Oral history interview of Danforth Parker Bearse, part two of two

Collection:

Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews

Title:

Oral history interview of Danforth Parker Bearse, part two of two

Creator:

Pahr, Marilyn A.
Bearse, Danforth Parker, 1925-2009

Date of Original:

2004-11-10

Subject:

World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Ardennes
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Devers, Jacob L. (Jacob Loucks), 1887-1979
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969
Georgia Institute of Technology
Hartford Insurance Company
United States. Army. Evacuation Hospital, 410th
United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944

Location:

France, Strasbourg, 48.584614, 7.7507127
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Towns County, Young Harris, 34.93315, -83.84712

Medium:

video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv

Type:

Moving Image

Format:

video/quicktime

Description:

In part two of this two-part interview, Dan Bearse discusses the controversy over the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign ribbon, resulting from a disagreement between General Eisenhower and General Devers over strategy in Strasbourg. Bearse comments on two books that detail the issue and offers his perspective on the subject. He finishes by describing his life and education after the war.
Dan Bearse was in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.
Danforth Parker Bearse Veterans History Project Atlanta History Center Interviewer: Marilyn Pahr Nov. 10, 2004 [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: And this is the beginning of an interview with Danforth Parker Bearse at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Dan was born on August 9th, 1925. For the record, can you state which war you served in and your unit. Bearse: World War Two, Europe. I was in the 242nd Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division, serving mostly in Alsace in northeastern France and for a short period of time, Germany. Interviewer: Okay. So you were born here in Atlanta. Can you just tell us a little bit about where you went to school, a little bit about your family, siblings that you have? Bearse: Well, I have an…I had an older brother. He's deceased. I have a living older sister. Of course, our parents are deceased. I was born on the [?] of my grandfather's dairy farm on Cheshire Bridge Road, which is now all built up as a commercial [inaudible]. And I attended Rock Spring Elementary School and Our Hope [phonetic] Elementary School and North Fulton High School, which is now Atlanta International. Interviewer: Okay. So you completed high school. Bearse: Yes. Interviewer: So during high school was when World War Two broke out? Bearse: Yes. Interviewer: Pearl Harbor. Can you tell us a little bit about where you were and what you remember about that day. Bearse: Yes. I was playing touch football with some of my neighborhood friends, and one of the parents come over to speak to us and tell us what was happening. We had no idea where Pearl Harbor was. But life at school changed significantly. We were seniors. I was a senior in high school, and we began to get serious about what we were gonna do, because all of us realized that we were of an age that might be involved. I graduated from North Fulton in 1942. Interviewer: And were your immediate plans…did you have plans then? Did you get drafted? Did you enlist? Bearse: I had no specific plans. I wanted to go to college. We didn't have a lot of money, so I was restricted as to where I could go to school. So I lived at home and entered Georgia Tech in the fall of 1942. And enrolled in the School of Architecture because that had some appeal to me although I had no idea of what I was getting into. But because Fulton County school system was an eleven grade school system, I was only seventeen when I entered Georgia Tech. So I had a year of grace, so to speak, before I had to serve. Although I wanted to serve and my first choice was to go into the Marine Corps. I quickly learned when I went to a Marine Corps recruiting office, that because of a color perception deficiency, I could not serve in the Marine Corps or the Navy or the Army Air Corps cadet program or the Coast Guard or anything but the U.S. Army. And so I stayed in school that first year. And then on my eighteenth birthday, I went to the draft board and volunteered for immediate induction. I was ready to go. That was my only…it was the only choice I had left. Interviewer: So you… Bearse: The last thing I wanted to do was to be in the infantry, and that's exactly where I wound up. Interviewer: So your birthday was August the 9th and by August the 17th you enlisted. Bearse: Yeah. I was inducted [inaudible]. And went on active duty I believe…what's the active duty date? Interviewer: August 17th is what I have for date of [inaudible]. Bearse: That's right. Interviewer: So you were told immediately then that you would be infantry? Bearse: No, I wasn't. No. I was inducted in Fort MacPherson, which was the 3rd Army induction [inaudible] for the whole Southeast. And was given actually three-week delay for active duty but I was officially in the Army. Reported two weeks later and after a day or two at Fort MacPherson, I was thrown on a train, along with lots of other people, and we wound up in Camp Grover [?], Oklahoma, in the 42nd Infantry Division. And I wound up in Company A, a rifle company in the 2nd Battalion, 242 Infantry Regiment of that division. Interviewer: Had you, growing up, had you handled a rifle before or was this new to you.? Bearse: Oh, I would shoot a .22 rifle or a 16-gauge shotgun. I was not completely unfamiliar with those types of firearms. Interviewer: And so you trained in Oklahoma. Bearse: Yes. Interviewer: How long was your training period? What was it like? What was your boot camp experience? Bearse: Well, in essence, a division, which was a very famous division in World War One, had been reactivated in July. And the cadre was collected and the officer corps was collected, and they began to receive draftees in late August and early September. And I arrived in September, but some were after I did, and we immediately began basic training. Interviewer: Were there other Atlantans that you knew at all? Bearse: Yes. Yes. I got acquainted with a young man who was a graduate of the city school system, Boys' High School, who I had not known before and we wound up in the same company. Interviewer: And do you recall his name? Bearse: Yes. His name was Frank O'Farrell [phonetic] and he was killed in Europe in January of '45. I do not recall that there were any other people in my company or for that matter in the unit from Atlanta. He and I were the only ones I'm certain in our company. Interviewer: And how many members made up your company? Bearse: Oh, a hundred and eighty or so. Interviewer: Can you tell us a little bit about what your day-to-day was like? When did you get up? What was you day [inaudible]? Bearse: Well, [inaudible] boot camp by the Marine Corps, basic training in the Army. Typical, all of us brand new. I had had a year of infantry ROTC at Georgia Tech, so I was familiar with some close-order drill and I was familiar with the M-1 rifle and so forth, so I had a little bit of an advantage. But the day basically was early to rise and all sorts of training activities throughout the day, calisthenics and marches and close-order drill and rifle range practice. Things of that nature. All [inaudible] basic training was