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WWII History: This is part one of a three-part written memory of WWII. It was recorded by Bud Laws, uncle of the club photographer Dave Laws (3rd Para Bde.), and provided here courtesy of Dave and with permission of the author. All photos shown with this article are from Bud Laws's private collection, taken during his service in the war. |
Bud Laws
314th Infantry Regiment
79th Infantry Division
This project started when my nephew asked me for some information on my experiences in the war. I have discovered that each time I read through what has been written I remember occasions that I sometimes wish I hadn't remembered. It took me too many years to forget them. I have purposely left out anything that I thought would be offensive or embarrassing to any of the people involved especially myself. For those who want to know what it was like, they can see Private Ryan, the History channel on TV or the Evening News for more graphic descriptions. I personally would rather forget those scenes. I hope that you find my condensed description of two years experience interesting.
I was born in Yakima, Washington December 14th, 1925. My original intention was to join the Air Corps. Airplanes were the only things that were of any interest to me from the time I could remember. After I graduated from high school, I was working in a lab in Pullman, Washington at Washington State College doing testing on a B 17 for corona discharge. Through this experience, I was introduced to many high-ranking Air Corps officers. One of the generals recommended that I join the Air Corps and that he would vouch for me. I was only seventeen, so I needed a letter of permission to enlist. With the letter from my mother, and the recommendation from the general, I went to join the Air Corps with high hopes of being accepted. The Air Corps told me to stay in college, get my degree in Engineering then come back and talk to them.
Six months later I got my draft notice and was told to report for a physical at the Induction Center in Colfax, Washington. When I went, the Air Corps was not one of the choices on their list. I was given my choice of Army, Navy or Marines. I selected Army.
Bud Laws during training
at Hunter Leggett
The induction into the Army took place on April 28, 1944 in Fort Lewis, Washington. I went to Camp Roberts, California in May. There I had basic training to become a radio operator in the artillery .We were informed that this was an elite group, that the training would be very tough, and to expect a 50% dropout rate. They were correct on both counts.
At the end of our training at Camp Roberts, we finished by having a two-week intensive field-training course at Hunter Leggett. During that time, we stayed in two-man pup tents. The area was dry and barren, and the ground was full of small holes. The first night in the tent wasn't too bad until I threw my covers off in the morning and discovered a tarantula curled up next to me. I exited the tent through the unopened end and took the tent with me. I had never seen a tarantula before and didn't recall ever hearing anything about them. It was one ugly spider! I found out that all the holes in the ground were made by tarantulas.
One of the fellows that was not afraid of spiders, carried a tarantula around on a stick. He liked to chase me with it. I got even when I found out he didn't like snakes. I found a fairly large non-poisonous snake and carried it in my pocket. When he would come after me with the spider, I would pullout the snake and we had a Mexican standoff. We soon discarded both of our pets.
When we returned to Camp Roberts, they congratulated us on completion of our course. They separated us into two groups, and proceeded to tell us that although we had completed our training, they needed more infantry riflemen than artillery radiomen. We would be going to other locations to receive basic training as infantry riflemen. My group ended up in Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi for a six-week course.
We were allowed to take a twenty-day delay in route in order to visit our homes. I went home to Manson, Washington to see my mother and Spokane to see my father. This was my only trip home during my time in the service. I arrived in Camp Van Dom, Mississippi September 10, 1944.
Camp Van Dorn consisted of temporary wooden barracks covered with tarpaper, surrounded by mud. The weather was lousy and we got four inches of snow one day. So much for the sunny South I was expecting. The training was not nearly as tough as what I had already been through. The worst part being the bad weather and poor living conditions. The barracks each had a wood or coal burning potbelly stove in the center of an aisle that ran the length of the building. There were rows of double high bunks on each side of the aisle.
One day, there was only a few minutes notice that there was to be a surprise inspection. They were looking for stolen ammunition and explosives. Our stove was cherry red, and one of the guys dumped about 100 rounds of carbine ammunition into the stove. It sounded like a bunch of firecrackers going off. Although none of the ammunition pierced the stove, it looked like it had a bad case of the hives, with bumps allover it. Some time later, a fellow from an adjoining barracks came in the door acting as if he was drunk, and said, "Hey, fellows, look what I found." He then pulled out a hand grenade, pulled out the pin and rolled it down the aisle. We tipped over beds trying to find cover. Turned out he had removed the powder and only the firing cap was intact. He was on our list after that.
