Oral history interview of Rufus Keene Broadaway, M.D., part 1 of 2

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Rufus Keene Broadaway, M.D., part 1 of 2
Creator:: Banks, Bettie S.; Banks, L. Frazer, III
Broadaway, Rufus Keene, 1920-
Date of Original:: 2004-06-25
Subject:: Depressions--1929
Trombone
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--France--Normandy
World War, 1939-1945--Occupied territories
Austin-Healey automobile
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Arnhem, Battle of, Arnhem, Netherlands, 1944
Rae, Robert D.
Gavin, James Maurice, 1907-1990
Magellas, James, 1917-
Mississippi College
Mississippi. National Guard
Blue Mountain College
University of Miami. School of Medicine
Operation Market Garden, 1944
Location:: France, Sainte-Mère-Eglise, 49.4117704, -1.32682478113355
Netherlands, Nijmegen, 51.84257485, 5.83896062874823
Northern Ireland, Portrush, 55.2060325, -6.6540486
United States, Florida, Clay County, Camp Blanding, 29.94686, -81.97324
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882
United States, Hawaii, Honolulu County, Pearl Harbor, 21.34475, -157.97739
United States, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, Lexington, 42.44732, -71.2245
United States, Mississippi, Hinds County, Jackson, 32.29876, -90.18481
United States, Nebraska, Box Butte County, Alliance, 42.10163, -102.87215
United States, North Carolina, Macon County, Highlands, 35.05287, -83.1986
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In part one of this two-part interview, Rufus Broadaway recounts his history as a paratrooper in Europe during World War II. His military career began as a musician in a guard unit which was then federalized after Pearl Harbor. While he was at Officer Candidate School, he watched the paratroopers training and felt they had a great image. He jumped into Normandy on D-Day after his plane was damaged. He lost his "cricket" and was nearly shot by an American soldier. He recalls the crossing of the La Fiere causeway and the bridge at Chef du Pont.
Rufus Broadaway was a paratrooper in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.
RUFUS BROADAWAY, M.D. VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER Interview Date: June 25, 2004 Interviewer: Bettie S. Banks, Ph.D. Transcribed by: Stephanie McKinnell BETTIE BANKS: This is June 25, 2004. We are on the top of Little Big Sheep [?] Mountain in Highlands, North Carolina. The veteran we are interviewing today is Rufus Keene Broadaway. He was born on September 22, 1920. The current address is 481 Setter Drive, Highlands, North Carolina. The names of the people here are Dr. Broadaway, myself, I'm Bettie S. Banks, and I am affiliated with, I am a volunteer for the Atlanta History Museum, and my son, Al Frazier Banks, who is the camera-person today. So Dr. Broadaway, you were in which war? RUFUS BROADAWAY: World War II. BB: And the branch of service you were in? RB: Parachute infantry. BB: Your rank. RB: My highest rank was captain. BB: And you served in what theater? RB: European theater. BB: Were you drafted or did you enlist? RB: I enlisted. I was just . . . BB: Say that again. OK, you enlisted. RB: I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. This was in the middle of the Great Depression, the ‘30s. I wanted to go to college, and nobody could really afford that in those days. However, I found myself in a little college just west of Jackson called Mississippi College. Wasn't much of a school at that time, but it has grown to be quite a significant institution. I was a good musician. I joined the band, the Mississippi College band. It happened to be the official band for the Mississippi National Guard. Everybody in the band was expected to join, which I did. Once a quarter, once every three months, we dressed out in World War I uniforms and went to band practice, for which we got 12 dollars out of it. I could live three weeks on 12 dollars. BB: You played what instrument? RB: I played the trombone. So that was OK. That was in 1938. In the fall of 1940, with the war raging in Europe, this was more than a year before Pearl Harbor, we rather abruptly found ourselves on active duty. The National Guard across the country was federalized, so called. We found ourselves in Camp Blanding, Florida. We were the first troops in there. Camp Blanding, near Gainesville, a little town of Stark. Then we found ourselves soldier boys. Well, we had been in the band and continued to do what we, played for marching, official events and sometimes serenaded the surrounding countryside, etc. So that's, you asked if I enlisted, yes. That's how I came to be in the Army in the first place. BB: How did it change after you became in the Army, what happened next, did you go to a training camp or . . . ? RB: After we'd been there for over a year, in December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Life suddenly changed for us. I had expected to