needed in December of '44. Interviewer: And then in December of '44, you learned where you were going to… Bearse: I was in Company E, 42nd Infantry Division, 242nd Regiment from the very beginning. Interviewer: But it wasn't December when you learn where you were going to be sent overseas. Bearse: No. No. It wasn't till the December of the next year. We were in Oklahoma more than a year. Interviewer: Okay. So you were there more than a year. After you left Oklahoma, where was your next point that you went? Bearse: Well, Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, and overseas. Interviewer: Okay. Bearse: What happened was that our…our division was sent along…excuse me. Our regiment along with the other two infantry regiments in the division were detached from the division during the summer of '44, mid-summer, early fall of '44. The war department realized that infantry replacements…infantry casualties were higher than anticipated. And so rather than wait and send an entire division, which included all the artillery and other units, that the three infantry regiments of the division would be sent over as a task force under the command of a brigadier general who [was] the assistant division commander. And the 42nd Division and two more were sent to Alsace and we landed in Marseilles. I'm skipping over all the rest of the training. But we landed in Marseilles in December of '44. Interviewer: Okay. So let me just take you back a bit. Bearse: Sure. Interviewer: Where were you when you first started hearing the news about the D-Day invasion. Bearse: Well, I was in Oklahoma. Interviewer: Okay. And how did you hear about it? What were your feelings? Bearse: Well, it was an exciting happening, even at the time. We were obviously aware of the significance of the [inaudible] so. D-Day. Interviewer: Did you want to be there? Bearse: I had no feelings one way or the other. We felt that we would be somewhere sooner or later. Even when we left Oklahoma, we had no idea where we were going. Interviewer: So you couldn't have gone to the Pacific or you could have gone to Europe. Bearse: Surely. That's correct. What happened in between was I think maybe of interest. I think it's interesting. The Army in all its wisdom decided to do away with the program it had started in 1943 called the Army Student Training Program, ASTP, where people who could pass a written test…I declined to get into it before I was eighteen. And it didn't matter because I probably would have wound up the same place I did. But the ASTP was broken up and people from the ASTP were sent all over the country to various organizations to be trained for service in the Army. In the meantime, at the sufferance of shipments of people out of our unit to the 79th Division up in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, which was a staging to go to England to participate in the D-Day, June 6, '44, invasion. So we needed replacements, and our replacements were new people who had come from the Army Air Corps cadet program, who had originally been in the Army ground forces and had managed to get into the cadet program. They were all sent back to the Army ground forces because, once again, of the shortage of ground troops. And then the ASTP people came along. These were above average Army enlistees. Let's face it, they really were. Some of them had college degrees. Some of them had graduate degrees. But they wound up as privates in the infantry. And the point I wanted to make is that they made wonderful soldiers. By the time they came along, we had started basic training all over again, first of all for the Army Air Corps ex-cadets and then start it again for the ASTP people. By then, I was in the job that I stayed in, which was a communications sergeant in the rifle company. Interviewer: You mention the ASTP people being wonderful soldiers. Can you tell us what you thought some of the qualities were that they had? Bearse: First of all, their intelligence. That basically would set them apart from—and I know this sounds elitist and I don't know mean it to sound that way—but the average draftee with whom I served from September, '43 until the summer, let's say, of '44 when we finally got our last group of replacements, the ASTP people. Those people were of a lower socio-economic class primarily and almost invariably had no college or only had a year or so like I did. These were wonderful people. I don't mean to imply any elitism about that. But basically, ASTP people who had been recruited into that advanced college program by the Army because of their academic records in high school or their college records and their intelligence and their scores on intelligence tests. Interviewer: So they were originally going to be programmed to be leaders. Bearse: Well, they were gonna be programmed into who knows what. I have no idea what the Army had in mind. They probably…when the program started I was a freshman at Georgia Tech and I remember seeing some of the original ones who came to Georgia Tech. The Army had no idea, the country had no idea how long the war was going to last and they needed scientists and engineers and things of that nature. So the Army was gonna create some trained and well-educated people to take all sorts of tasks. They weren't necessarily gonna be functional military leaders. Who knows what they had in mind. And it was a tragedy that those people wound up as cannon fodder, in my judgment. I'm highly prejudiced about it because many of them became, and they were my friends, and we lost many of them when we finally made it to combat in late December of '44. What a waste. Interviewer: So by this time in December of '44, your unit has gone through these changes with the addition of the Army Air Corps cadets. Bearse: Right. We had been alerted for shipment overseas, at least this task force made up of three infantry regiments under command of a guy by the name of Linden. Brigadier General Linden was the commandant of this task force. And we went as three infantry regiments without artillery and without engineers and without all the rest of the division operations. So we were three infantry regiments, Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, shots and so forth and were in a convoy a few days after Thanksgiving—the date is on there, I believe—for overseas service. Oh, and we went to Marseilles and disembarked and went into camp [inaudible] France and then got on the train and Strasbourg, Alsace. Interviewer: Before you left for overseas, did you get an opportunity to come home to the family? Bearse: Yes. Several times. I was fortunate. As a matter of fact, Frank, Frank O'Farrell, who was my good friend, and I would come home together. We came home probably four or five times together. Interviewer: And when you weren't here physically, how often did you communicate with family, get mail, and did that change drastically once you went overseas? Bearse: Well, of course. Yes, we exchanged mail regularly and a very, very occasional long-distance phone call. That was quite a luxury then. But for the most part, U.S. mail. When we went overseas, of course, we reverted to V-mail. You're familiar with V-mail. Interviewer: Correct. Tell us a little bit about it. Bearse: A special processing that enabled letters to be reduced in size and transmitted very quickly and then printed out again, so that the mail was quicker than if you simply sent a regular mail in an envelope. That letter took longer than a V-mail. So post offices resorted to V-mail because it was quicker, both ways. Interviewer: Did