One hundred years ago my grandfather was a hired gun for a railroad which connected Los Angeles to the mid-West. After returning from fighting in France in World War I he relocated his family to Los Angeles.
Some years ago I was sorting through my late father's papers deciding which to keep and which to throw out when I came across an old newspaper clipping from World War II. The article was about one of my paternal uncles who was returning home from the war. The article told me in a few paragraphs more then I had ever known about him. I've spent the last two days comparing the WWII newspaper article with the online record and was impressed with how closely the two agreed.
My uncle had enlisted in the Army in 1942. Being six foot four in height, weighing 250 lbs and fluent in German he became a 1st Battalion US Army Ranger. The 1st Ranger Battalion was known as Darby's Rangers after its commander, William Darby who would be killed shortly before VE day. The US Army Rangers were patterned after the British Commandos and were not intended to be used as line troops. Their mission as a special forces was to quietly penetrate behind enemy lines and carry out raids. As a result the Rangers were lightly armed and operated in small units, typically from 4 to 12 men per company. My uncle's company consisted of a single officer and three privates. Standard armament was a machine gun for the officer and a .45 automatic pistol with light M1-carbine rifles for the privates. Although the privates would unofficially augment themselves with pistols as well, their design was to travel lightly, quickly, and quietly.
The 1st Battalion had participated in the failed attack on Dieppe, France in August of 1942. From there they went on to fight in several North African battles. After the German surrender of North Africa they went on to fight at Sicily and Italy. It was during a battle in Central Italy on January 30th, 1944 (Cisterna) that a German shell landed near my uncle and literally "blew him out of his boots."
The Battle of Cisterna was a classic SNAFU on behalf of military intelligence which had reported that the town was "thinly" defended. In fact, this "thinly" guarded town was the assembly point for German Field Marshal Kesselring's southern combat group (Conrad) intended to destroy the allied beachhead at Anzio.
To quote a 2004 U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Master's thesis by Major Jeff R. Stewart:
"Combat Group Conrad was composed of elements of the Hermann Goering Panzer Division and the 114th Infantry Division, giving it a total of four infantry battalions in addition to its organic tanks and self-propelled guns. It received substantial fire support assets, also, to include thirty-two 15-centimeter guns, forty-two 10.5-centimeter guns, and three 10-centimeter guns, while it received eleven 8.8-centimeter, nine 3.7-centimeter, and thirty-one 2-centimeter antiaircraft guns. It must be remembered that this combat group was organizing for the planned counterattack (on Anzio) while the MLR was held by other units of a Parachute Division. During the battle, the Hermann Goering Division would be reinforced by elements of the 114th Jager Division as well as those of the 26th Panzer Division, which was located to the north as part of (German) Combat Group Glaser."
In other words, 767 lightly armed American commandos were deployed as front line troops against a German Army.
My uncle woke up in a hospital as a POW and attributed his survival to the kind treatment of the German doctor and to my uncles fluency in German. The doctor had kept him in the hospital until he had fully recovered and regained his strength. The German guards had a different interpretation of being "fit for work." If you could walk then you could work.
Officially, my uncle was imprisoned in Stalag II-B Hammerstein which was actually a series of 99 work camps in the vicinity of "Koslin & Stolp West Prussia" in modern day Poland. A year later, the POWs were told that they would have to "evacuate" camp. The goal of the "evacuation" was to keep allied POWs from being rescued. The POWs were broken up into groups and marched around the German countryside. Some were relatively lucky and were treated somewhat fairly. Many did not survive.
Had the German doctor not kept my uncle in the hospital as long as he did there is a good chance that he never would have survived the POW camp. It is a certainty that he never would have survived the German death march he and his fellow POWs had to endure. According to the newspaper article, my uncle had been reduced to a "98 pound skeleton" by the time he was finally out of German hands.
After a month or so of recovery, my uncle became impatient. With the war over, he wanted to return home. Told that he still hadn't recuperated enough for the journey home he "commandeered" a bicycle and rode it across Germany and France. Arriving at a French port, he dismounted his bicycle, walked up to the first American officer he encountered and informed that officer that he was ready and fit to travel home. This was enough to catch the attention of the press which gave him a full write up instead of the usual line or two in the paper for returning soldiers. In July of 1945 my uncle was officially liberated and returned to military control, his POW file was closed. The 1st Ranger Battalion had ceased to exist with the Battle of Cisterna. Only six men had escaped death or capture. The 1st Ranger Battalion was officially disbanded in August of 1944.
As a child, all I knew about my uncle was that I had him to think for my awkward middle name. That he had been in World War II which to a child in the 1960s was ancient history. That he was a superior kind of soldier called a "Ranger" which of course meant nothing to me. What I really liked about him was he had a "souped up" Mercury that was capable of going some phenomenal speed. So fast, my father refused to ride with him. My uncle also enjoyed driving cross country where he would pull up to a police car and then "floor it," leaving the police car "in the dust."
My uncle died years ago. He survived the war, most of the 1st Army Ranger Battalion did not. I sometimes wonder if they were still alive and saw what half of America had become, that the cities they grew up in were now run by a bunch of leftists who hate freedom every bit as much as the NAZIs they fought against and for too many died fighting against; after all they endured during the war, how would they answer the question "Was it worth it?"