finish my three year term of enlistment, but it didn't happen. We were all kept in. And I reasoned that—I was a private first class at that time—we were going to be there for a while, then I had better get busy, which I did. I applied for and was accepted for Officer Candidate School, OCS, at Fort Benning, Georgia, south of Atlanta. It was a three-month course. At the end of that time, I was commissioned as second lieutenant infantry. The parachute school was right next door, and paratroopers looked mighty good to me. Moved with such confidence, pleased with what they were, and seemed to be superior beings, so I applied for and was accepted to the parachute school and became a paratrooper. I then was assigned to the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment. It was a fairly new regiment. Parachute troops were new, in their infancy. So that's where I was. BB: What about jumping out of a plane? What pulled you? RB: I think it was adventure. Somewhere I think I still have the letter from my mother when I wrote and said, “I've joined the parachute troops.” She nearly took my hide off if a letter can do that. However, I was very proud to be there. I had never been inside an airplane. Airplanes weren't very common in those days. I made five parachute jumps before I ever landed in a plane. BB: Was it exhilarating or terrifying? RB: It really was. It was not terrifying at all. The physical part of it was very demanding, but jumping out of an airplane was a lot of fun. Now mind you, it was fun when you had picked a good day, under ideal conditions in which to jump. Different at night with somebody shooting at you. BB: When did you find out that you were going to Europe? RB: Our regiment, the 507th, for some reasons that are not really clear to me, was sent out to be based in Alliance, Nebraska. There was a troop carrier base there, perhaps that was part of it. So we were there for a while, then in . . . I guess we moved from there to our staging area to go overseas. We went overseas in December of 1943. BB: Did you know what you were going for? RB: We assumed we were going for the invasion of Europe. That was the assumption. Interestingly, we—see the 507th was a long time finding a home. We were based in North Ireland for a while. The people there were lovely, and beautiful place, a little resort town of Portrush right on the northern tip of Northern Ireland. That was a wonderful prelude to the horrors of war. Later on in the spring, we were going over to England, obviously to get ready for the invasion. BB: Were you jumping all of this time and getting more instruction? RB: There were training jumps. There were a lot of combat maneuvers. Everybody got sharpened up pretty well. Interestingly, I was assigned to the service company and was platoon leader for the riggers section, parachute riggers sections. Somebody had to pack the parachutes, and my unit, my boys, my soldiers, packed every chute that was used in the invasion by the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Now very confident of our abilities, and we reminded the troopers that this parachute came with a guarantee: if it doesn't work, bring it back, and we'll give you a new one. That's sort of my _. That was that _. In addition, all those were very well trained infantry soldiers. We were trained to be professional killers, and that is a subject that fascinates me to this day. Almost all of us had grown up in decent families, taught to be honest, hardworking, gentle, kind, part of the deep south culture as, you know, takes that attitude. Then we were taught to kill the enemy and we became very good at it. BB: What did that do to you? How did you manage it? RB: I assume that this interview will get to the invasion of Normandy itself, but perhaps this is the time to say it, although there were some skirmishes during that night. Early morning of D-Day, after daylight, I came around the corner of a barn and ran face-to-face with a young German soldier. He didn't have his helmet on. His hair was blonde, as was mine. It was as if I were looking at myself. He had a weapon, as did I. I raised mine and shot him first. That was the first enemy that I knowingly killed. It did not bother me a lot, that was my mission. Mission of a soldier is to kill the enemy. BB: So your training really came in good standing? RB: It did. Any hesitation and we would not be having this conversation. BB: I'd imagine that plays a part in a way to your going on to be a doctor, too. RB: No, I assumed we would get into that subject also. I had wanted to be a doctor since I was a kid in high school. Didn't know how it would happen, but it happened. BB: You're in, letting me go back, you're in Ireland and then you got shipped to England. RB: Yes. BB: Then what happened? RB: We began to make more and more intensive preparations for invading Europe. BB: And you knew that you were going to invade? RB: That was everybody's