World war II Remembrances -As told by Joe Kowalski- updated 12/21/06

Together from the brick barracks of Fort Devens, Massachusetts in 1940 to the wars end in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1945, two men meet again in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2001, 62 years later.

In the winter of 1941, our first landing of practicing was in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, off of a boat named The Leonard Wood - and what an experiment that was. Not only was it the company's first time on a ship, but when we got back to the base we had to go on a 25 mile hike with a full field pack. We hiked through the towns of Ayer, Shirley, Fitchburg and Leominster in the dead of winter.

Training continued for a couple of months in North Carolina, where we were supposed to be discharged at the completion of our one-year commitment. At the end of our training, the company commander informed us that we would travel back to Fort Devens to receive the discharge. We arrived on the 5th of November and got a weekend pass to celebrate the end of our service. The following Monday we were to receive our full pay and discharge papers..

Sunday, December 7 was the attack on Pearl Harbor. When we arrived back at the fort on Monday morning, no one asked for their discharge papers.

We then moved by jeep to Camp Blanding, Florida in February of 1942. This took us seven days. This is where I tore a cartilage and spent two months in the hospital. After a 10-day furlough, I reported to Fort Benning, Georgia where I was assigned to light duty as a runner for a company. This was after carrying a machine gun - a heavy weapon - for a couple of years.

After a short stop in Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, we departed from New York harbor aboard the Queen Mary. There were 15,000 men aboard the ship, and we alternated in shifts 12 hours above deck and 12 hours below deck. The crossing took 3 days.

We arrived in Gourok, Scotland, and proceeded to the Tidwood Barracks in England by truck. We spent six weeks in training before we left for Africa

We boarded the Monarch of Bermuda, which took us to the Mediterranean via the Rock of Gibraltar. We landed on the shores of Oran, Algeria on November 8th, where we saw our first combat. Our welcome was an artillery shell that landed about 25 feet from where we were standing. Luckily, this was a dud. We took the shell apart, and the writing on the inside indicated that this shell had been constructed at a Polish concentration camp.

From light duty I was assigned to a 50 caliber gun put on top of a kitchen truck. We moved through by truck through Longstop Hill and the Kassarine Pass to Tunis, Tunisia.

After Tunisia, we were sent back to Algeria. There we had time to swim in the blue Mediterranean. It was great - bikinis.

Soon we were off to Sicily. We hit the shore of Gela, Italy on July the 10th, 1943. Life in the mountains was rough for the next thirty- one days. One incident that took place during that time was when the Italian tanks were attacking and our troops began to pull back. Who should come along but Teddy Roosevelt Jr. and he said, " No American troops retreat." So my friend, John Morello, of the antitank platoon hits three of their tanks and earned a Silver Star from General Teddy Roosevelt. ( John Morello came into the service at the same time we were inducted in Worcester, Massachusetts).

After the Sicilian combat, we sailed back to England for more training. I had light duty as a runner or manning a machine gun for the kitchen truck. I wasn't that busy there.

Our battalion was set up in a nice town called Swanage on the coast near the English Channel. It had barbed wire so we couldn't go swimming. The people there really treated us well. We had the opportunity to get to London on many weekends. One weekend there, I got a place at the YMCA. There was no bed, just a mattress on the floor. I stayed out all night while the air raid was on. When I came back to my bed it was all bombed up, no mattress or clothes. Even my shaving gear was gone. I had to go back to my group and get supplied again.

After months there, we got ready for landing. We didn't know where but we knew it was coming. On June 6, 1944, we were on a Merchant Marine ship headed for the Normandy beach and D-Day invasion. The crew of the ship was eating their three meals a day and we were in there having our c rations. Our landing craft, with about forty of us on board couldn't make it to shore at first. The captain had to pull it back about a mile or so where he could see room to get in. When we hit the water we had to maneuver between dead bodies and trucks in the water. There were also tanks stuck in the mud. After we made our way to shore it took me until the next day to find the rest of my outfit. I don't remember how or what we had to eat while we waited for the supply and kitchen trucks to come in. When they finally made it, we got our outfit together the following day.

From then on we kept going slow until the middle of July. Our bombers knocked out the town of St Lou. We went through there just before sunset and I remember seeing a cow hung up on a telephone wire. The concussion knocked her up there.

