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As part of the First Army’s 3rd Armored Division, my father and his buddies in the 23rd Armored Engineering Battalion bridge the River Seine in France in the summer of 1944, near where Orly International Airport is today. Soldiers of the 23rd went on to bridge the Marne River east of Paris, the Meuse in Belgium and the Rhine in Germany, among others. They fought for weeks in the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest, the single longest battle in U.S. Army history. During one of the coldest winters in local memory, the combat engineers fought in the Battle of the Bulge as armored infantry. They dynamited holes in the Siegfried Line, Germany’s western wall of defense, and removed thousands of mines. The 3rd Armored Division overran the German towns of Paderborn and Nordhausen, capturing the V-2 rockets manufactured there and preserving the technology for America. They also discovered and freed a nearby concentration camp where inmate slaves were being worked to death in the underground rocket plants. In the spring of 1945, the 3rd Armored Division, the “Spearhead Division,” was deep in Germany and about to meet Soviet troops coming from the east. My father and his buddies were preparing to bridge the Mulde River when they were ordered to stand down. The war had ended. My father survived this experience and came home in the fall of that year. He did not tell me these things. I learned them through my own research, much of it conducted after his death in 1992. And I wonder, how does someone walk away from something like that and go back to a normal life. I guess I should know, he never really did.
174 responses to “My Daddy”
A salute to both our Fathers and their service to the country.
Well done.
JJ: Thanks for the insight.
I’ve been viewing many videos of WWII lately, to refresh and fill out my understanding of the events of my childhood and youth [I was 15 when hostilities ended]. Sobering. In light of Tuesday’s Electoral College win, they are not encouraging.
I will not be here in 2032, but would not be surprised if today’s TIP BlogSpot were right on target, unless the bldg had already been successfully targeted. You youngsters who may still be around, remember that emb told you so. Poor departed Dear Leader.
http://thatispriceless.blogspot.com/
Note, that URL works for any particular date’s current TIP. Almost left out that ‘.
Peace,
Nice summary, JJ. Have you found enough information to write a volume? I bet quite a few would be interested, especially the relatives of others of that division.
Jimmy, I appreciate your sharing this with us. Parents who have been in war, any war, rarely share the full range of their experiences with their children. I think they’re afraid that if they did, then we would have to live with those experiences every day for the rest of our lives, as they did.
I salute all our vets today, and pray all today’s service members get to be active veterans. Thank you all.
Mindy, I’m sorry the job sucks.
Jerry’s baaaaaack, baby! 🙂 So is Ghost, and from the past, no less. 1955? That means….no…I know who my Daddy was!
Wrote my essay on my MIA father and posted on wrong page. Cannot repost it. Mark, if you read this, please repost here on correct dany, I can’t.
Like Jimmy I researched my dad at age 50 and met the so young Jack, forever young. I did intend a book, then 911 occurred and my book died along with so many. But I can never forget him and his squadron flying broken shot up planes patched with scronged parts going out to meet death daily while playing like so many kids knowing they would never be old men.
Of course they were old men when they told me the stories but they were still young and alive in their minds, still in North Africa and Italy, still with my dad and the ones who never came back.
Thank you. Thanks for the memories.
God bless us every one. God bless the USA. God bless all our veterans.
Thinking of your Daddy today, too, Jimmy.
Thinking of your Daddy today, too, Jackie.
Thinking of all the parents today who have served, living and not living.
Interesting name change Hal gave you, Jackie. Here’s your comment:
Jackie Moerflynies on 11 Nov 2016 at 12:05 pm #
I am reminded of the years my father was MIA. my earliest years until I was seven when his remains were found and he was officially declared dead. My grandmother never gave up hope, she would try to locate any Jack Hodgson she heard about in a newspaper. My whole life.
My father is still in Italy in the military cemetery there.
That is why I had to vote, for all who died that we and others remain able to do so. That and all the long lines who registered on the day I did, standing behind ropes, protected by Marshall’s and deputies armed with shotguns. I stood behind no ropes nor lines or paid a price to be able to vote.
Thank you all for paying for me. Freedom isn’t free.
Happy Belated (yesterday) 241st Birthday to the United States Marine Corps. You don’t look a day over 200.
“On this day in 1775, in Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the very first U.S. Marine made his mark on the dotted line, laid the pen down, turned and looked behind him at the second guy in line and said, ‘Things were different in the old Corps.'”* (Thanks to Tamara Keel)
*You may need to be/have been a Marine to get this. Or possibly not.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1690136554631412&id=100009052528502
My reminder on our Marines. Two of my friends were career members of this elite group. I am proud of them and all my other Marine friends.
Semper fi.
Napoleon Solo, the man from U.N.C.L.E., has left the building.
