Oral history interview of William Franklin Anderson

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of William Franklin Anderson
Creator:: Marr, Christine
Anderson, William Franklin, 1922-
Date of Original:: 2004-04-14
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Basic training (Military education)--United States
81mm Caliber gun
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--France--Normandy
Ardennes, Battle of the, 1944-1945
Clemson University
United States. Army. Infantry Division, 71st
United States. Army. Infantry Regiment, 66th. Company M
American Red Cross
Veterans Administration Medical Center (Richmond, Va.)
United States. Army. Reserve Officers' Training Corps
United States. Army. Evacuation Hospital, 410th
50-caliber rifle
Location:: France, Bitche, 49.0508729, 7.4254577
France, Le Havre, 49.4938, 0.10767
France, Nancy, 48.6937223, 6.1834097
Germany, Kaiserslautern, 49.4432174, 7.7689951
Germany, Siegfried Line, 50.9113244, 14.2503823
United Kingdom, England, Southampton, 50.9025349, -1.404189
United States, Colorado, El Paso County, Camp Carson, 37.8690742, -107.362029815931
United States, Florida, Volusia County, Daytona Beach, 29.21081, -81.02283
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882
United States, Georgia, Richmond County, Augusta, 33.47097, -81.97484
United States, Georgia, Richmond County, Fort Gordon, 33.42097, -82.16206
United States, New York, Mitchel Field, 40.734982, -73.5944933
United States, New York, New York County, New York, 40.7142691, -74.0059729
United States, South Carolina, Ninety Six District, 34.1639779, -82.0185836
United States, South Carolina, Spartanburg County, Camp Croft, 34.91068, -81.85288
United States, Virginia, City of Richmond, 37.55376, -77.46026
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, William F. Anderson relates his World War II experiences. He was a junior at Clemson College when he was activated, completed his basic training at Camp Croft, S.C. and Officer's Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He describes his combat experience with the 3rd Army in detail, including C and K rations, Camp Lucky Strike and being evacuated to the 34th Evacuation Hospital after his injury. He also relates his rehabilitation in the Welch Convalescent Hospital in Daytona Beach, Florida and Oliver General Hospital in Augusta, Georgia on his return home.
William Anderson was an infantry officer in Europe during World War II.
WILLIAM FRANKLIN ANDERSON VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER April 14, 2004 Interviewer: Transcriber: Stephanie McKinnell Today is April 14, 2004. We are here to interview William Franklin Anderson. Mr. Anderson, will you kindly spell your name and give me the location and date of your birth? William Anderson: Good. My name is William F. Anderson. I was born in Ninety-Six, South Carolina, on May 31, 1922. Thank you very much. Can you tell me, at the beginning of the story, how did you come to be involved in World War II? WA: Well, I was a student at Clemson College, and at the time, Clemson was a military school. We lived in barracks, took army training. When World War II occurred, we were automatically deferred if we enlisted. Most of the people in my class enlisted in 1942, June 1942. When we enlisted, we were told that we would be allowed to continue in school. They did not guarantee that we would finish school, but that we would be deferred at least until the end of our junior year. Did all of the men in the school enlist? WA: I would say probably 99 percent of them did. Many of those friends of yours? WA: Yes. Oh, yes, still friends. When we were activated in June of 1943, we were sent to Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina, for basic infantry training. How old were you at this time? WA: Let's see, I was 21, 21 years old. We went to Camp Croft and received infantry basic training. I remember distinctly that the noncommissioned officers, the sergeants and the corporals who were our trainers, they had been career army people. Most of them were in their fifties and sixties at that time. But it was a hardened group of noncommissioned officers who really knew what they were doing with a bunch of recruits. They gave us good training. Can you tell me when you arrived to Camp Croft, what was it like, what were your living arrangements, an average day like? WA: We lived in barracks, of course, which were temporary barracks built at Camp Croft for the specific purpose of giving infantry basic training, which lasted about three months, as I recall. We would get up early in the morning. We would do some sort of like rifle training, learn to shoot rifles, learning to handle military weapons during the course of a day with a lot of physical training. Not much activity after dark because we were not allowed to leave the base. But we were required to stay there until we completed infantry basic training. We were told that if we completed the infantry basic training satisfactorily, we would then be a candidate for officer candidate school, which would be at Fort Benning, Georgia, where they trained people for a second lieutenant's commission. We mostly, most of the people from Clemson finished basic training with me, and as a group, we