My father did not speak at great length about his time in the 28th Division. He would tell bits and pieces as we sometimes watched war movies or if something stirred a memory for instance if we showed him a history book. I will make no attempt to put down a division history but merely stories I remember my father telling.

He joined the PA National Guard (28th Division) I think a year or so before Pearl Harbor because he saw the beginning of the war in Europe and figured it would be best to have some foot in the door. He had belonged to a radio club in high school which led him to be assigned to communications.

He did not say too much about his time at Ft. Indiantown Gap, I do recall a story about a guy who put a boxing glove on a baseball bat and would use it to punch the pop machine (Which for many of the young men was a novelty.) and give free pop to the unit. He mentioned that when the vendor came and found the machine empty of Coke and money, he was none too pleased. He questioned the entire mess hall but just received silence.

Louisiana was a place he said, “You could be up to your ass in mud and get hit in the face with a sandstorm.” I recall he said this several times with no affection for the place. While they were stateside they were getting needles stuck in their arms, “every time your turned around” as they were given inoculations for wherever they might be deployed. He also recalled a rather humorous presentation about venereal disease.

In June of 1942 the Brigadier General Omar Bradley took over the division. My dad recalled that one of the first things he did was to run the basic training obstacle course himself to show the men what he expected of them. One other unpleasant training experience he recalled was the exposure to tear gas. I think he said they had a bunch of them in a room / chamber with their gas masks on. After the room was flooded with tear gas and were told to remove the masks. It did not take long for people to head for the doors. Another story that he mentioned was that a local town had been rather harsh in their treatment of some members of the unit. After that an artillery shell managed to find its way to the middle of that town. The investigation into the incident never found out who fired the shot or an unaccounted for round of ammunition.

When the division set out for England he told a few stories of journey across the Atlantic. You did not want to be on the top bunk because the air was bad at the top of the compartments. He did not want to sleep in the bunks and found a bathtub too sleep in. He said they took a Northerly route to avoid the U-Boat threat. The ship was riding waves high enough to cause the propellers to come out of the water and make a deep whirring sound. This unnerved some at first he said and the action of the ship on the waves of course caused many to become seasick.

The 28th was stationed in Wales and he recalled being invited to have dinner in the homes of the residents. One thing he said the older men of Wales liked was American tobacco. One story he told was of an older man who was very happy when they gave him a can of pipe tobacco. The man said he would mix it in with his tobacco because it was too strong and good to smoke by itself. He also was anxious to be able to take a little with him to the local pub and put a pinch in his friends’ pipes. It was also during that time in Wales that he was involved in the sending of fake radio messages surrounding Gen. Patton’s Army. Part of the Normandy Invasion deception was that Patton was to invade at the Pas de Calais, the shortest route across the channel. In order to sell the ruse part of it was to have radio traffic simulating the existence of plan. I recall him relating it was rather mundane in nature and they had of course to keep quiet about it.

He said that they landed at Normandy beach on D plus 30 or 33 although I cannot say precisely. He did not speak much about this time I guess as this is when they experienced the war for the first time. Scattered stories without much context follow.

I recall hearing from my mother that he was afraid much of the time. He came to terms with the fear as many did. “If it was your time it was time and you couldn’t do anything about it,” He said. In other words chances were that you were going to be injured or killed and it made no sense wasting time worrying about it. He did mention about men talking about the “million dollar wound.” A wound that would get you sent home but not disabled for the rest of life. He mentioned that with the GI insurance his parents would get $10,000 dollars, more money than they would ever see in their lives.

He flew at times in small observation aircraft such as the Piper Cub or L-5 Stinson. The Germans learned he said not to shoot at them because they were in constant radio contact with the artillery radio men. If one was shot down it brought a barrage of artillery to that grid section on the map. He recalled a time when one of the spotters saw a group of Germans loading boxes into ambulances on an open road. They suspected that they were transporting ammunition instead of wounded. After directing the artillery to knock out a bridge that would be a means of escape they focused on the ambulances. Sure enough they exploded as if they were loaded with dynamite. At the time a higher ranker officer was listening to their radio exchange and the colorful language the people in the plane where using to describe the explosions. Upon landing the men were told by the officer to “review standard radio operating procedure!” He added that the Germans never made any mention of the incident to the Geneva Convention as a war crime. (You are not supposed to attack ambulances.)