We went on to Fort Meade, Maryland November 27 for a few days. I went to Washington, DC and Baltimore on passes and then to Providence, Rhode Island for three days. On one of my trips to Baltimore, a friend of mine and I got tired of the burlesque houses and wandered off into the residential area.
A young couple met us and asked us if we would like to join them at a party they were putting on for servicemen in their church. Sounded fine, so we took them up on it. We followed them to the church. In the basement, there was a long table with chairs on both sides filled with people. We were the only two servicemen. There was plenty to eat and a lot to drink. One very attractive blond in a short skirt was working her way around the table sitting on the laps of the men, and offering them a drink. I was looking forward to her working her way down the side of my table, when the fellow next to me commented something about her being his wife and the way she always acted up at parties. My buddy and I decided it was time to leave. We went back to camp.
The next day I went to Washington, D.C. by myself and was once again approached by a woman asking me to come to her church for an ice cream social. As I went in the door of the church, they had me sign in and give my mother's name and home address. Then they took a picture of me. I found out later from my mother they had sent her a letter with my picture letting her know that I had attended their ice cream social. I thought that was quite nice of them.
The night after the ice cream social, as I was walking down the street, a very tall, pretty blond girl asked me if I would like to attend a Scandinavian dance at a nearby building. When we got there, there were many servicemen attending. They had soft drinks and snacks as well as some good music. She asked me if I would dance with her, and as I stood up close to her, my eyes were about even with her breasts. If I'm correct, the song was Blue Moon. That was the second time that I had heard that song. The first was in Baltimore at a burlesque house while a girl was doing a strip tease. I couldn't help but start laughing. The girl I was with asked me why I was laughing and I think I told her that it was because I was such a lousy dancer, and suggested we sit the dance out.
December 22, 1944 we boarded a British ship in Boston, the Aquitania, which was a luxury liner prior to World War I and then became a troop ship in World War I and II. Our group became MPs for the trip. We enforced black out conditions by night and watched for submarines by day. We were chased by two subs on the way over. We had a craps game going on in our part of the ship. A young lieutenant caught us and said, "You're lucky the MPs didn't catch you." I wonder if he ever figured out why we laughed.
We traveled without convoy. December 25, 1944 we were in the middle of the Atlantic for Christmas. Chow line went past the officers' mess, where they were having turkey dinner, four to a table with some nurses and civilians and white tablecloths. We went into our chow line and received, among other things, two shriveled up pork chops that were inedible. They still had ice crystals in them. We also got a box from the Red Cross containing cookies, candies and other things. This was our Christmas dinner. We received two meals a day, none of which were any good.
Photo taken with P-51
The sea was calm for the entire trip and at night the wake was a luminous green. We traveled to a point just off the coast of Africa and then north between England and Ireland to Gourock, Scotland.
We pulled into harbor at Gourock, Scotland on the 29th of December. Gourock is located just north of Glasgow. We spent the night aboard the ship and on the 30th traveled from Gourock to South Hampton, England aboard a really nice English train. It was the type that had a corridor down one side of it with partitioned off parts that held about four to six people per partition, all with windows. I couldn't get over how green everything was. It was beautiful. We spent the night of the 30th in South Hampton in what looked like a PW camp. It consisted of tents that were surrounded by barbed wire. The tents were equipped with pot-bellied stoves that we kept cherry red all night long in an effort to stay warm.
December 31st we boarded a small boat and headed for France then switched to a landing craft. It's not easy to go down a rope ladder that looks like a net carrying a duffel bag in stormy waters. We went ashore at le Havre, France arriving January 1, 1945. They took all our equipment and duffel bags and gave us a spoon, which we tucked in our boot, and a steel helmet, which served as mess gear among other things. We stayed a couple or three days there and spent our time in a carved-out enclosure in a stone wall meant for horses and buggies in a wall of an old fort. It had no heat or ventilation.