you retain any copies of V-mail? Bearse: Yes. I have everything; no, I didn't retain copies of what I received, but my parents retained copies of everything I sent from the very first day I was in Oklahoma until just before I came home for good. Interviewer: So you have everything. Bearse: Oh yeah. The one-way communication from me to them. Interviewer: To home. Okay. So now we're gonna take you back. When you were in this convoy, had you been on a boat before? Was this a new experience for you? Bearse: Yes. I'd never been in the Northeast before, certainly never been to New York City and had never been aboard a ship at sea. I'd been to the ocean, to the beach, of course, on vacation, but never been out on the big Atlantic. Interviewer: How large was your ship, if you recall, in the convoy? Bearse: The ship was a ship built especially for troop support purposes and each ship, like the one I was on, would take care of…would accommodate one regiment of infantry, which is about…a regiment is about three, four thousand people. But the convoy was huge. The convoy was so huge that you could not see the end of it on the horizon. And we left New York City, went straight east as a convoy for about a day and a half, two days. Turned sharply south, down to off the coast of [inaudible] someplace and then turned east, going south of the Azores, through Gibraltar to Marseilles. Interviewer: And how long… Bearse: Long journey. Interviewer: Do you remember how long that took? Bearse: Ah, let's see. About ten or twelve days. Interviewer: Okay. And in tight, cramped quarters during that time? How did you…what did you do to pass the time? Bearse: Well, I was fortunate. I was in the one company of the regiment that had been assigned guard duty aboard the ship. I was in company headquarters and so along with the company commander, the executive officer and several other non-commissioned officers like myself, we had accommodations in the ship's sick bay, which was luxurious compared to the hold, where the bunks were stacked three and four and five high. And where it was not too difficult to become seasick. So I escaped that part. And was entitled to three meals a day rather than two. So I had a lot of advantages. And the weather was good. We could go out on deck and exercise, walk around the deck. And sunbathe. All that. So we had a pleasant cruise. Once we got off…once we got south and started east across the Atlantic, we had subtropical weather. We had very pleasant weather. The weather turned bad when we got to Marseilles, but it was happenstance. The weather in southern France was general good [inaudible]. Interviewer: Can you tell us the moment when you were reaching shore in France… Bearse: Yes. Interviewer: Where are you? What are you seeing? What were your thoughts? You finally arrive. Bearse: Well, the city of Marseilles is a huge city. It's quite an important port. And it had been liberated in the invasion of southern France which took place on, I believe, August 15 of '44. D-Day in Normandy was June sixth and later on, the invasion of southern France took place. So Marseilles had been liberated for about three months. But there was still a lot of damage. And we were actually off loaded onto lifers [phonetic]. Taken ashore in these smaller craft because the ship didn't…there was not room to accommodate a ship alongside a wharf or anything where we could disembark. There was very heavy traffic into Marseilles because it was another place of supply, logistically very important place. But we went there rather than to England. Some units went to England. But our convoy, the entire convoy went to Marseilles. Interviewer: Did it feel very organized when you got there? Bearse: Sure. Interviewer: Was it chaotic? Bearse: No, no. Very well organized. And there was a camp. Really just a log of bare ground up in the hilly area, back from…about six miles inland from Marseilles, above the orange groves and all of that. Barebones campsite where you pitched pup tents. And that where we received our equipment that had been packed away and cleaned it and literally got organized. Interviewer: And at this point, did you know that you were going into a very precarious situation? Bearse: Obviously, we were going to go into combat somewhere. We had no idea where. As a matter of fact, on Saturday, December sixteenth, our train, which took about three days to get there, this train was very slow and there were…there was probably a series of trains that took these three regiments from Marseilles up to…up to…well, not really all the way to Strasbourg but to a town called Dushortel [phonetic] in the Lorraine Province near [inaudible], where we got off the train, got on trucks and went into Strasbourg. On December sixteenth we were in Lyon, up the Rhone River Valley from Marseilles. And we paused there for several hours for some reason. Turned out that the decision was being made as to whether or not we would go to the 3rd Army or the 7th. The Ardennes campaign had started to that morning prior to…before dawn. The German counter-offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge began. But as it turned out, the train finally got underway again. We were being assigned to the 7th Army, rather than the 3rd, which was the army that had just a few days later, Patton's army that had made a right turn and gone to relieve Bastogne. Interviewer: Who was in charge of the 7th Army? Bearse: General Patch. P-A-T-C-H. The 7th Army was part of the 6th Army Group, which consisted of the 7th United States Army and the French 1st army. Interviewer: So you fought along French? Bearse: Not literally, but in the same army group. In some areas we would be relieved by them, but we saw little of them. It was as if the 3rd Army and the 1st Army were in the same army group. That was commanded by Omar Bradley. It took the brunt of the Ardennes campaign. But the 7th Army took the brunt of the Battle of the Bulge, which did not begin until we got there, because… Interviewer: They were waiting for you. Bearse: We arrived in Strasbourg before Christmas and were originally…for the first night our particular unit was housed in an old, old French barracks compound, a regular French army installation, permanent quarters. And that was very interesting and we were right in the downtown just on the outskirts of downtown Strasbourg near the cathedral. And then we were removed in just a few days to a suburb of Strasbourg directly south, just a couple, three miles, I guess, called Ilekirk Dragestadt [phonetic] and it was…it was like Buckhead. It was a suburb of Strasbourg, a very affluent suburb with mansion after mansion. Very, very upscale neighborhood. And we were in the woods surrounding all of these big mansions. It was very interesting. Interviewer: You didn't see any damage [inaudible]? Bearse: [inaudible] None. I don't remember seeing any damage anywhere in Strasbourg. The 7th Army and the French 1st Army had taken Strasbourg in November of '44. But I didn't see…we didn't see any damage to the city. I don't think it was damaged appreciably any more than Paris was. It was liberated in August of '44. Beautiful city. Of course, it was bleak in wintertime. Snow on the ground and so forth. Interviewer: So you went from the tropical climate on the boat into winter weather. Bearse: Exactly. Interviewer: What was your uniform? What was your clothing like? Bearse: Well, we had winter uniforms. We had what were called fatigues, dark green fatigue uniforms, the same uniforms that were still in use during the Korean War. And heavy