assumption. None of us knew where, and I'm not sure, well, the Germans didn't know where. There were several feints. But it wasn't until the night before the jump, the drop, that we knew that we were going to drop into Normandy. BB: What was the food like where you were? RB: Oh, pretty good. I say pretty good. There was plenty of it. It was army rations. I vowed when we left England that I'd never again in my whole life would eat mutton or Brussels sprouts. It so happened that today a rack of lamb is among my favorite foods, but in those days it got pretty old. BB: What did you all do for entertainment? RB: There were pubs around. BB: Training centers _. RB: There were pubs, an occasional dance sponsored by the British who were pretty good. BB: Were you married at this point? RB: We were married, yes. BB: When were you married? RB: Marian and I were married on July 13, 1942. Next month will be 62 years. BB: Oh, my goodness. Congratulations. RB: Thank you. BB: Were you married in the United States? RB: Yes. BB: Where were you married? RB: We were married at Marian's home in Lexington, Massachusetts. BB: And where did you meet her? RB: I told you I went to this little Baptist college. How she, a genuine Boston yankee came to go to Blue Mountain College in Mississippi, a Baptist girls' college—I think God sent her. Obviously, there's no other solution for that. BB: But you were already in Europe in '42. RB: No, we didn't get to Europe until late '43. BB: Oh, all right. RB: I found myself in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, south of Jackson, at a student conference. I really wasn't interested, I hadn't wanted to be there, and I was laying back half asleep when I heard someone introduce Miss Marian Dempsey from Blue Mountain. She was going to talk on tithing. The last thing I was interested in. But as soon as I heard this clipped Boston accent, I opened one eye, and it liked what it saw. I could hardly wait for her to finish so I could get out, find a girl from the same college, Blue Mountain College, who could introduce us. What's the expression, the rest is history. We are still in love. BB: So you were married, though, while you were then playing the trombone in the National Guard, or you were already in the Army by that time? RB: We had not, that's right, we went on active duty in the fall of 1940. We were married in July of '42. BB: Then were you able to be together? RB: Yes. BB: For how long? RB: Oh, for some time when we were out in Nebraska. We lived together. We had an apartment, lived off the base. We, of course, by the time we got ready to go overseas, Marian went on back to her home, spent the war with her parents. BB: So you all were separated for how long? RB: Fifteen months, no longer than that. From late '43 until I came home in September '45. Our first child was born on July 2 following D-Day on June 6. At that time Marian still had not heard from me, didn't know whether I was dead or alive. I first saw our Judy when she was 15 months old. BB: How did you guys handle the separation? How did you stay in touch? RB: We wrote to each other constantly. Marian has collected most of my letters. We've had occasion to, we're going to move from this house soon, had occasion to go through a lot of stuff, but pulling out these old letters, we spent hours re-reading them. As you know there were no overseas telephone calls that we could make. Writing, correspondence was the only communication. BB: OK, so let's go back to, you found out that you were going to land, you were going to invade Normandy. And what was the feeling in your group at that time? RB: Anticipation, we were really tired of getting ready. Most all of, all my troopers were very anxious to, let's get this thing over with. We looked forward to it with some anticipation. BB: How much warning did you have before you headed out? RB: Well, we were, the day before had been designated as D-Day. Some troopers had loaded up into planes. I don't believe we did. But then we were told the next day, I think some time in the afternoon at our final briefing, and learned that we were going to Normandy. But I don't believe we knew that before. BB: There was no way you could contact Marian? RB: No. BB: So then what happened? RB: We took off, it was a great air armada. BB: This was at night? RB: This was at night. Shortly after 1 o'clock in the morning. Flew south over the Channel Islands which are west of the Cotentin Peninsula, the Normandy peninsula. Turned east and headed for the peninsula. Now, we received considerable anti-aircraft fire both from the Channel Islands and when we got over the edge of the Normandy peninsula. Somewhere in there the plane that I was in was hit. And we knew it. I don't believe any of our men were hurt. The pilot called me up presently, I was in charge of the _ time [?]