We boarded a train and stayed in a boxcar. It had a floor of straw. It was nicknamed forty and eight in World War I, which stood for forty men and eight mules. We had no mules. We headed south and made a stop in Paris for a few hours. Several French girls came out and gave us French bread and cold cuts, the best meal I had had since I left the United States.
From there we continued south, heading for Fontainebleau, where we transferred to open 2 1/2 ton trucks. The trip was miserable at best, it was extremely cold and we were not dressed for the climate. When we would stop for breaks, we would take a coffee can filled with gravel and siphon gas into the can. We would light that on fire and huddle around it to try to get warm. We traveled approximately two hundred miles in this manner to an area that reminded me of Switzerland. It had chateaux built on a hillside that were equipped with steam radiators that were very welcome!
At this point we all split up. I went with a fellow by the name of Henry Ford to Bischwiller and became a member of the 314th Infantry Regiment, Cannon Company, and 79th Division. This was approximately early to mid January 1945.
Manning their Cannon
Neither Henry nor I realized that we came in to the division during one of the major battles of the war. We had no idea as to what we were supposed to do or why we were there. We spent the first night in an upstairs bedroom of the command post only to find out the next morning that the side of the wall had been hit the night before with artillery fire. That explained why the other two fellows in the room slept on the floor near an interior wall.
The next morning we were told to go out, dig a foxhole and make a home. It was here I learned that when you hear a shell go over, you don't stick your head up to see where it lands. I only did that once. Or to stand outside looking at an ME 109 fighter plane to see what everyone was shooting at. They were flying at about telephone pole height. The bullets and anti aircraft shrapnel were coming down like rain.
We were chased out of this location by German panzer tanks. My first view of a panzer tank was when I was sitting in a two-hole outhouse with the front wall blown off. Somebody yelled "let's get the hell out of here." I thought they were kidding until I looked out to see the tank coming toward us. We loaded up rapidly and moved out. I found out much later that we lost our entire 2nd Battalion in this encounter and were in the middle of one of the major battles of the war.
We went to another small town and set up in a field located between the houses and a heavily wooded area. On our right was a church surrounded by a high stone wall. On our left was a raised railroad track. We set up our kitchen at the railroad depot. I was on guard duty at night and woke up Henry Ford to replace me. When he went to wake up his replacement he thought he heard something so he stayed up with him for a while. He came back and woke me up to tell me we were being overrun. We hurried to get out.
About that time everything broke loose. We were trying to load up 105mm cannon shells in the dark when, what I believe was one or two, mortar shells landed a few feet away from us. When I looked up one of the fellows that had been loading shells was standing by the truck with a shell in his arms and his legs spread. There were tracers going between his legs. To make a long story short, the battle lasted for quite a while. The Germans got our pancake breakfast and all our equipment was ruined, including the coffee-can stove I had hanging over my shoulder. Everyone had holes in their clothes.
To get out of the field we had to go on a narrow road between the houses and the church wall to get onto the main road. The lead truck stalled at this point, and we were all backed up behind it. Heavy artillery started knocking down the stone wall and the shells were moving our way. They got the lead truck started and we managed to get out in one piece. It was amazing that no one in the company was injured. It was starting to either rain or snow so while I curled up on top of the ammunition in the back of the truck, I pulled a tarp over me and tried to get some sleep.
I was awakened by Sergeant Popovic shaking my leg. He asked me what our password was for the day. I said, "I don't know." I couldn't remember. He said you damn well better! I threw the tarp off my head and stared straight into the barrel of one of our tanks! They were checking everybody to make sure no Germans were infiltrated with our uniforms on. Someone in one of the other trucks remembered the password and they let us go. We pulled back to a small village near Nancy, France and waited for our equipment to be replaced.
Captured German 88mm All Purpose Cannon
From Nancy, France, we headed north with our new trucks and equipment. We went up past Luxembourg into Belgium and joined General Patton's Army. We received orders to scrape the mud off our boots and polish them to a high shine and take the camouflage netting off our steel helmets. Then we turned our helmets in to receive a shiny coat of green paint, which made them look like mirrors.
We dug in just outside of an orchard on a hillside. While we were in our foxholes, Patton's tanks pulled right in over our foxholes, stopped and fired a few rounds at the Germans on the other side of the valley, then left. We got hit by all of the artillery shells aimed at the tanks. By this time, we did not care too much for General Patton.