overcoats and helmet, thermal liners and gloves and things of that nature and long underwear, woolen underwear. We were comfortable enough. As a matter of fact, we were uncomfortable on the ship because we did not have summer uniforms with us. And so, we would strip down aboard ship because it was warm. Got to enjoy the good weather and sunbathe, lie on the deck, do calisthenics. We also played volleyball and all sorts of things. Interviewer: So you traveled by ship and then you traveled by train. Bearse: Train. Interviewer: Know that you're [inaudible]… Bearse: [inaudible] Interviewer: Okay. How much are you carrying with you personally at this point forward that you carry? Bearse: I had my duffle bag, big duffle bag and my rifle and a full field pack on my back. So I had lots of stuff. Although we…I have to take that back. That's not correct. We carried everything in the duffle except the rifle, of course, and my steel helmet. But we carried all our…we each carried our possessions, till we dropped them in preparation of going into combat. Interviewer: So then when you go into combat, what are you taking with you? Your rifle and… Bearse: Your rifle and ammunition and a few rations and a grenade or two and that's it. Interviewer: What were your rations? Bearse: Rations were either C-rations or K-rations. K-rations were really the basic ration that was the least appetizing, but it was essential ration when you had to lose the ability to carry things. We had what were called ten in one rations, if we were in a static position and could build a fire safely and cook food. Ten in one meaning rations in a big box and it served ten people. Interviewer: And what, so what was the K-ration? What were you actually eating? Bearse: Tinned eggs or tinned corned beef, tinned beef or pork or cheese, little crackers. Interviewer: And the C-ration? Bearse: It was a tiny box, smaller than a cigar…I mean smaller than a cigarette carton. It contained a day's ration. Interviewer: And then a C-ration? Bearse: A C-ration was a little more. It had larger cans of beans and pork and beans, things like that. Interviewer: Of all that food, I know it's not the best, but did you have a favorite? Bearse: No. Interviewer: Nothing? Some people mention [inaudible]. Bearse: [inaudible] Of course it was all we had, so we ate what we could eat and when we could. All of us lost a lot of weight. Anybody who was in combat and [inaudible] is not likely to maintain his full training weight unquote. We were all in excellent physical condition when we went into combat, but the stress and strain of combat and the restriction on rice and this other stuff, you cannot maintain body weight. By the time I was wounded in April of '45, I had lost probably fifteen, twenty pounds. And that was not in combat. Interviewer: So take us back to your first day of combat now [inaudible]. Bearse: Well, literally the first so-called combat was while we were still in bivouac in Ilkitchdrgestadt [sic] and our company was asked to send a small patrol out on the levy on the west side of the Rhine—Germans were across the Rhine—to patrol up and down the Rhine at night to ensure that no Germans had been able to sneak across the river at night and begin a bridgehead directly against the city of Strasbourg. Interviewer: Could you see them and hear them? Bearse: Oh, we could hear them, occasionally, and they could see us and hear us. And we lost…a man was killed on one of the patrols. Not the one I was on. I didn't go on all of them. We went on two or three. But one of our men was killed. It was actually the first casualty of the whole task force was a man in our company, who was killed by sniper fire from across the Rhine. The Rhine was pretty broad. Interviewer: How far would you say that was, distance? Bearse: A hundred yards maybe, two hundred yards? I don't know. I don't really know for sure. It was not terribly wide. In fact, there was a smaller city directly across the river from Strasbourg. Of course, the bridge was destroyed. It certainly wasn't used. They were on one end of it and we were on the other. Then we actually went to combat once this second Battle of the Bulge, Operation Northwind, became the second counter-offensive of the Germans. And it was a massive counter-offensive. And we were thrown into it by being attached to the 79th Infantry Division, which interestingly enough was the division to which we had sent replacements in the spring of '44. And then in a little town called Rudeshoffen [phonetic], several days after we went into combat, one of our units was relieved by a unit of the 79th and saw a young man, who had trained in my platoon in basic training in Oklahoma, who was now a platoon sergeant and a veteran of many, many months of combat. Young man from Florida. Don't know his name, but I recognized him and he recognized me. And we spoke briefly, but just a few moments and [inaudible phrase]. But that particular time was not the official combat. You asked the very first day of real combat other than a patrol activity, was really sort of a makeshift, emergency group [inaudible], who were highly disorganized by then. Because this counter-offensive had begun just before midnight on New Year's Eve, December the thirty-one, '44. Interviewer: And how far away is it from the Battle of the Bulge conflict going on, would you say? Bearse: About a hundred fifty miles or so. This is directly south of the…excuse me. No. Southeast. I'd have to look at a map. But Alsace is the northeast corner of France. Alsace and Lorraine are two provinces of France that had been German territory from 1871 until the conclusion of World War One. So there were two generations of people who were Germans. So we were literally in an area of this…it was German that was spoken, Alsacian dialect on French and German. And each little town would have a monument to the German soldiers that fought from that area in Alsace and Lorraine in World War One. That was [inaudible] [loud tape noise] still in France. But as I say, almost two generations of Germans had grown up. It really is a beautiful part of the world. I got back one tome. Well, the first day of combat was because of the surprise of this second offensive. It wasn't a complete surprise but its magnitude was. And we were thrown in, our particular battalion of the 242nd Regiment along with other battalions of other regiments of the task force, were thrown in to an area to attain a bridgehead that the Germans had established across the Rhine a few days earlier. This is about the fifth or sixth of January. And we counter-attacked, did a counter attack against little this bridgehead in an effort to travel back into the Rhine. It was a totally miserable failure. Allegedly—our intelligence was very poor—and we were allegedly going to be an overpowering force drawing back to the Rhine. On the contrary, they were the overpowering force. They had tanks and heavy artillery, endless infantry troops. We were outnumbered two or three to one. So we were quickly repulsed. Lost lots of people, killed, wounded and captured. And were thrown back immediately. Interviewer: You did not have tanks and artillery? Bearse: We had none. Absolutely. The 79th Division had to share its artillery, but these three new regiments were assigned to it and consequently to obtain some artillery fire support was very difficult. [inaudible sentence]. So we went up against a massive force of Germans and they kicked us out of that place, quickly. And we were badly mauled and it was very demoralizing. That was our baptism of