. The plane is damaged, it's not responding well, I've lost formation, I don't know where I am. If you're going to get out, you'd better get out now because I think I'm going to be over the Channel very shortly, the English Channel. Well, I thought that was good advice, I didn't want to stay in an airplane that was damaged and lost and didn't know where it was. So we got out. It was the lowest jump I think any of us had ever made. I doubt that it was more than 300 or 400 feet. As soon as my parachute opened, I was in a tree, landed in a tree. That's not a terribly bad landing. It was, I think the moon had just come out. I was in the shadows. There was nothing going on in the immediate vicinity. I could hear some small arms fire off in the distance. Some fires or high burning planes maybe also in the distance. Nothing there. I got down, assembled my gear. We jumped with about 100 pounds of equipment, so it was a lot to manage. Came around the edge of these trees in the shadows and was challenged by my platoon sergeant. It so startled me I couldn't answer. And I couldn't remember the countersign for the password. He used his clicker, and I had lost my clicker. We had a clicker, like a child's toy. A click, click, clicker. BB: Like you train a dog? RB: Like you train a dog. He challenged me a second time, and I still hadn't been able to say much. Suddenly he said, you so and so, if you don't answer I'm going to shoot you. Well, knowing him, I was surprised he hadn't done so already. So I managed to say my name and his name and asked him not to kill me. That was . . . BB: Did he genuinely not recognize you? RB: I hadn't said anything so far. He couldn't see, he knew I was a figure. So that was the story of it. For the rest of the night, we accumulated maybe six or eight guys. Some of them my men, some of them not. We had dropped very much out of our designated drop zone. BB: How many men dropped? RB: There were fifty in my plane. BB: Fifty in your plane, and you found six or eight men? RB: Yes. 25 in my plane, half my platoon. I landed in Utah Beach, not bloody Omaha but Utah Beach, north of Omaha Beach. About a mile on ahead in through the coast from the Channel. BB: So you were inside the German lines? RB: Everybody was inside the German lines. There were no German lines. We were back of the defendants of the coast. Now the 507th was supposed to jump much to the west of that, west of the Merderet River. We were well east of the Merderet. It ran to the south. The Germans had flooded, they had some dams that they could control, they had flooded all of that area plus the area west of Merderet River. A lot of paratroopers landed in the water, and many of them drowned right then and there. So chances are, if the plane had not been hit and my pilot hadn't been able to drop us on the designated drop zone, I had a good chance of being drowned. BB: When they flooded it, flooded it deep? RB: Some of it was over the guys' heads. When you're loaded down with equipment and the parachute comes down over you, it's pretty difficult to survive. Many of them did not. BB: So how many did you all get together? RB: Well, by daylight, there might have been 10 or 12 of us. We had a couple of skirmishes, some shots fired back and forth, a few grenades thrown. I'm not sure that we really did much before daylight. See the, we were disorganized because, the drop itself was a disaster because not many troops dropped over their anticipated drop zones. But turning over, what about the Germans, there were paratroopers all over that peninsula. They didn't know where the, we, the enemy were. Reports kept coming in, telephones, etc. . . . that paratroopers here, paratroopers there. They didn't know how many or where we were or who we were or anything else. So it was quite an interesting situation. During the next day, I found myself fighting with elements of the 101st Airborne. By that time, we were the 82nd Airborne Division. The 101st, that was their area where we had dropped. Then the following day, I had maybe 40 men from my unit, from the 507th. We went back crosscountry towards Ste. Mere-Eglise, which was the town . . . BB: Spell that for me. RB: The French spell it Ste. Mere-Eglise. That, if you remember the story, was where the paratrooper got hung up on the church steeple. His parachute caught, and he hung there while the battle raged below, hoping that nobody would notice that he was still alive. And today, if you visit Ste. Mere-Eglise, there is a replica of Private Murphy, I think his name was, hanging from his parachute which is caught on the steeple of the church. BB: Did he get out alive? RB: He got out alive. Took him _. Finally we hooked up with a fair number of troops from the 507th and found ourselves at the east side of a causeway across the river. Now the Merderet River wasn't much, it may have been, let's see, 50, 60 feet wide. Not a big river. But all that area was flooded. There was a causeway, the la Fiere causeway. That's how the sign reads today I suppose it _ there. That