went to Fort Benning to Columbus, Georgia. So this was a group of primarily your friends you were going to experience… WA: Yes. People that I knew at school. Can you tell me a little bit during your training, your basic training, what were your feelings? Were you nervous about your upcoming battle experience? WA: No. Never gave it a thought really. As you can see, this was 1943. By the time we finished basic training and officer candidate school, they were getting along pretty well in the war. Being concerned about anything regarding the war never occurred to us, most of us I don't think. Officer candidate school at Fort Benning was another experience. We trained there to become 2nd lieutenants. Most of us made it; a few washed out, did not make it for one reason or another. But we graduated from officer candidate school I believe in, as an infantry unit commander. That was the 15th of June 1944 that we graduated from officer candidate school. A number of the fellows who were graduating from officer candidate school at the same time were sent to Europe immediately as replacement officer. I was one of the fortunate few who was allowed to remain at Fort Benning. They had brought in an old division, the 71st infantry division which had been training at Camp Carson, Colorado, for mountain warfare with mules in Italy. But at this point in the war, the army decided that the operation for fighting in the mountains was not going to be necessary since they pretty much defeated the Italians anyway. So they had brought the 71st division into Fort Benning, stripped it, sent a lot of the people to Europe as replacements, including officers and enlisted personnel and started to rebuild the division. I was assigned as an infantry unit commander to company M of the 66th infantry regiment, 71st division, on the 15th of June 1945, correction 15th of June 1944. Can you tell me, just describe to me a little about Fort Benning at that time and what memories you have _ there and what was there, and what was an average day at OCS? WA: Well, it was really not a lot different from an average day at infantry basic training. Because we were all corporals at that time. Graduated from Camp Crawford and from basic training, we were privates, but when we graduated, we became corporals. We were all corporals. The training at the OCS was not much different. There was a little more intense. You were training to use a rifle; you were training, leadership training classes. I was assigned to company M in the regiment, which is usually the heavy weapons company. And by heavy weapons, I mean 50-caliber machine guns and 81-mm mortars. Those are bigger weapons that the regular platoons in a company had at that time. They usually had 60-mm mortars and 30-caliber machine guns. So I took a little different training that some of the folks at OCS to get qualified to be an infantry unit commander in a heavy weapons company. One interesting thing about my time at Fort Benning was, I mentioned earlier, I was assigned to the 71st division. And in the 71st division was given orders or received orders to leave for Europe. We was told and given instructions on how to pack everything up, and we did. Packed up everything, got it ready to go on trains for transport to New York. Then I was assigned to packing/crating school at Camp Gordon in Augusta, Georgia. This is two weeks after we packed up our company. So anyway, I learned to pack and crate all of our equipment at the packing and crating school in Camp Gordon in Augusta, Georgia. We went back to Fort Benning, joined the regiment, and we were then trained and shipped to New York. Do you know approximately when this was? WA: This was in December of 1944. So you took trains to New York. WA: Took trains to New York. There we were transferred to ships and set sail for Liverpool. We arrived in Liverpool or South Hampton I guess it was South Hampton. We arrived and spent the night, overnight aboard ship in South Hampton. Then they took us to Le Havre the next day and we arrived in France. We were assigned to Camp Lucky Strike. They had several camps where soldiers just landing in France. The fighting had passed this point. They had camps like oh, Lucky Strike, Chesterfield, and you were assigned to one of those camps pending where you were going to be committed to battle. We were at Camp Lucky Strike. It rained every day for about a week. What was it like at Lucky Strike, a lot of men? WA: Lot of people, lot of people, in a mess. You are living in tents, and then the mud, not a very good time. Cold? WA: Cold, cold. But… What did you eat? WA: What did we eat? I'm not sure. I don't think we had anything except cold rations. I don't remember, it's all been… Either C-rations or K-rations. C-rations were little tin cans of beans or stew or something as opposed to K-rations which were packed like Cracker Jacks you know, covered in wax in a little square box. So if you had C-rations you were in good shape, you had something to eat out of a tin can. Did you have Lucky Strikes? WA: Yeah, Camp Lucky Strike. We did have some Lucky Strikes. But we were at Camp Lucky Strike for maybe I would say about five or six days if that long. And that was a transitional….? WA: Yes, yes. And then… WA: You were