Published: November 10, 2009 04:53 pm      

One soldier's memories of World War II service

My mother passed away on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 23, 1939. We lived in northern Michigan, near Gaylord. Dad got their belongings, which included some cattle, and moved back south on a farm near Vestiburg, MI.

I had turned 18 on Dec. 15, and that next summer, 1940, I was unemployed. I suggested to Dad that I would like for him to sign forms for me to go into the service, and he agreed to do that. He took me to Saginaw to enlist, and I went into the service on June 10, 1940. I had never been out of the state of Michigan. I was so insecure and alone.

They sent me to Fort McClellan, near Gadsden, AL. I served in the 4th Infantry Division as a foot soldier. The 4th Infantry was made up of the 8th, 12th and 22nd Infantry Regiments. I was in the 22nd Infantry Regiment. It was known by its Ivy Leaf Insignia. The 22nd Infantry Regiment was made up of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Infantry Battalions. I was in the A Company of the 1st Infantry Battalion.

We moved after training for one year in Alabama to Fort Benning, near Columbus, GA. Then I met Margaret Luttrell on Oct. 11, 1941, her 20th birthday, in Marbledale, TN. I had visited Marbledale with a soldier friend, Leonard French, who was dating Lena Henderson, of Marbledale.

Pearl Harbor was attacked Dec. 7, 1941. Margaret and I were married on Jan. 5, 1942, in Middlesboro, KY. We were stationed at Fort Gordon, in Augusta, GA. We lived in the home of Dr. and Mrs. Norvell on Green Street in Augusta for a short time. We later moved to an apartment on Telfair Street, and our first son, Harry Clifford, was born March 4, 1943, while we lived in Augusta.

Two months after Harry was born, we moved to Fort Dix, NJ. We rented an apartment and later rented a house. I was sent to Tallahassee, FL, for amphibious training, preparing for the Normandy invasion. Margaret and Harry did not accompany me to Florida, as I was to be there only a short time. We were sent to Fort Jackson, near Columbia, SC, before going overseas. Margaret and Harry were with me for this one month, and our friends, the Harveys, visited us before I left the next day to go overseas. We had been married for some 18 months and Harry was a baby when I received orders to go to England.

I had made corporal by the time we moved to Augusta and soon became a sergeant. I made staff sergeant just before we departed on the northern route to England. We were loaded on the Cape Town Castle, an English ship.

Mr. Harvey, my warrant officer and a friend to mother and me, was on the same ship. He sent word for me to come to the Officer’s Quarters. Because of him, I was able to travel first class across the ocean to Liverpool, England.

After arriving in England, we trained for months and then moved to the English Channel. We continued to train for the invasion of France, which was occupied by the German army. All of the military leadership met for some time in a tent while we saw the scenery of England in detail. We made a mock landing on the English side of the channel. We saw all of our high-ranking officers: General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Bernard Montgomery (English), General George Patton (3rd Army), and General Omar Bradley (1st Army).

We were loading the boats on June 6, 1944, as we had always done in our previous training exercises. It was early in the morning, and our leadership said, “This is no mock run. We are crossing the channel to invade France.” We got our troops ready for the invasion.

I do not remember the landing. The arrival of the first soldiers occurred at Normandy at 6:30 a.m. We landed at Utah Beach. I came to in a hospital in England and was listed as missing in action. The message had been sent to my father and to my wife.

After fully recovering from my injuries, I was sent back to our division, which was positioned near Paris, France. They put me in charge as an officer to head up a detail to gather the bodies, dog tags and personal belongings of the dead American soldiers and load them on GMC trucks. We stacked the bodies and pieces of bodies like the cordwood I had stacked on trucks when I worked in my father’s logging mill.

When we arrived at the Siegfried Line, we were receiving truckloads of replacements each day. I ordered my men to dig foxholes to rest for the night. Because I was so exhausted, I did not dig a foxhole, preferring to just pitch a tent. During the night, the tent fell on my face and disturbed my sleep. I did not even bother to check to see what caused it to fall. Early the next morning I discovered that a German 88mm cannon shell had cut the rope to my tent and lodged under the roots of the maple tree I had tied a rope to, missing my head by a few inches.

There are many stories I can tell how God spared my life during these battles. I crawled through mine fields with my men to recover the bodies of wounded or dead soldiers. Several of my own men were killed in those mine fields.

In the Battle of the Bulge in the Huertgen Forest in Germany, we experienced some of the fiercest fighting of the war. They brought us out to Luxembourg after we had lost so many men. We were stationed there during the wintertime. At Christmas time, I was on guard during the night. The Germans had killed or captured the 2nd Battalion Commander and all. I could hear the German tanks moving all night long. Air support for our tanks and troops was impossible because of the low clouds. During the night, the air was full of our fighting planes, and the next day the fields were full of German tanks that had been destroyed by our Air Force. Only God could have brought about such a miracle that led to our victory.

Now I must refer to the miracle of all miracles for me during the war. We were moving toward Germany through Saint-Vith, Belgium, and across the Rhine at Dusseldorf. The first night after leaving Luxembourg City, my oldest brother, Howard, who was in the Army, came near our rear guard, and he recognized the Ivy Leaf Insignias. He knew that was my outfit and asked for permission to find me, and he did. My commanding officer gave me permission to go back with him, and we spent some three or four hours together. Our story and pictures were in the military paper, The Stars and Stripes. After the war was over, Howard moved to California, and it would be 25 years before we saw each other again.

We crossed the Rhine and marched near Munich, Germany, when the war ended. I was placed in charge of guarding a German prisoner-of-war camp of SS soldiers for six months before I was released to come back home. They wanted to send me to Officer’s Candidate School to be a second lieutenant and send me to Japan. I went to my commanding officer and told him, “If you don’t want to see a soldier go AWOL, you’d better get me home to my wife and son.” I landed in Norfolk, VA, with no one to greet me. I traveled to Lansing, MI, to meet my wife and son, Dad and family. I was filled with excitement and anxiety. The war with Japan ended with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I came home to my wife and son. I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army. I served my country in the military for five years and six months. I wish I had told my story in writing sooner. This is the best I can remember.

Dr. Leonard Markham, pastor of Fairfield Glade First Baptist Church, is the son of Wayne Orlando Markham. His parents live at Wharton Nursing Home in Cumberland County.