causeway had changed hands a couple of times. I guess members of the 507th had taken it initially, the Germans re-took it. Then at that point, the Germans held it, and it was pretty heavily fortified. BB: It was essential because? RB: It was essential because this led the way across the peninsula so that then the American troops could turn south, and they were coming in from the beaches so they had to get across the Merderet River. This was one of two essential ones at the time. The other was a few miles south at Chef DuPont. There was a manor house just at this side of the causeway. We were behind that. The orders were to retake that causeway. It was one of the bloody actions of World War II. Ten o'clock in the morning. There was some artillery to support us. An artillery barrage initially. Then we went swinging into action across that causeway. The causeway had burned out vehicles, bodies, injured men, a few people who were so terrified they couldn't move forward or backward. There was machine gun fire coming in from every angle, small arms fire, mortar fire, artillery fire, everything you could think of. And yet somehow we kept moving. A sergeant and I were picking up guys, saying come on, get out of here, don't die here, let's move ahead, and firing as we went. And somehow we got across and took that causeway. It was just a, the war began to take on a new dimension for me. I was, I can't remember why, but with a small group of men, I presume I had been told to do this. As soon as we got across the causeway, there was a dirt road to the left. We went down a hundred yards or so, and there was a German mortar emplacement on the side. It was a sunken road. Well, they threw some grenades over, we threw some grenades back. They started yelling and screaming because they were hit. There was a new lieutenant who joined us just before the drop, whom I didn't really know. He and I, side by side, stuck our heads up to see what it was we had hit. And he fell back into my arms, shot right in the crossbar on his helmet. And I think it was then that the war became very serious to me and no longer was cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians. This was a deadly business and I firmly gained that you've got to kill the enemy. This is what war is all about. We were there for, I believe, two, two and a half weeks. They began pulling the paratroopers out because there were other missions for the airborne. We were taken back to England. I found myself assigned to the 82nd Airborne Parachute Training School in England. To this moment, I don't know how that came to be. Why I was selected. BB: Were you to train others? RB: Train others, yes. I was the chief physical instructor. We had to get these guys ready very quickly, and it was a demanding job. It was a demanding course that we had. BB: Had you received any of your awards from the taking of the causeway? RB: Let me put it this way. My company commander was Capt. Robert Rae, a wonderful man. Very recently, last month, this is the year 2004, last month in Atlanta, there was a convention of the remaining veterans of the 507th. Captain Rae, now deceased, was very much honored in that. He was my company commander. Captain Rae and I were shoulder to shoulder through the crossing of the causeway. Captain Rae got a Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor, which he very much deserved. I got the satisfaction of knowing that I got across the causeway. So we are now in England, I was at the parachute school. General Gavin, James Gavin, was a brigadier general at the time. He was assistant division commander for the 82nd Airborne Division. He was in charge of plans and training. He was up at the jump school, oh, couple, three times a week. I can't remember, although he might have addressed me personally, I can't remember that. However, one day, the camp commandant sent for me. I knew him, he was a friend, major, I was a first lieutenant. He said, lieutenant, why have you screwed up now. I'm using a euphemism, of course, for a more common term for screwing up. I said, sir. He said, what have you done. I said, what do you mean. He said, well, you must have done something awful. He said, I have received instructions to send you to meet, to see General Gavin at division headquarters in Leicester. I said, what on earth is this all about. He said, I honestly don't know. But you've got a Jeep and a driver, you'd better get yourself cleaned up and get over there, which I did. Reported in to General Gavin, who said that the 18th Airborne Corps was just being formed. General Matthew Ridgeway, who had the 82nd, was being promoted to command the corps, and he, General Gavin, would get the command of the 82nd Airborne Division and that he would be entitled to a second aide, and he wanted me to come on as his junior aide de camp. How and why that happened, I have no idea, just no idea. But it was a heady experience. General