at Camp Lucky Strike, that's when you first landed in France. And as I say, the fighting had already passed this part of France, and they were down towards Nancy, along the Maginot line, just getting ready to go into Germany. So we put our trucks and carried down to a location near Nancy, France, where we joined the 3rd army. And were you still with your friends from Clemson at this point? WA: Yes, I was, maybe four or five in the regiment, battalion. They were not in my company, which is a group of about 200 men. But we had been assigned to different places when we left OCS, officer candidate school. So the trucks brought you down outside of Nancy? WA: Right, and we joined the 3rd army outside of Nancy. We were just starting the central European campaign at that time and trying to outflank the German army to the east and southeast. The battle of the Bulge ensued about a month later to give you a little time frame as to when this was. We were assigned to the 3rd army, and we had combat off and on for a couple of months. I say off and on because towards the end of the time that I was in Europe, and I left Europe wounded in April of '45. Most of late March and early April, we spent a lot of time in combat with the Germans and then we would lose touch with them and try to run and catch up with them some way, you know to find them. Can you tell me a little bit more about your combat experiences in those months? WA: Yeah, yeah. Generally speaking, the Germans would be in a position and we would attack the position. They were in either bunkers or the Siegfried line. We passed through the Siegfried line, which were concrete bunkers. Or they were in houses or places where they thought they were fortified a little bit. We would have to overrun them. On foot? WA: On foot, yes. _ rifles? WA: Yes, yes, except again, if you will remember, I was with a heavy weapons company and an infantry battalion. A battalion is made up of three companies of foot soldiers, so they were literally foot soldiers. The heavy weapons company had Jeeps because we needed the Jeeps to transport the mortars and the ammunition. So towards the end of, towards the middle of April, we'd pretty much lost contact with the German army. We didn't know where they were. They were retreating faster than we could keep up with them. On the afternoon of April 16, 1945, I was asked to take a patrol, motorized patrol, all Jeeps, and to move forward of our positions to and through Germany in an effort to try to establish some contact with the Germans. Earlier in that day, we had run across a little unit, I guess a squad of German soldiers somewhere. I had my first experience that day with a motorcycle. We captured these German soldiers, and one of the things captured was a motorcycle. This was in a town called Bitche, Germany. I remember the name and I remember the motorcycle incident because I got started downhill and I realized I didn't know how to stop it. So a German army motorcycle, it did a number on me; it threw me in the ground. But later on that afternoon, I was asked by my battalion commander to take a motorized patrol and to go toward the little town called Kaiserlautern, I believe is the way you spell it, and see if we could establish contact with the Germans. And if so, report back to them. We started to Kaiserlautern in the outskirts of a town, and we were ambushed by some German soldiers in a ditch alongside the road. We went motorized in Jeeps; I think there were three our four Jeeps with maybe four men in each Jeep. The first two Jeeps were allowed by a little bit and then they hit us with bazookas right in the right front wheel. So we were disabled, the Jeeps were disabled, run off the road. A couple of the fellows were seriously injured in the Jeep I was in. I was wounded in the right arm. We went in the town, got into the edge of town, and we thought that it would probably be smarter to try to spend the night there than try to get back through the lines if there were Germans. Were you on foot at this point? WA: Yes we were on foot because the Jeeps, two Jeeps, we're in two Jeeps. The third and fourth Jeeps were not hit. The first two Jeeps were hit. So we made it on into town and set up ___ in about a four-story residence building on the edge of town. Was it empty? WA: We ran some folks out of it. We had a couple of fellows who were hurt, wounded, one badly. Do you remember their names? WA: One was a Stevens from Alabama. I don't remember the names of the others. We thought that in view of the fact we had a couple of fellows wounded and one badly wounded we knew, that we ought to try to find some medical help for him. We had no medics with us. So we asked a couple of the fellows to sort of rummage around through the town, which was not a big town, and see if there was a doctor, a resident doctor. And if so to bring him over there. So about an hour later I guess, the fellows came back and they had a German doctor. He had a little bag with him, but he had absolutely nothing. He had no bandages, he had no medicine, he had nothing, none. He was in effect of no value to us. We had hoped that he could come in and help our fellows that were wounded. Did you have German language skills between you? WA: There were two