, and wish to preceed"

http://www.panzerworld.net/horrorgallery.html