fire. And it was a loser. Someone should have been court-martialed about it, but who knows. There were a lot of mistakes made in World War Two, as you've probably been told over and over. I think we went to a different area to back up the first battalion of our regiment, which was trapped in a town called Hatten, H-A-T-T-E-N. And we initially went to the little town of [inaudible] where I saw this person from the 79th that I had known in Oklahoma. And we were sent in to help and kind of relieve the first battalion, which was besieged and surrounded by an overwhelming force of German armor and artillery and infantry were _____ out of there, too. That battalion was decimated. I mean, that regiment…that battalion, yes. The 1st Battalion, 242nd Regiment was practically destroyed in that engagement, but they managed to hold on to defend that city, even though surrounded. And eventually, the whole 7th Army pulled back from the area, so we had to give it up a couple weeks later. But in the meantime, that 1st Battalion and our regiment, conducted itself so valiantly that they were awarded a distinguished citation, a unit citation, and a lot of the men in the headquarters company of the 1st Battalion were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first Congressional Medal of Honor that was awarded in our unit. It was a horrible, horrible engagement. Ultimately the town was almost completely destroyed. Many, many civilian casualties. Many killed there, women and children and old men and old women. Interviewer: Was this the town of Hatten? Bearse: It was the town of Hatten, yes. Interviewer: So you had to retreat. Bearse: No, ma'am! Interviewer: The Germans are now on the other side of the Rhine. Bearse: We had moved back to our defensive line in [inaudible] forest, just west and south of that area and we stayed in a defensive position there until December, excuse me, January of 1945. At that time, that is the night of which my friend, Frank O'Farrell, was killed. He was in an outpost. He was killed by a German sniper. Now we pulled out of that area and marched on the night of January twentieth. A bitter cold, snow, ice, blizzard night, and we marched miles and miles and miles to the town of [inaudible] on the Moder River to a fallback line that had been selected as a place to withdraw to, polite word for retreat. We retreated to the Moder River line and that's where we made a stand. Then finally, in our area, specifically stopped the second Battle of the Bulge. Interviewer: How was it able to turn around? Bearse: Well, the Germans had simply run out of steam. They had…plus we had been able to organize [inaudible] and prepare some defensive works along the Moder River. My company was, actually the whole battalion 242nd, in a little town called Carltonhouse [phonetic], which was just south of Hagenhoff [phonetic] along the Moder River. It was referred to in military histories as the Moder River Line. It was the final…it was the final defensive battle in Europe in World War Two. And General Jacob Nevers [phonetic], Lieutenant General Nevers, who was the commander of the 6th Army Group, over the 7th Army and 1st Army, said that it was the finest defensive battle he ever [inaudible]. We literally stopped them. [inaudible] lines of communications too long [inaudible]. The whole counter-offensive ran out of steam. The Ardennes campaign had already been contained. Bastogne had been saved. As a matter of fact, the bulge, so-called bulge was being pushed back into place to the line, close to the original line [which] existed prior to _____ 16th. So this second Battle of the Bulge ended on December…no, on January twenty-fifth, 1945. And after that, we were taken back for rest and replacements for a week or so. We were relieved. We'd been in combat since the first couple, three days in January and continuously until that day. It was quite a battle. Our company commander, who actually survived the war without a scratch [inaudible] was one of the few person who was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross [inaudible]. Interviewer: And was this the time when you got your…first your Combat Infantry Badge? Bearse: That's when I got the Bronze Star. I got the Combat Infantry Badge just a few days after [inaudible]. I was awarded the Bronze Star for my small part in that Moder River battle. And a lot of people weren't awarded anything who should have been. Interviewer: How was that recognition done? Bearse: I don't know. It had to be some sort of eye-witness thing or in my case, I'm certain that our battalion commander, a wonderful guy by the name of Reynolds, knew what I had done and saw to it that I had some kind of award. Interviewer: Can you tell us a little bit about in detail, about what you did? Bearse: It was a very peculiar situation. If you're familiar with military tactics. Our company, what was left of the company, about forty out of a hundred and eighty or so, were strung out along a road between Carltonhouse [phonetic] and the next little village. But the company headquarters was in a house in the little village. And the village was actually exposed to the Germans [inaudible] main line of resistance where our troops were. And I was in this house. The company commander was there initially and then he went out to the line to rally the troops and hold off this onslaught across the Moder River, right directly in front of our unit. The town was, in the meantime, infiltrated with Germans and they were all over the place. And I was in the house maintaining communications for my company and for two other companies because their radio batteries had gone down. And so I was the center of communications, just a happenstance thing. I happened to have an extra battery and so I could communicate with battalion headquarters and with the artillery liaison people and so forth on behalf of the other companies whose radios were too weak to do so. And there was a young man with me, who was one of the runners. He and I were in the house during artillery barrages and whatnot and we managed to stick it out and keep the communications going. So that was what it was for. The Bronze Star was awarded to two levels of performance. One is heroic and one is very close. Mine was the very close part. Cause I didn't fire a shot. We were in the house, hiding literally, and operating the radio and telephones and things of that nature. And our first sergeant, who was coward, was in the basement hiding out. He was petrified. Sad to say. He just couldn't handle it anymore. So he ran to the basement and stayed there. But there were three of us in the house. Two of us upstairs working and the first sergeant cowering in the basement. Interviewer: How did that day end for you [inaudible]? Bearse: Ma'am? Interviewer: How did that day end? Bearse: Well, it ended with the end of the…a sunshiny day for the first time in several days. And the Germans gave up their attack. And the air was quiet as could be. We actually moved our company headquarters to a house up on the main street of this little…it was a parking lot [?]