Gavin was an extraordinarily fine person. Perfect gentleman. Well-read, well-educated. I never heard him say a demeaning word. He didn't use profanity, he didn't curse, soft-spoken, and a role model if I've ever had one. That was my general. BB: What did you do for him and with him? RB: Practically everything. He had a so-called batman who took care of his clothing and shoes. I didn't shine his shoes. It was my job to get up first every morning, get over to the situation room, see what had happened during the night. When we were in combat, I was at his side constantly. I think both to reinforce his presence in case, we frequently got into small arms fire. But I was with him to do everything all the time. I, in the midst of September, we invaded Holland, Market Garden. Misadventure as it turned out… BB: This was what year? RB: This was still in 1944. September. Jumped in the same plane as General Gavin in the middle of a sunny Sunday afternoon just south of Nijmegen. BB: Spell that one. RB: Nijmegen. Prominent city on the eastern side of, I guess about the midpoint of Holland, and a very few miles from the German border. [There is]a point there where Germany comes in there and is very close. We, Marian and I, had become acquainted with a Dutch priest. He had found [names] in the Airborne Museum, south of Nijmegen, and attempted to contact as many people as he could. And he wrote to us. Later on we visited him in Holland. He tells the story, he was a 13-year-old boy. On that Sunday afternoon, he heard a noise, and he didn't know what the noise was, sort of a roar, which got louder and louder. Presently the air was full of airplanes. Now, he had seen very few airplanes in his life, planes were not common at that time. He climbed to the top of his father's barn and watched an army drop out of the sky. So there we were. The Holland mission came to be a disaster. It had been pushed by General Montgomery, the British commander, who was very unpopular, not only with the American troops but with the British themselves. The 504th Regiment, 3rd Battalion, made the assault across the Waal River, which was the river that came through Nijmegen. There were two bridges, a railroad bridge and an automobile bridge, that had to be taken. The only way to do it was to make an assault across the river in small canvas boats. I don't know whether the cameraman can see, but this picture, this picture is a drawing, a painting of the crossing of the Waal River. The 3rd Battalion, 504th. Bloody, bloody thing. But by George, they got across, seized the other end of the bridges, and we had those bridges secure . . . TAPE 1 SIDE B BB: …So you had left Holland and moved into France and were getting ready to tell me about the Battle of the Bulge. RB: Yes. We had been sent back to reserves in France, and the situation had gotten sort of static. We were bogged down a bit. Nothing much was making much advance. We were at dinner one night at the general's headquarters, General Gavin's headquarters. I can't remember the name of the town we were in. The telephone rang, and I, being the junior officer, answered the phone. The person at the other end of the phone was literally incoherent. He was screaming and shouting, the Germans are here, they're over running all of us, coming out of every place. We're outmanned, outnumbered, we need some help, let me speak to the chief of staff. That was the first notice the 82nd Airborne Division got of the story of the Battle of the Bulge. Before midnight, some of our units were rolling. We went over the next day, went through the town of Bastogne, followed by the 101st Airborne. 101st was caught there surrounded, and remember the famous saying—General Tony McCaulley, when asked to surrender, said, “Nuts.” That's what they say he said, yes, and refused to surrender. Incidentally, there's not a man in the 101st who will ever admit that they needed rescuing. Patton's forces came up later on and broke the ring that surrounded them, but we were doing all right, we didn't need rescuing. The first few days of the Battle of the Bulge were pretty bad. Nobody knew where anybody was. I was still General Gavin's aide at that time. We had lost contact with the 504th Regiment, part of the 82nd. He said, son—he always called me son now; I was 24 and he was 36, but he called me son. He said, we've lost contact with the 504th. I want you to take the Jeep and a driver and go down and find them, find Colonel [Tucker?]