Offering safe space to those being intimated.
http://www.mediaite.com/election-2016/people-are-wearing-safety-pins-to-protest-trump-and-signal-that-theyre-a-safe-space/
That means Ducky is dead on NCIS TOO. I LOVED BOTH ROLES.
Jackie,
“Ducky” is David McCallum. He and Robert Vaughn bear a striking similarity, but McCallum is still with us.
If I felt “unsafe”, I suspect I would legally acquire a firearm and learn to use it safely and effectively for purposes of self-defense. Oh, wait…
My father served in the South Pacific in WWII. He was at all the major battles; Midway, Coral Sea and more. Eventually their luck ran out and his ship was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Savo Island. One of the only stories he ever told was about being done handing up life jackets and taking his turn to get in the water – all the sailors took off their shoes and left them neatly lined up along the fantail as though they were expecting to come back for them. The ship was low enough in the water by then for him to just step off. Like your father, Jimmy, he rarely spoke of those experiences. I was watching the movie “Midway” one day; he came into the room during one of the attack scenes and turned right around again and left. He later told me that those sounds from the movie were real and when you heard them on a ship you knew something was going to happen and it wasn’t going to be good. Just the sounds brought back bad memories. I wish to this day I could have gotten his story. I will also have to do some research.
Non-political upbeat news item.
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/11/11/npr-cant-hurry-love-rare-snail-finds-romance-after-global-search
Peace,
FYI:
http://www.startribune.com/that-first-frost-it-s-never-been-later-than-this-year-and-we-re-still-counting/400867651/
That is from the Strib, Twin Cities. We’ve had frosts here, but don’t believe the high has been below 32F yet. This is extraordinary. I believe tomorrow is the 2nd wk. of our local 9-day whitetail deer season [dates and regs. vary in this long N/S state]. Hunters often have snow to track wounded deer in: not this year. Flat-out, none, though we’ve had a little on the ground, usually gone by mid-afternoon.
Jet stream is supposed to move over from Siberia by early next year, push cold weather S from Canada. We’ll see. White Christmas? Likely. Maybe even for TG, but I hope not. Have to drive S to Deerwood T or W before.
Peace,
My dad was a truck driver during WWII–in France and Germany. Came out of it with a bad back… two surgeries. He had some stories about basic training and Stateside… but never about his war experiences. .. I thank all who served, in whatever capacity.
Speaking of daddies. mine was conservative, but in the old sense; don’t spend money that you don’t have, don’t try to impress others with a new car and a bigger house and BE HONEST and don’t steal. That’s why I object to those who identify themselves as a conservative today. For the most part they are not but I can forgive those who have believed the lies and think that it means something good. Allow me to explain why people are upset and actually crying, not because they are “spoiled” or childish, but because millions of people have paid with their lives not so that we can use crude language in public, steal money from the public through fraud, make fun of the handicapped, etc etc. You get the idea. People are worried about their children’s future, your children’s future, our country’s future and most importantly the future of the world. It’s fantastic to love your country, but it isn’t a vice to be concerned about millions of innocent children who don’t know where their tent will be set up tomorrow, what they will eat or why the rest of their family is dead. Ships full of European Jews were not allowed to land in this country during WWII and we read about it and shake our heads. We read about Viet Nam, LBJ and Nixon and say what were people thinking? If there are history books years from now this period of time will be seen as a very low point in the history of this country. You can be part of the solution or part of the problem. Don’t bend your head and pretend to pray while you chant “lock her up”.
Jerry:
Doubt we agree on everything, but well said. Conservative, liberal, religious, socialist, communist, Marxist, and other terms have become meaningless. So have many non-political terms: I order a pizza with artichokes and sardines and the server says, ‘perfect.’ Awesome, unique, convince vs. persuade, . . . : if we use words carelessly, we cannot communicate. Of course [which anything seldom is], certain code words have precise meanings, but the code enables pols to deny that’s what they meant. Rant over.
Peace,
Well said Jerry.
The above is why we cannot have even more liberality. Don’t forget the tens of thousands sent to ‘Nam by LBJ, the horrific economic effects of Carter [18% interest rates!]{yet I respect Mr. Carter personally}, and the absurd reelection of Clinton after the impeachment.
Troll-like comments are not appreciated. If I have offended by replying, I apologize.
A person’s personal actions, good or bad, do not necessarily indicate anything about how s/he can lead. Same applies to skin color, gender, and all other non-leadership traits.
Disclaimer: I did not vote for Mr. T., nor for Mrs. C.
Can we leave the politics alone, now?
I am not a troll and I did not characterize anyone no matter how they voted. I understood the discussion to be about patriotism. If you are interested, however, I joined approximately 250,000,000 of my fellow Americans in not voting for Trump. If you are interested only in those who actually voted I was in the majority there also. Jackie, check your email.