After St. Lo we rode about fifteen to twenty miles somedays. A few of the fellows that started out of Fort Devens with us, Joe Scavoni, Ewel Harris, the cook, George Harris, the supply sergeant, Roy Devoe, the mess sergeant, John Sanagroski and George Morgan. One day we rode all day. We stopped late at night. We just threw our packs on the ground and all went to sleep. We woke up at daybreak and found that there were six dead Germans lying there with us. So we started to frisk them to see what we could get. I picked up two wristwatches, a Bolova and Elgin. I often wondered where they had gotten them.
A few nights later, I came back to my squad after night watch and went to sleep under my blanket. Someone pulling my leg awakened me and was saying, "They want you at Bush Hall." (That was a club near my house in Webster Mass.) I thought I was wounded and had been shipped home but it was just a neighbor of mine, Steve Markiewicz. He was with the regiment and looked me up. He had only been with the regiment a few days and then he was captured. I met him after the war was over and said that he'd wore the same pair of socks for six months while he was a prisoner. He said he wasn't treated too badly except that he had lousy food.
Things went pretty quickly after that. We went through France and into Belgium. Liege, which is on the border of France and Germany, and then we got through the Siegfred German line out side of Orken. Late one night, in the woods an artillery shell landed near me and the concussion knocked me against a tree. A two and a half-ton truck ran right against me. My friends carried me to the aid station about a half-mile back of the line into a German barrack. A doctor worked on me by the light from a flashlight and sent me back to the division hospital They took ex-rays and wanted to put me in a body cast as he said my bones were broken. He told me that if I lay still on the board they would send me back to a hospital. I said O.K. Then he asked me who set my bones in place and I said I didn't know. He just worked on me and sent me here. I went to Paris on a train then was put on another plane to Cardiff, Wales. I was still on the board and all that time I couldn't take a leak. That was painful. When I got to the hospital a doctor asked me what my problem was. He had the orderly take me to the emergency room and he got a rod that opens on the end. He said he didn't have to use that on me. He just opened it and boy did I wet all over the place. What a relief. I got back to my bed. I still had to lie on the board but I was more comfortable now. The Purple Heart that I got before I went to the Doctors office was gone. I stayed in the hospital for three months. Then I went back to the Battle of the Bulge.
It was real cold with snow and sleet. After the crossing of the River Roer and the town of Bonn we went slowly through the towns of Germany until we reached the border of Czechoslovakia. A couple of weeks later the war ended. We stayed there for a few weeks. We played ball and other games waiting for our time to be shipped back. All the high pointers were going first. John Morello, Joe Scavoni and I were on the first list. We took a plane from Prague, which the airport was near and landed in Paris. We waited there for four days and flew back to the states in Eisenhower convoy. We were in the fourth plane. Boy those four days in Paris were great. We just went around the city like big heroes. We landed in Periscake, Maine. Then we went to Fort Devens for discharge but they put me in the hospital for a final checkup. I stayed there for a month. My folks used to come to visit me on the weekends. Finally, I was discharged on July 14th 1945.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To double-check, here are the Calendar Events from each year.

1941
Dec. 7 - Japan attack Pearl Harbor

1942
May 8 - 1st Division re-organized and re-designated 1st Infantry Division
Jun. 21 - 1st Infantry Division ordered to prepare for overseas movement.
Jul. 1 - Advance detachment (HQ & 2/16th Inf) depart by ship from Brooklyn, NY.
Jul. 14 - Advanced detachment arrives in Liverpool, England.
Aug. 2 - 1st Inf Div troops depart NYC on HMS Queen Mary
Aug. 8 - HMS Queen Mary arrives Gourock, Scotland. Troops to Tidworth Barracks.
Oct 26 - Operation Torch convoy departs Firth of Clyde, Scotland.
Nov. 8 - Operation Torch assaulted Oran, Algeria.
Dec. 22 - Battle of Longstop Hill (Medjez el Bab) to Dec. 25, 18th RCT

1943
Jan. 25 - Battle of Ouslettia Valley, Tunisia
Feb. 18 - Battle of Kasserine Pass, Tunisia. Entire Division cited.
Mar. 16 - Battle of El Guettar. Division attacked as a concentrated whole for the first time in WWII. 32nd FA cited.
Mar. 17 - 1st Inf Div attacked Gafsa, Tunisia.
Apr. 23 - Mateur Campaign in Tunisia begins. 2/18th Inf cited for Beja.
May 3 - 1st Inf Div captures Mateur, Tunisia. 1/16th Inf cited.
May 9 - Germans surrender, resistance ends in Tunisia.
Jun. 10 - Operation Husky assaulted Gela, Sicily
Jul. 20 - Enna, capital of Sicily, captured by 16th Inf.
Aug. 6 - Troina, Sicily captured.
Aug. 17 - Allies enter Messina, ending Sicily Campaign. 1/16 Inf and 2/16 Inf cited for Sicily.

1944
June 6 -D-Day Operation Overlord, Omaha, Beach Normandy, France
June 13 - Division liberates Caumont
July 26 - Operation Cobra, breakout from Normandy
August 30 - 1st Inf Div CP at Soissons, France
Sept.12 - German border crossed
Sept. 16 - 1st Inf Div attacks to Stolberg, captures Munsterbusch- to Sept 21. 1/26th Inf cited for Stolberg
Oct.9 - Battle of Crucifx Hill 1/18 Inf and 3/18 Inf cited
Oct.21 -Aachen surrendered to LTC Corley, 3/26 Inf

Nov. 16 -Hurtgen Forest Campaign. 1/16 Inf and 2/16 Inf cited. Battle of Hamich. 1/16 and 3/16 Inf cited
Nov. 29 -German counter-attack at Merode. Hurtgen Forest, Germany
Dec. 16 -Germans launch Ardennes counter-attack, Eupen-Malmedy, Belgium. Entire Div cited
Dec. 22 - German attack repulsed ar Butgenbach, Belgium

1945
Jan. 15 -1st Division again penetrated the Siegfried Line at Steinbach
Feb. 25 -Attacked across Roer River ar Kreuznau, began Rhineland Offensive
March 9 -Capture of Bonn, Germany ended resistance west of the Rhine
March 15 -First Division assaults across Rhine River and attaks toward Sieg (first attack east of Rhine)
March 27 -1st Inf Div breaks out of Rhine Bridgehead
April 1 -Division sealed the Ruhr Pocket at Paderborn
April 12 - Harz Mt Campaign begins
April 18 -1st Inf Div routs enemy forces in Hart Mountains
April 30 -Division reached Czechoslovakian Border
May 7 -WWII hostilities were declared ended. 1st In Div liberated Falkenau concentration camp
Aug. 25 -South of Paris, 1st Inf Div moves to Courville-sur-Eure
Sept. 3 -Battle of Mons, Belgium Entire Div cited ( this was on calendar but I'm not sure the year