He recalled being at the Liberation of Paris. The division was nearby and was ordered to march in the liberation parade. He said he was on a side street in a command jeep coordinating air cover for the parade.

One the tactics he talked about the artillery using was the time on target mission. Many different artillery batteries would coordinate to fire their shells to land on a target at a certain time. He said the Germans thought they did it by having the guns on a train. He said he saw the effect once and remembered seeing dead German soldiers sitting upright playing cards. They had been killed by the concussion they thought.

He mentioned that radio communication (Morse code) was often done with simple encryption. They had a small scrambler device that had rotating wheels to scramble the alphabet. He said it could be broken pretty easily but by the time the Germans would have done the orders would have been carried out or too old matter.

As they neared Germany he recalled they were able to see the launching of the V2 rockets towards England. He said it was “like watching a science fiction movie.” He told a story also that one day there were inside a building (in a town they had liberated) and had disassembled their radio sets for cleaning when something flew by so fast that it sucked the windows out into the street. They had some parts sitting on the window sill that fortunately were not damaged. He said it might have been a German jet fighter or V-1 buzz bomb but they never saw what it was.

He told a story of a town that changed hands several times over the course of a battle. (I think it was during the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest) As they were retreating one time an old lady came up to him crying and yelling, he could not understand what she saying and all he could say was, “Sorry lady!”

After the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest where said they had a huge turnover in the infantry ranks because of casualties they were sent to the Ardennes for a rest and refit. They did not get much of a rest because they found themselves in the middle of what would be known as the Battle of the Bulge.

He again told a few scattered stories of the battle. They were ordered to fire everything and retreat this wound up including surrender pamphlets. “We were firing surrender pamphlets at the Germans who were pushing us back at the time!” A few men from his unit were captured he said. One of his friends told him that he found himself driving in a German column one night. (It was so dark that they did not notice for awhile and the Germans did not notice them.) When they came to a fork in the road they drove at fast as they could the other way.

He mentioned that around Christmas a chaplain made rounds to several soldiers and offered a toast in the form of some of his whiskey. Officers received a liquor ration and this chaplain was not a drinker but saved enough to offer several soldiers an Xmas drink with encouragement that while this was a difficult time it would pass

They were running into German road blocks as they were retreating, “that’s how far we were cut off” he said. One time they were hiding in some trees when some vehicles were going by and he told the group to stay put while he we to see whether they were friend or foe. They made their way to Bastogne and he was getting ready to stay and help with the defense of the city (They were allowing the married men to leave he said I think.) when he was ordered to retreat because of his position and a radio section chief. Sometime after the battle was decided he told of taking a short cut while walking in a town and he saw Generals Patton, Eisenhower and Bradley talking. He went another way he said because he was not supposed to be in that area.

Some after the Battle of the Bulge but before the end of the war they encountered/captured some Hitler youth who were dressed as soldiers. They made them take off their uniforms and walk home. Some of the men gave them a kick in rear he said. I think he told a story of seeing German civilians being forced to go and visit concentration camps that were near the towns. (He never told us if he saw a camp himself.)

He recalled a time after the war (I think) that as they were getting ready to board a plane some people where offering them coffee that was green in color coffee. The people had made it in galvanized garbage cans. He would not drink it and said the men that did spent most of the flight using small toilet on the airplane. (He said he thinks the galvanized coating on the cans got into the coffee when they heated them while making the coffee.)

From the papers we found I know he got leave to go to the French Riviera. He did not say anything about that time but I think the story of the coffee might have been the plane ride to the Riviera but I do not know for sure. He did tell me that one time he was going for a walk and a Chaplain asked him where he was going. He said the Chaplain was surprised when he invited him along for the walk. He said that they (the Chaplains’) would often be on the lookout for men “going out” after the war.

He did not say anything I recall about how he got home but that when he got home he cried on a bridge in Carnegie before he walked the rest of the way.

Joseph W Kolodeychak