MAX'S PERSONAL HISTORY ON HIS ARMY EXPERIENCES

by Rebbecca Sorensen

I was inducted into the army the May 26, 1943 at an induction center on old motor avenue in Salt Lake City. Now it is called Social Hall Avenue. It was a long day, especially to sit around all day without any clothing. I think I was the last to finish that day. They started with the z's and worked to the a's. I barely made it in because of my poor eye sight. I was put on limited service and was assigned to report to Camp Williams June 2, 1943 to a military police unit. I completed three months of basic training and was transferred to Toole Lake, California as a guard patrolmen for about a year. That was the place that the government built in northern California to relocate the Japanese people from the west coast because of the threat of sabotage as we were at war with Japan. There were many interesting experiences there.

When the pressures of war increased, the need of men in the war zones increased and they asked for volunteers to go to the fighting units. Being young and bored with the routine or guarding Japanese, many of us volunteered to go. We were within a short time (maybe three to four weeks) sent out. I was sent to Camp Attabury, Indiana to the 106th Infantry Division, the 422th Cannon Company to train on 105 MM Howitzer. This was sometime in the spring of 1944. It was hot and sticky in Indiana. We trained until October of that year when we were given part of our new equipment and shipped out to go to the E.T.O.

We were shipped to Camp Miles Standish, Mass., a port embark. We were loaded on an old English Ship, the Aquatainia, and arrived in Scotland about two weeks later and from there to England by train, waited about two weeks while we finished being equipped. We loaded ourselves and equipment on a L.S.T. and crossed the channel to LeHarve. We sailed up the Seine River to Rowen where we unloaded and traveled across country to Belgium.

By November 10, 1944, we had relieved the 1st Infantry  Division in the Ardennes Forest on the border of Belgium and Germany. It was quite calm for a while. We would shoot a few shells over at them, and ever time they would answer back with a few more. They would send rocket bombs over every few minutes heading them toward England. They called them buzz bombs. They would send over a battery of rockets that would scream and keep us awake. They called them screaming meanies. Then to top it off, the planes would come over and drop a bomb here and there just to keep us awake and uncomfortable. We called them "bed check charlie." Then to top that off, the German night patrols would come through. It was real scary standing guard at night with all these things happening. We realized then just what deadly business this was. If you can imagine what effect this has on the emotions of a person, not know what would come next. Before it had been play war, now it amounted to kill or be killed.

Many things happened in the next three or four weeks. On December 16, 1944 the Germans started on an all out offensive to go back into Belgium and (this became know as "The Battle of the Bulge") France, in an effort to get the ammo and gas that they so much needed to carry on their war. In a matter of a few hours, we were surrounded that morning. That morning we were firing east and by that night we were firing straight west. It was foggy. They would shine a big light on the fog to try to see through. Some of our forward observers watched the Germans stack ammunition for a couple of days, when night came the second day, we were all zeroed in. We let go with everything we had, it was a hit. It was blowing up and burning for hours.

The fog begin to clear up, then the airplanes started to fight it out in the sky for a couple of days. it was all out with our planes finally running the German planes back. The Germans sent in their big Tiger Tanks, they would shoot at us and keep us in the trees. We did not dare go out in the open because they would shoot at just one man if they could see one. After our planes ran the German planes back, their big tanks had to move back too. They did not have much chance against a fighter planes and dive bombers. It was a scary time and things were getting worse by the hour. We were completely surrounded on all sides. We were zeroed in on a main road and we would try to hit the ammo trucks that they were heading up to supply their forward forces. For two days, we just kept harassing them.

One day we had to go out to try to relieve some infantry that was pinned down. This was even more scary as we were sniped at, shot at with machine guns, and with the big tanks. Once that day, another fellow and I were sent to get a sniper across open ground. It was not too much fun, but we run him away for quite a distance. When we returned back, we started to advance and we were going down a steep side hill when a machine gun and a tank let go at us. I was able to get behind a large bush in a ditch of water for safety, then cross an open field about fifty yards to the timber grove. We were all standing around talking about our last hour experience when they cut loose at us from hiding and we had to get out of there fast. We went back another way what had more cover. The group that was in trouble had been able to get away by the diversion we had caused so we returned to our units.

Ammo and food were getting scarce. On the night of the 18th, we blew up the ammo dump, blew up our 105 howitzers, and started out to get back to our own lines. We slept out in a forest that night, being harassed continually that night. The next morning we were about to have some food that had been prepared with the help of a cow someone had found, when they started to shell us and we had to go fast. We maneuvered around, trying to keep away from them till late in the afternoon. We were in our trucks heading toward Luxingburg when our lead truck hit mines in the road. Our captain gave it up then, and we were captured. We had prisoners in our truck, they took our guns and we were the prisoners. It was quite a peaceable surrender with very few being wounded. They marched us to a town about a mile away where a battle had taken place just a few hours before. There were many dead soldiers, mostly German. They put us in a court yard and we slept the first night in a long time.