. And our battalion commander Colonel [inaudible] came by to thank me. It was a very, very moving experience. But it was over. For the moment, combat was over. We had stopped them cold. And in a couple, three days, as I said, we were relieved by another unit, 36th Infantry Division, I believe it was. They came in to [inaudible] our positions. [inaudible] back several miles to a reserve area to be replaced with troops and rest and some training of the new replacements. And by that time, the remainder of the 42nd Division had arrived. The division commander, Major General Collins [end of tape] Tape 1, Side B] Bearse: [loud noises]…division commander, Major General Collins, and his staff [inaudible] units that [inaudible] troops, a medical battalion and so forth. So we began to function as a whole division, independent of the 79th. And the task force, of course, ceased to exist. The task force ended. [inaudible sentence] ceased to exist. Then we were defensive positions throughout the mountainous area of Alsace and the Gosges, G-O-S-G-E-S Mountains. And then, ran patrols to feel out the Germans, and they did the same and we exchanged artillery fire and mortar fire and what have you. Then, [inaudible] a defensive position and staging positions for the offensive, which began for us on March 15th. And we charged across the mountains and into the German positions for several days and wound up at the Siegfried Line. Managed to penetrate it, then wound up in a village in the Rhine Palatinate, a flat area west of the city of Worms. Because by then, the 3rd Army under General Patton had turned south and trapped thousands, tens of thousands of German troops. The war was rapidly coming to a close. Interviewer: And you're already on German soil at this point. Bearse: Yeah. We crossed into Germany, oh, maybe a couple, three days after the offensive began. I think it was probably March eighteenth or nineteenth. Interviewer: Did the sense that you were actually on German soil sink in? Bearse: Ma'am? Interviewer: The sense that you were actually on German soil. Bearse: Yes. Well, interestingly enough. This was mountainous area. So the road network was sparse. We were off the road network. So we had no armor with us. As a matter of fact, we were supplied by pack mules as we made this offensive through the mountains toward the German border. But when we drove out of the mountains and onto a road at last, we were marching…our company was marching at the head of the battalion and we came to a sign that said, “Welcome to Germany, courtesy of the 17th Recon Squadron.” The 17th Cavalry Recon Squadron, which was a mechanized cavalry recon squadron attached to the division that scouts ahead and they proudly put up that sign. So we had a sign to tell us that we were crossing the German border and courtesy of whom. And we went smack into the Siegfried Line. And the company we were in now [inaudible] and we managed to pull back that night, 17th or 18th, whatever [inaudible]. And then stayed back in the hills for a couple of days, preparing to mount a massive offensive against the Siegfried line, including air power, P-47s dive-bombing the Siegfried line. Heavy, heavy artillery pounding the Siegfried line. And we simply walked through it because [inaudible]. They were trapped. We stopped in a little town called Annweiler, Germany, a few miles west of…A-N-N-W-E-I-L-E-R. I'm not sure about the spelling. Stayed there a couple of days on the first of April. Sunday, April 1, Easter Sunday of 1945. We were in a big convoy. We crossed a pontoon bridge and passing through the city of Worms which was totally destroyed with the exception of the cathedral. Worms has something to do with Martin Luther. We crossed the pontoon bridge, engaged the Germans the second day, briefly, as they were on the run. The third day we engaged them in a little town. I was wounded. And that was the end of it for me. Interviewer: How did that come about, your being wounded? What was the town? Bearse: I don't know the town. It was a little, tiny town along the Rhine River. It was pretty near the city of Wurzburg. Our battalion intelligence officer and his chief driver had scouted ahead, trying to feel out where the Germans were one afternoon, the afternoon of April third. [inaudible] so the battalion commander selected our company to go into this little town, see if we could find anything. We got to the edge of town and received small arms fire and then began to assault the town. A little, tiny village. And it was pitch-black dark by then and the Germans dropped a couple or three big mortar shells right down the middle of the street. The first one got me. And I had a radio with me and I was walking alongside hugging the building, right behind a couple of company commanders. And I got a signal that the radio was activated and it was the battalion commander wanting to know how we were doing. And before I could get to the company commander to give him the handset to talk with the battalion commander, the mortar shell landed. The company commander didn't get scratched. I was closest to the first shell and so I was wounded in the leg. But the people behind me were more seriously wounded. We had about five killed and twenty wounded by two or three mortar shells. And of course, I had the radio. So I was in a lot of pain, in shock mostly. I just called the battalion back and said, “Send up some litter bearers, we've got some wounded and I'm one of them.” [laughs] I was one of them. Interviewer: Did you ever find the man that you went in to find initially? Bearse: He was discovered later. He had gotten ambushed and killed. He didn't survive it. I knew him. He had been our company executive officer, first lieutenant company executive officer until we…aboard ship, heading for Europe. And some changes were made and he was moved into battalion headquarters as the S-2 or the intelligence officer down at headquarters. So his job was intelligence [inaudible]. Very hazardous work, obviously. Interviewer: So you're laying there wounded and there's other wounded around you. Bearse: Oh, yeah. Interviewer: What was the time frame before help came? And tell us about how you were… Bearse: Maybe about ten or fifteen minutes. Interviewer: And then what was the process, medically for you? Bearse: Well, I was given a shot of morphine. I was in a lot of pain. I was not unconscious. And the same first sergeant who was hidden in the basement in Karltonhaus [?] on the night of January 24th came rushing up after things began to settle down a few minutes. But after those three mortar shells, that was it. There was no counter-attack against us. [inaudible] just had the street sealed in and dropped three shells. Excuse me [inaudible]. And the first sergeant came up and wanted my G.I. watch. I gave it to him. [inaudible] Interviewer: So then you're…are you taken to a first aid station initially? Bearse: Litter bearers came up. That's two medics. They administered morphine. And it was pitch-black dark. Loaded me up on a litter. Put it on a Jeep, Jeep took me back to a battalion aid station, which was in a house. It was light, and I began to receive treatment. And I was shipped on back to regimental clearing station to an evacuation hospital, which is now called a M.A.S.H., you know. But in those days, it was called an evacuation hospital. Interviewer: Okay. Bearse: That's when I received initial surgery. [inaudible] Sent to a general hospital back in France by way of a C-47. First time I'd ever been in an airplane. Got back on a litter, then I wound up in a hospital in Nance, France, in the province of Lorraine. And received surgery there the day that Roosevelt died. Then on a train; put on a ship to England to another hospital where I received further surgery, mostly skin grafts and whatnot. By then the war had ended. I was in Lincoln in a house near a little hospital, big hospital in a little town near Lincoln, England, when VE-Day came on. The hospital unit itself was immediately going to [inaudible] for shipment to the Pacific