. And let me know about that. We started out, it was just at dusk. His driver was terrified on good days. And here we were going through unknown territory. I had a sort of a map, but not knowing where we were going, where we would find the 504th. Now [the driver] was terribly frightened. Toward us came a column of tanks. We were going south, they were coming north. [He said], “Lieutenant, are those ours or theirs?” I said, “I don't know.” . . . We didn't have any tanks in that area. So we had passed presumably a column of German tanks and [they] thought I probably was one of theirs. At any rate, we found the Col. Tucker and the 504th. I told him the general had sent me down to find him. That old Tucker had the most beautiful command of profanity I had ever known, and he let it all go. “You tell that blankety blank general that this . . . .” So I came back, and General Gavin said, did you find them. “Yes.” “What did he say?” I told him word for word. He laughed and said, “That sounds just like Tucker.” At any rate, the Battle of the Bulge kind of got settled down, and it became a defensive situation early in the year. Dragged on, nothing much happening. And just about the first of April, before the war ended, General Gavin—I found it very easy to converse with him. I said something about a rifle company before the war ends. He said, “You think you'd like to do that?” I said, “No offense, sir, but yeah.” “Where do you want to go?” “3rd battalion 504th.” I had several friends there. So I was assigned to the 3rd, to H Company, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. We were on the western bank of the Rhine River, just north of Cologne. Now at that point, that is a wide, wide river. The Germans were surrounded in the so-called Ruhr Pocket, they were surrounded on the eastern side of the river. And yet they insisted, somebody up the line insisted, that we keep running patrols across the river, seeing what the units were like, getting a few prisoners if we could. I was the newest lieutenant in that company. The day I arrived there, I got orders to take my platoon on a night patrol across the Rhine River. We had a couple of boats, we had to row, had to paddle, of course. We got over, went down towards the Bayer, the Bayer aspirin factory. Got our objective. Coming back we were jumped by a German patrol and got caught between the dike and the river. The dike to our front, the river to our rear. I lost three men and managed to get the rest of them back. Got hit in the eye; it bled and clotted closed, and I thought I had lost it. Got back, reported in and was told to go down to the medics. The kindest medical officer washed it out slowly. I saw the light of day. It had just missed my eyeball, and it cut the underside of my eye pretty good. I think a bullet had hit a rock beside my head on the _ bank. So that was . . . . And he said, “Lieutenant, I think you're going to be all right. You've got a Purple Heart, go back to duty.” So I went back to duty, and the war ended the next month. BB: Oh, my goodness. And you got a Purple Heart. How did you feel about that? RB: I felt pretty good to be alive. I . . . very much, . . . me up, to lose very good soldiers. Thinking over and over and over again, I'm not sure how I would have done things differently. In talking it over with my fellow officers, I don't know . . . . BB: Was that pretty much the end of the war for you? RB: That was the end of the war. BB: That was when? RB: That was in April of 1945. BB: Were you then in touch in with your wife? RB: Oh, yes, we were able to send letters back and forth. BB: And your baby was born sometime? RB: She was born right after D-Day in '44. BB: I've got you. I get my dates confused. So what did you do then? When did you actually leave the Army? RB: We came back, well, we were in, we continued to be in Europe for most of the summer because the war was still going on in the Pacific. And it was a given that we were going to the Pacific. The only hope was that we would go west and get home for a while through the United States rather than go east and come in the other way. But we knew _ we'd _. We won this part of the war, let's get over there, help win the other side. Then of course, the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, and that ended the war. I came home, I think early September. I should be able to remember the date. I came back. Marian, with our daughter, was living in Boston. I needed another year and a half of undergraduate school and wanted to go to medical school. Now the GI Bill was my lifeline. You know what I'm talking about. It paid for 48 months of schooling; there was a housing allowance of something, which enabled us to do that. I found myself, well, I went to Harvard College, _ next semester. I had some specific science requirements. I found myself in Tufts College in Medford, Mass, just outside Boston. Got my degree, a bachelor of science. Applied to and was accepted into Harvard Medical School, this poor boy from Mississippi. BB: How was it coming out of the army and into school and into some kind of “normal” life? RB: This again is something that I and my colleagues have talked at length about. One is a transition from a peace-loving young man into a trained killer. Then you make the transition back again. I personally had no difficulty doing that. For many years my life had been compartmentalized, and