Food had been very scarce for three or four days. Now it really became scary because they didn't seem to be interested in feeding us. They didn't seem to be interested in water either. They started to walk us the next morning and we walked all day until about midnight to a place called Prum. There they loaded us into train box cars. Enough men to just lay down, still no food or water. That night we were bombed by Allied planes and when the bombs would hit, the car felt like they were going to fly off the tracks. Many cars were hit but only by shrapnel and rocks. After the bombs would hit, we could hear the rick and debris falling on our car. This was the night of December 20, 1944.  The train moved slow but steady till December 24  when we ending in a camp at Bad Orb, about thirty miles from Frankfurt.

When we began our slow process of starving to death, many died of malnutrition and disease. The younger men, like myself (I was only 21) survived quite well, but I lost a lot of weight, probably about 50 pounds. it was very cold and we were allotted little wood or coal. It was thirty days before we were allowed to bath. We were taken out to bring back wood. We were marched in a column out about a mile where we would pick up one log each, six or eight inches in diameter and four feet long and walk back with it. One day we were strafed, some were wounded and some killed by our own planes. At that time all we had was enemies, at least that is what we thought when the bullets started to tear through the roof making big holes. We were thankful it only lasted a few minutes. It was common to see every day a four wheel wagon loaded with the dead being hauled out to bury.

The food was what you could call pig slop and that is putting it mild. The bread was heavy and of bad quality. We were given soup in the day, six men had one loaf of bread at night, with a warm drink in the morning, like coffee but it was a burned barley, like drinking water. It didn't take long until we wouldn't go after it. Sanitary conditions were the poorest possible and I will not say any more about it. It is not fit to tell and no one would believe it anyway. After starving for 2 1/2 or 3 months, 14 men were taken out to work on a project that was not to do with their war effort. I was one of the fourteen men.  We were taken to Bad Orb to take a train to (as we found out later) Rotenburg. We by luck missed the train and had to wait a few hours which was lucky for us. That train did not make it as it was bombed and strafed and many casualties were inflicted. When we arrived in Rotenburg, we were taken to the place that we were to stay. It was upstairs in a kind of recreation hall. The windows were barred. We stayed in one room in the end. It had a stove in it. We were putting partitions in the recreation area to what looked like offices. We were guarded with one guard and a big dog. They fed us much better there and we were thankful for that. We got our food about 2 1/2 miles from there in a kitchen of the SS Troops that were stationed there. We also got our coal allotment. The guard would send us through a small door to get the coal, we would dash to another room and lay a layer of potatoes on the bottom of the tub and lay coal over them because the food was much more valuable than the coal.

We soon began to get a bit of news that the Americans were beginning to move closer. The Germans became nervous and soon the SS left. Then came the retreating German tanks and men and trucks and every kind of war equipment. Then they started to march us back too. We walked for about two days and most of the nights to keep us ahead of the Americans. Some things started to happen. There were air battles, tank battles and shelling. It seemed we were in the middle of everything. Sometimes we had to hide in ditches to keep safe, guards and all.

The first night out, about midnight, one of our guards shot himself. Later the second night, they put us in a building and waited. The next morning the American tanks came through. We stayed there most of the day, and that night we caught a ride with a infantry outfit up to the front where we were quartered and sent back on a empty truck train. They gave us good food and that made us sick because we were not used to good food. This was, as I remember, around the first of April. We rode a truck to Paris, we spent a few days there and was shipped to Lucky Strike, France by train. When we got there, we ran into some of the guys we had been with in the prison at Bad Orb. They were really glad to see us and were surprised to see us alive because the Germans had told them we had been killed in the train strafing and bombing.

From there we were sent out on a liberty ship home. While we were in route home, we heard that President Roosevelt  had died. We were surprised because we did not know he had been sick. They fed us well on the ship. The Captain took a look at us and told them to feed us anything we wanted, anytime we wanted. So we would raid the kitchen whenever we felt like it day or night. It felt good to be out of danger. It was a big load off my mind to feel safe after so long of hunger and fear of being killed, or dying of disease.

Soon we were in New York Harbor and sailing past the Statue of Liberty. It was a beautiful sight to see and to know we were about to set foot on good old US soil again. We were shipped home for a convalescent furlough to get feeling better from half starving.

I was running around with the guys my age, Frank Christensen and others and that is when I met Rose for the first time. We had a lot of fun this few weeks and went out together almost every night. I was caught and I did not mind at all because I knew at once this was the one, if I had anything to do with it. Rose was soon to leave for the summer to Washington, D.C. to work, and I was due to leave for Santa Barbara, California to rest for another six weeks. It was a nice place and we stayed in a big hotel called the Biltmore. The Army had taken the building over for that very purpose. We had a lot of fun there. They had many different things planned for us to do each day.

From there I was sent to Ft. Lewis, Washington to an engineer outfit. We trained to build roads and bridges. They had us ready to ship out to the Pacific Theater when all of a sudden the war ended.