for the big campaign against Japan. So those of us who were not ready to go back to our unit, we were either sent to another hospital or sent home. And I got sent home. So I [inaudible] Staten Island, New York in late May of 1945, went to a hospital in Thomasville, Georgia, for further treatment. I was sent to a convalescent hospital in Camp Buckner, North Carolina, and while I was there the war with Japan ended, so I was discharged. Interviewer: When did your family first get to see you? Bearse: In Thomasville. My brother was in England. This was very fortunate. My brother was in an ordnance unit. He was executive officer of an ordnance unit in England. And when I got to the hospital in England, I asked the head nurse, “How can I get in touch with the Red Cross?” And she said quote, “What the hell do you want the Red Cross for?” And I said, “Well, I have a brother here in England.” She put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me in her little cubicle, picked up the phone directory, which had every unit, American unit, in England. And in a couple of minutes I was talking with him on the phone. Interviewer: Wow. Bearse: And he immediately cabled—I'd already written a V-mail to my family, telling them what had happened [inaudible]—but he immediately cabled our parents and that's the first word they got that I was through. So they received that notice from him by means of a cable before they ever got the famous War Department telegram. So the war ended and I came home and went back to Georgia Tech. Interviewer: I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about all the medals that you did receive and your ribbons. Bearse: Well, that's [inaudible]. There's not that much. [laughs] Interviewer: You mentioned the Combat Infantry Badge. Bearse: The badge was the first thing that…most medals before that were just stuff you got in training, good conduct medal and an expert rifleman's badge and [inaudible] badge. The Combat Infantry Badge is different; it's the one with the wreath around the rifle. This is a miniature. And then of course, the Bronze Star medal. We've gone over that in more detail than was necessary. And then the Purple Heart. And then, of course, because of the campaigns that our unit was in while I was with it up till April third, I received the three bronze Battle Stars to pin on a ribbon. Interviewer: And the Battle Stars you mentioned, the Central Europe, the Rhineland. Can you talk a little bit about the controversy of the last one? The Alsace Ardennes. Bearse: Oh, wow. Great controversy. As a matter of fact, this book that I brought, Eisenhower's Lieutenants, deals with it, a little book which is about him deals with it. When the Ardennes offensive started, December 16th, surprise number one for Eisenhower. That was a bad one, a nasty one. You can't understand till you've been there. If we didn't intercede, the Germans would have gotten to Antwerp, cut off our supplies, caused serious trouble. But if this other counter-offensive hadn't succeeded they would have gotten behind the 3rd Army, gotten ahold of Paris…excuse me, we would have sued for armistice of some kind. And this was devised by Hitler himself. Both counter-offensives, the Ardennes on December 16th and Operation Nordend [phonetic], German for north end, on December 31st. They were devised by Hitler. It was controversial because…it became controversial. [Jacob L.] Devers, the lieutenant general who commanded the 6th Army [the American commanding general in London], was not one of Eisenhower's favorites. And Eisenhower had been pestering him during the early part of December. Certainly after the counter-offensive in the Ardennes began, to pull back all the way to the Voges Mountains and leave Strasbourg for re-occupation by the Germans, which would have been devastating to the French. Strasbourg is a very historic city. It was German from 1871 until World War One. The French said in no uncertain terms, we're not gonna pull out. Devers ignored Eisenhower's orders, said, “We're gonna hold right where we are. And if necessary, we'll fall back to the Hurtgen Forest and fall back to the Moder River line. And ultimately if we cannot hold the Moder River line, we'd fall back to the Voges Mountains [inaudible].” In the meantime, he changed the army batteries, so that French 1st Army was responsible for Strasbourg, and they weren't about to give up. And it was really never seriously threatened, although that was one of the objectives was to bypass it and then take it with ease about the time [inaudible] offensive. So there was a showdown, allegedly [inaudible]. . . . Both these books . . . . There was a showdown between Devers and Patch on the one side and the French on one side and [General] Walter Bedell Smith, who was Eisenhower's chief of staff, and somebody else from SHAEF headquarters about this whole matter. And Churchill was there. And it was held in, I think, in 7th Army headquarters somewhere back behind the lines. The French said in no uncertain terms, “We are not abandoning Strasbourg and if you force us to somehow, we are going to. . . .” [General Charles] de Gaulle was there. That's right. In addition to the commander of the French 1st Army, de Gaulle was there. He was the provisional head of the country. He was in on this pow-wow. He said, “If we are forced out of Strasbourg, I'm gonna close the French network of rails and highways and communications.” What a threat. Churchill was there and he witnessed [inaudible]. He persuaded Bedell Smith to pull in his horns, come back to tell Eisenhower to leave Devers alone. That was very controversial. So no wonder, as I say, that these [inaudible] Eisenhower's second embarrassment. His first embarrassment was, of course, the Ardennes counter-offensive. The second was [inaudible]. Interviewer: So you mentioned that a lot of this didn't truly come to . . . [tape stop] [Tape 2, Side B] Interviewer: This is tape two of the interview with Danforth Parker Bearse, being held on November the 10th, 2004. We're continuing with the explanation for the controversy on the ribbon, the Alsace-Ardennes ribbon. Bearse: As I said, Devers was not a favorite of Eisenhower's. He had resisted Eisenhower's orders to abandon the western plain, go back to the Vosges Mountains immediately, and abandon Strasbourg. And the French were with him all the way. Interviewer: And you mentioned that by the time of your discharge in September of 1945, this . . . Bearse: I was entitled to wear the ETO [European Theater of Operations], the so-called ETO ribbon with two Battle Stars. Because Eisenhower had refused to recognize this second counter-offensive as a significant campaign. He devoted one sentence to it in his book, Crusade in Europe. Interviewer: So how long after . . . before that was that resolved? Bearse: Some time after World War . . . after the war ended. I don't know how long. But I found out through this association. Interviewer: And then how did you actually get that third ribbon? Bearse: I didn't get it as such myself. I simply learned that finally the War Department, which is now the Department of the Army, of course, had concluded that yes, this was a very significant campaign. Now rather than recognize it as a separate campaign, they simply recognized both campaigns as one. That why it's called the Alsace-Ardennes campaign. Got a star for that campaign. So in essence, it's a campaign that lasted essentially from December 16th of '44 until January 25th, '45. Interviewer: Okay. Thank you for that explanation. Bearse: That's a . . . a