I don't know what part of Belgium we were in at that time. We were put up for awhile in somebody's mansion where we were able to get hot showers and some halfway decent food. Shortly after our company moved into Hoensbroek, Holland, Henry and I were billeted in a home owned by Jenny and Jan Zeegers. They were a young couple that had only been married about a year. She was pregnant with her first child. I continued to correspond with them for many years after I left the service. We killed time while everybody was stockpiling ammunition and equipment for the Rhine crossing. Again, I'm not sure where, exactly, we crossed the Rhine.
While we were there they called formation once or twice a day and had to adjust the time to suit tea time. They discovered that no one was turning out for formation. We were having tea with our local friends. Some of us got rather careless while we were there. One morning, while standing in formation, the officer had us present and clear arms and pull the trigger and put our weapons down. A sergeant directly behind me had a 45 caliber automatic, which was aimed above my helmet but fairly close to my ears. He did not have his weapon cleared. When he pulled the trigger his gun went off, scaring the day lights out of all of us, making us hit the deck. Fortunately no one was injured outside of a loud ringing in my ears for a couple of hours.
About this time I found out I could trade a pack of cigarettes to a local bakery for an apple pie. It was mostly crust with one layer of sliced apples. It went well with the tea we had with the Zeegers.
We moved into position next to the Rhine River at night and spent the next day there. There was lots of gunfire going off. We dug in the night before we went across. We couldn't dig foxholes due to too many roots in the ground. Our artillery was firing continuous barrages across the river into Germany. Airplanes were making continuous round trip flights, dropping bombs in the area we were going to. We counted over 200 airbursts over our heads from our own artillery and were nearly hit by a load of bombs dropped prematurely by one of our own planes. We saw several of our aircraft get shot down.
During the first part of March, we moved across the Rhine. It was sometime near midnight. We traveled on a barge that held our truck with a cannon behind it and some other supplies. I looked up to see a German plane strafing the river. They had white tracers and were mowing a path straight toward our barge. Sergeant Popovic did not know how to swim and hollered that he would guarantee a medal to anyone who would fish him out of the water. Fortunately, just before they got as far as our barge, they quit shooting and pulled up. When the plane was right over our heads an anti-aircraft shell hit it right in the belly. The plane blew up.
The rest of the trip across the river was uneventful. We pulled all of our equipment on to shore and set up in a field on the outskirts of a small town. There was a dry creek bed going through the area with a little wooden bridge crossing it. The creek bed was seven or eight feet deep. Under the bridge was an aerial bomb that must of weighed at least 1000 lbs., it was really huge. It had wires leading away from it off toward a farmhouse. Our commanding officer ordered me to stand guard over the bomb until I could be relieved. In the meantime, artillery fire started coming in and shrapnel was whizzing by me, so I jumped down into the creek bed and cuddled up with the bomb. After about two hours, somebody that was to relieve me came by and said they found where the other end of the wires went and disconnected them.
I went back to my company area and helped Henry dig a two-man foxhole. The two of us usually dug a two-man foxhole since the ground had been frozen down a foot or two. We would widen it after we got down past the frozen ground. Then we would find wood planks or old doors, anything that we could find, to put over the top of it and pile dirt over the top of that, leaving just enough room at one end to get in and out of the hole.
We just finished digging the hole. Henry was still down in one side of the hole and I was preparing to get down into the hole when several artillery shells landed a little ways behind me. I dove headfirst for the hole. While I was in mid air, something hit me in the left shoulder and knocked me into the hole. I landed in the foxhole on my right shoulder and hit Henry's steel helmet. Neither injury was enough to go to the aid station for and it didn't take too long to recover.
There were several dead Germans around the field in our area. One was a German officer that looked like he might be younger than I was and one was a gray-haired farmer with bib overalls on and an armband indicating he was a member of the home guard. He looked like he could have been somebody's grandfather.
We moved to a new position where several planes had been shot down. One was an American plane full of paratroopers that crashed and burned with all aboard. Others were British planes that had crashed in the area. Most of us were sick enough to our stomachs after that view that we didn't feel like eating for about a week.| Mr. Laws's written memories will be continued in the next two newsletters. |