fellows in the platoon that did. I didn't have. Were the people there generally hostile or friendly? WA: I would say they were sort of neutral. They knew the war was over for them. It was just a matter of days. And it was if you remember. This was April 16th, and VE-Day was the 7th of May. They knew the war was over, but they weren't afraid of us, but they were not hostile I wouldn't say. Anyway, we spent the night in this house. That night, and our friends from our company were there the next morning, about midmorning about 9 or 10 o'clock the next morning. They took, they evacuated the wounded, including myself. And I was amazed that they sent me back to a hospital, I didn't think, you know, my arm was skinned, and that was about all. But they sent us back to an evacuation hospital they called it. What was an evacuation hospital? WA: People who were injured or hurt were sent back to this hospital, which was a field hospital, really. Then they sent you back to another hospital, which was an evacuation hospital. They were going to evacuate you from the theater of operations. By air? WA: In my case, it was by air. They flew me in a plane from Paris to, I had been evacuated back to Paris, and then from the hospital there I was sent to, let's see, we stopped in the Azores and then flew to New York. There was a funny little incident that occurred in New York when we landed in New York getting home. And this was by plane. We landed at Santini Field, as I recall the name of the Army Air base. The Red Cross was there, and the Red Cross greeted us all and said they had a present for us. The present was a long distance call home free. So with a South Carolina accent I got hold of a New York City operator and told her that I wanted telephone number 61 in Ninety-Six, South Carolina. I have the number, what's the name of the town? Took me quite a while to explain to her that the number was 61, and the town was Ninety-Six, South Carolina. She finally cut me off, said all these drunks coming home… I never did any, Red Cross still owes me a phone call, I never did get my phone call completed. But a couple of days after we were in Santini, I was transferred down to… And Santini, again, was in New York? WA: Beg pardon. Santini… WA: Was in New York, yeah. I was transferred down to an army hospital in Richmond, Virginia, called McGuire general hospital I guess it was. It turned out that my problem was that the nerves in my right hand had been severed from the wound in my wrist and I couldn't use my fingers much. They decided that what they would do was operate on me and try to tie the nerves back together where they had been severed and see if they would regenerate feeling at all. They did this, and it didn't. One thing about that operation, it took about that operation, it took about six to nine months to know whether the nerve had regenerated or not. So at McGuire General Hospital, they did that operation. I thought they did a good job. For me to recuperate, they sent me down to the Welch Convalescent Hospital in Daytona Beach, Florida. That wasn't too hard to take. Approximately when was this? WA: This must have been, when they sent me down to Welch Convalescent Hospital, it must have been around June or July of '45. '45? WA: '45. After about five or six months at Welch Convalescent Hospital, they sent me back to McGuire General Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, I mean Richmond, Virginia. They decided that I would be better off I was at Welch… the hospital in Augusta, what was the name of it? Maybe it will come back to me. Hospital in Augusta? WA: Augusta, Georgia, army hospital in Augusta, Georgia. Where they operated on me again, on my arm. This must have been in August of '46 I guess, summer of '46 sometime, late summer of '46. So again, I was faced with several months not knowing what they'd done. So I went to the colonel in charge of the hospital and told him I don't want to finish three years of school and if he could to give me a leave to go back and finish school. He said I can't do that, but I can give you 30 days and then you can come back and I'll give you another 30 days. Then you come back and I'll give you… During the interim, for example, when you were in Welch Convalescent after you had the surgery down there, were you, those four or five or six months that you were down there, were you given military responsibilities? WA: No, no. You were recovering? WA: I was recovering. There was no operation at Welch. Operation was at McGuire General in Richmond. The recovery was supposedly the name of the convalescent hospital. I remember a lot of recovery at the Seabreeze Manor at Daytona Beach. But they sent me back to—McGuire General Hospital was the name of the hospital in Augusta, McGuire General Hospital. So they sent me back to McGuire General Hospital, and they operated again. It was then that I was faced again with several months before they knew whether things were going to work or not. That's when I got the colonel in charge of the hospital to allow me to go back to school. So I went back to Clemson and graduated and then went back to McGuire General Hospital I guess in July. This is '47 now. And they discharged me from the hospital and the army in September of '47. That's pretty much the story. When you went back to Clemson, had your experiences, it had only been a couple of years since you had been there as a young student. You had seen so much in the interim, how did that change your experience going back to Clemson? WA: Well, the experience was totally different from the time I was there the first time. Remember I told you that Clemson was a military school, ROTC, reserve officers training corps. It was a total military operation when I was first there. Now you've got people who've been in combat, been all over the world, and they're coming back to Clemson. They wanted no part of that military life, military school routine, so it was a totally different experience, everybody coming back to civilians. Some of the people who I knew went back there and finished up school, so it was a completely different experience. Was it difficult to see that military _ after having gone through what you'd just gone through? WA: Not really. That's pretty much the way we felt. Clemson was no longer a military school anyway. They had ROTC, but it would be like some of the high schools _ have ROTC units there. While you were abroad, were you able to communicate at all with family or friends via telephone or letters? WA: Letters was the only way. Were you able to do that frequently or was it a rare experience that you could send or receive or a letter? WA: I could have sent them more frequently than I did I think. The biggest problem was finding time and place to write the letter. Because we were pretty much on the move after we hit France. I could, communication was by letter. I could have done, like everybody else, better, but _ had a chance. Your Clemson classmates who had also enlisted, were you able to keep up with them through the war and after the war? WA: Not all of them. It's funny you ask because I'm going back to, we were the class of '44, I'm going back to a class reunion in June. There are two or three of them around Atlanta that I see, and a number more that I'll see when I go back in June. Lot of them are gone now of course. Any special mementos that you have from your war experience? WA: The only memento I have is a dagger, German dagger, that obviously was worn on a belt. Belt went through here, and in fact it looks like it was made with a belt. This is a, and if you ask me how I got it home, I can't tell you. Can you hold it up close to the camera? WA: Sure. You can see a swastika there. How did you come to this? WA: I took this off of a German soldier that we captured up about Bitche. When I got to the army hospital back in Paris, I had army boots and fatigues and all that. When I left the hospital, I had nothing. I came home in pajamas to New York. I didn't get any clothing. I remember _ McGuire general. I could not have had this on me at the time. I had clothes somewhere; I don't remember where they were. They may have been stored in a warehouse or somewhere. I don't even remember where they were. But somebody knew me and apparently got this to my locker. Most officers had a footlocker somewhere, and they knew where mine was. Because I think it came back to stateside while I was in the hospital, and I think this was in the locker. I don't remember putting it in the footlocker, and I don't remember, I know I didn't have it one me. So I don't know how it got back. Can you tell me more about the occasion when you capturee the German? WA: Well, the Germans, there were about a half a dozen of them I guess. We captured there in Bitche. They were behind the hedgerow, a row of bushes or hedges, and shooting at us as we sort of came in the town. We snuck some fellows around behind them, and they surrendered without much of a fight. One of them had this on him, and I remember taking it off of him as we took their rifles and all their gear from them. That's where I had the motorcycle experience. Tell me more about that. Whose motorcycle was it? WA: It belonged to one of these German soldiers. I was _ happy to return it to him if he wanted it. I was trying to ride it down the hill there after we sort of settled down after taking them, and I had never been on a motorcycle before. So I didn't know what I was doing, and I really didn't know how to stop it. I finally just slid down, and I think that ended the motorcycle too. Anything else you'd like to add to the story? WA: I don't know of anything right off. You received any particular awards related to your service? WA: None particularly. Did you receive a Purple Heart? WA: Yes, I have a Purple Heart. I was in some of the campaigns, I was in the Rhineland campaign, the central European campaign. I received the Purple Heart at the 34th, headquarters of the 34th evacuation hospital, combat infantry badge, European-African Middle Eastern campaign medal with two bronze stars, American campaign medal, and a World War II victory medal. That's quite a few. Well thank you very much for sharing your story. WA: You're more than welcome. This has been very enjoyable. WA: Thank you.
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Extent:: 34:23
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Holding Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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