lot of it's just my opinion, you must understand. I don't think Eisenhower was that capable as a supreme commander in terms of military strategy and certain tactics. In my judgment, Patton would have made a much better commander, if he hadn't embarrassed himself on more than one occasion. I'm sure you know all of that history. But Eisenhower, in my opinion, and it's shared by others, especially the author of this book. There's a very famous military story on it. He . . . Interviewer: Can you tell us the title and the autograph? Bearse: The title of the book is Eisenhower's Lieutenants. It's written by Professor Wiegley, W-I-E-G-L-E-Y, who is . . . excuse me for taking it out of the picture here . . . who is a very well-known military historian. And he wrote this book after most of his other work was completed. And it is a very, very detailed, minute detailed . . . it goes into minute detail of every aspect of the campaign in Europe on June 6th, '44 through May 8th, '45. Interviewer: And you mentioned . . . Bearse: [inaudible] He says that, in no uncertain terms, that Eisenhower made too many concessions to the British, specifically Montgomery, to the detriment of the success of the campaign. If Eisenhower had done what Patton wanted him to do, I would never have been in combat. It would have been over. [inaudible] probably of the war years, [inaudible] war in Europe, the western front would have ended before Christmas. Interviewer: You mentioned a second book. Could you tell us the title and the author? Bearse: The second book is . . . has been published twice. Once in England by the name of Operation Nordwind [phonetic], subtitled The Other Battle of the Bulge. This American edition is The Other Battle of the Bulge, subtitled Operation Nordwind. It is written by Charles Whiting, who has written numerous books about World War Two. I think he's a British author. And it was written specifically to cover this engagement in Alsace that took place between December 31, '44. Interviewer: You mentioned after the war had ended, you did return to Georgia Tech. Bearse: Yes. Interviewer: Can you tell us a little bit about returning? Did you make use of the G.I. Bill? Bearse: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, definitely. I was discharged, not because I had enough points to be discharged, but because I had been wounded and had a disability. So I was able to retire from the Army. What's the date? Interviewer: September twenty-first, 1945. Bearse: Forty-five. And I was able to get home, get out of the Army, get home in time to re-enter Georgia Tech in the fall semester. Interviewer: And at this point, you're still just twenty years old. Bearse: Just barely twenty, yeah. [laughs] It felt like I was forty now. That little bit of combat that I saw, and I say a little bit cause it's all relative. Some people saw one day and died. Some people saw one day and were wounded. And some people saw years. But that combat experience, especially in the infantry, is unique. You're constantly, almost constantly under fire. Little rest, little sleep, poor food, constant stress with the knowledge that you're not likely to survive. And you have to adjust to that psychologically. You have to accept the fact that the odds are that you're not gonna live through this. Interviewer: Did you think you would? Personally. Bearse: Well, I had to make my mind that I wouldn't, but if by some lucky chance I did, if I had to be wounded I prayed that I would not be wounded severely in the abdomen or on the head or whatnot. So all my prayers were answered. And I was one of the last two or three people, original people in my company who had not had something happened to them. Some killed. Some wounded and come back to duty. Some captured and what have you. So my number was up. And the company commander, who was a wonderful, wonderful, cool, calm, collected leader, survived. As a matter of fact, I wrote to him as soon as I could. I wrote . . . my first letter I wrote was to my parents and then I wrote to him to tell him what a privilege it had been to serve with him. Because my job in combat was to be his right-hand person, literally. Because I was his source of contact, radio and telephone contact with the subordinates in the company. And I wrote him to tell him that and he responded to say that shortly after I was wounded . . . he had started out by saying, “I'll never forget that night that you were wounded.” He said I was the . . . the [inaudible] commander, Colonel Realms, Lieutenant Colonel Realms came down and said, “John Stick [phonetic], your number is up. I'm gonna make you the battalion operations officer.” And so he got a staff job, still in combat and still subject to, you know, to the hazardous of combat. Of course, he survived the war. And he was one of the few to receive the Distinguished Service Cross for that engagement on January 25th in that Moder River line campaign. So I came back to Georgia Tech and finished. I went to work for the Hartford Insurance Group and stayed there for thirty some odd years and then retired early and had a great career a few years with Georgia Pacific, and retired again and moved to Young Harris, Georgia. And that's . . . that brings us up to date. Interviewer: Tell us a little bit about your family life. Bearse: Well, I was married to the former Ann ________, on August twenty-fifth, 1951 and we had three children, a daughter and a son and a daughter. We lost our son back in 1982. So we have two daughters and one of them has a daughter, who is our granddaughter, who is twenty-two, excuse me, twenty-four, and a son who's sixteen and the other one has an eleven-year-old daughter. You can edit this out of the tape, if you want to. I'm so proud, we are so proud of both of them. Ellen, our older daughter, is a special ed teacher. She has several different advanced degrees, and she's a special ed teacher in Towns County school system, Hiawassee, Georgia. And our other daughter is Samantha Bearse, who's been in television and she's now a freelance television director. And she was on that infamous sitcom called “Married with Children.” You remember that? It was a really, really raunchy show, but a highly successful, highly successful sitcom. So we have two daughters who were born six years apart. Our son was in between. And they're totally different, but both of them [inaudible]. They really are. Interviewer: Thank you. Bearse: And we enjoy life in Young Harris, Georgia. Interviewer: Did you have any closing thoughts on your war experience? Bearse: No. No. Well, I [inaudible] say that I'm very proud to have served, and I'm proudest, notwithstanding anything else, I'm proudest of the Combat Infantryman's Badge. That comes first. Everybody got that who was in combat. Not everybody got everything else, and you didn't get a Bronze Star or a Silver Star or [inaudible] unless somebody recognized you and singled you out. But that was a very inequitable type thing because not every meritorious or heroic action was observed or even known. This young man that was with me that night in that company command post in the little village of [inaudible] deserved just as much of a . . . deserved a medal just as . . . if I deserved it at all, he certainly did. But [inaudible]. He may have been. I don't know, ultimately. Interviewer: Thank you, very much. Bearse: Thank you. [inaudible] [end of tape] Notable pages: p. 7—ASTP p. 24—Bronze Star p. 36—Alsace-Ardennes Campaign Ribbon p. 39—survival of an infantryman

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