the war part of it was over, it was done. The education phase, later on the training phase to become a surgeon. Even those of us veterans in school, in college and in medical school, didn't talk about it much. Too busy. It was very demanding. We didn't dwell on the war. BB: You just put it behind you and walked away? RB: Yes, I don't think there's anything heroic about that. As I tried to explain, I had moved from this situation to this situation. And this situation didn't require me to kill people, that was done. BB: As you think back on your experience, how do you think or do you think it changed your life in any way? RB: Of course it did. Of course it did. My feelings came to be very strong these days. To this day, war does something to a country. Somewhere along the line, one of my men was badly shot up, fatally I knew. And I was holding him, and he said, “Lieutenant, am I going to die?” I said “I'm afraid so.” He said, “That means I'll never get to live.” It just says it very ____. I think when we send our troops to war, we're sending people whose lives we would never experience. Who knows, an Einstein, or a Henry Ford, a famous doctor, a good farmer, a mechanic, a family man, a father, a grandfather, they would be deprived, we would be deprived of ____ a young man's life or injuring him so severely they'd never amount to anything. We deprive our country of _____ resources, a very high price to pay. BB: Do you have friends that were in the service with you now that you keep up with? RB: Yes. BB: All over the country? RB: A few, a few friends. BB: Do you, how often do you [have reunions]? RB: There were a couple or three throughout. One of my fellow lieutenants in the 504th, highly decorated, he used to come through. He would come through, occasionally stay with us on his way to South America. I saw him within a year, talked to him within the week. By the way, he's written a very good book about the parachute infantry experience. It's called “On the Way to Berlin.” His name is James Megellas. BB: Did you join any sort of veteran's organizations after you got out of the army? RB: I think for a while I was a member of the 82nd Division Airborne Association. That's about all. I'm not much of a joiner on those kinds of things. If there's time, I'd like to relate one little incident with General Gavin. We were in Miami, and the 82nd Division had a reunion. They said, “Rufus, you know him, he knows you, why don't you pick him up at the airport.” “I'd be delighted.” I had just gotten my first sports car which I ____. It was a little British Austin-Healey. It went vroom, vroom. So I picked up the great general and put him, I got him seated and buckled in and we went vroom, vrooming through the streets of Miami. He patted me on the arm and said, “Son, just take it easy.” He said, “I'm very uncomfortable in these sports cars.” There's a great paratrooper general. He didn't like sports cars. BB: So you came home to be a surgeon. RB: I did, and a blessed life. BB: Did you have a specialty in surgery? RB: General and vascular surgery. Vascular was just coming along when I finished my residency. I went to Miami as part of the original faculty at the University Of Miami School of Medicine. BB: Tell me about that. RB: At this moment, I'm an emeritus professor. I had a wonderful practice in Miami, just a great time. I got involved with so-called organized medicine, with medical associations. I was on the board of the AMA for many years and missed being president of the American Medical Association by three votes. BB: That may have been a blessing. RB: Marian says it was the best thing that ever happened. Then I was chairman of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, etc., etc., more than I could ever have asked for. BB: So you had a distinguished military and civilian career. RB: Distinguished may be too strong words. It's been a wonderful, wonderful life. My greatest blessing, of course, is my beloved Marian BB: You have one daughter? RB: We had three children. We now have a daughter and her family living in Gainesville, Florida; a son who is an architect, city planner, designer in Albany, New York. Our first daughter died as a result of an accident when she was within a month of graduating from Agnes Scott College, but that's part of life. BB: I have loved spending the time with you. Is there anything else that you would like to add? Do we have any time left, anything else you would like to add that we maybe have not covered? RB: Not that comes to mind. I think we've hit most of the high points. BB: You had a lot of high points, a lot of actions. I want to thank you so much. This was a— RB: I'm flattered that you would ask to interview me, and you've been very pleasant. BB: I'm delighted.
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Extent:: 47:44
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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