The Conservative Son

Forward: While attending Tennessee Wesleyan College, I wrote a paper for a Senior History Seminar on WWII. We were required to write about an event or person using as many primary resources as possible. I, of course, seized the opportunity to write about my dad.

Unbeknownst to him, some of the papers were to be chosen to be read at a local recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day. To my honor and dad's credit, mine was chosen as one of the three.

This post is a little long. Still, I wanted to take the opportunity of placing this one on Memorial day.

"JUST A WAR STORY"



The seven day voyage from New York harbor to Casablanca was uneventful
in that there was no sign of the enemy. Still, it was harrowing to
make such a long, dangerous journey during wartime all lone, alone
with forty-five hundred others, on board a solitary ship unprotected
by convoy. They were told their ship traveled alone because most
ships could not keep up with her and German U-Boats could not catch
her. So, they traveled alone, alone until they joined the millions of
others who had already left home and family. They were just normal
men, men who would sacrifice their lifes and lives for those who would
always remain strangers to them.

The trip over had been both long and lean for Dad because of the mess
routine aboard ship. A hot meal would certainly have been welcome,
but a four hour wait for Army chow was just too long when the ship’s
P.X. was well stocked with candy bars. Of the only two hot meals he
had that week, on consisted of a boiled frankfurter still wrapped in
cellophane.

By the time he arrived in Casablanca, Morocco, the Allies had cleared
north-western Africa of Axis troops. Although Casablanca is portrayed
by Hollywood as a land of adventure and romance, it is hard to think
of it so when you are a lonely soldier far away from home for the
first time, having come to fight for the freedom of the world and your
first assignment upon arrival at “the front” is guarding G.I.”s who
have been incarcerated for drunk and disorderly conduct. It would not
be long though before Dad’s life would take a more interesting turn.

After a week passed, he was transferred by “forty-and-eight” train,
(so called because the cars were designed to carry forty men and eight
horses,) to Bone, Algeria. The rail trip to Bone lasted three days
longer than the trip over from the states. Often the train passed
through mountain tunnels so long that the smoke from the coal burning
engine filled the tunnel making breathing nearly impossible. Even
though their government men issue gas masks came in handy at this
time, most of them later discarded them, using the carrying cases for
extra food storage. Most would come to fear starvation more than
being gassed.

By the time he reached Bone, the Allies had pushed Rommel’s Afrika
Korps and Mussolini’s Italians east to the Tunisian border in
operation “ “Torch.” The 9th Infant;y Division was deeply involved in
1st Army operations under the command of General Anderson, driving the
enemy through Oran, Algiers, Bone and Bizerte. The Germans and
Italians held their own at t;he Tunisian border from November of ‘42
through April of ‘43. There was a short pause in the fighting;, which
the Allies used to redeploy their forces, then on April the 22nd, they
once again struck the Axis line.The 60th Combat Team, which Dad was
soon attached to, lost many of its men in a bloody battle for Hill 609
near the Tunisian border.


The 9th had secured Bone before Dad’s
arrival and by May 12th, 250,000 German and Italian troops
had been captured in the Allied North African campaign. Anderson’s
1st Army , in conjunction with Montgomery’s 18th Army, would soon push
the Axis armies off the Cape Bone Peninsula and across the
Mediterranean to Sicily. So, after a month’s respite from battle, the
9th was returned to the front and by July of ‘43, had compelled those
enemy forces who had escaped death or capture to evacuate the African
continent. As the 9th made preparations for invading Sicily, Dad met
with the first of many calamities that, although temporarily
distressing, would prove to be ultimately beneficial.

Every G.I. is cursed in that he must periodically pull K.P. Most hate
it and do a terrible job, but not my Dad; he was just too
conscientious for his own good; he did such a good job that he was
“volunteered” for mess duty again the next day. (1) He was assigned
to washing pots and pans in large basins which were similar to trash
cans and heated by gasoline. Not considering the fact that gasoline
expands in a sun-heated container, Dad opened a gas can to refill the
heaters and was subsequently sprayed with gasoline, which, of course,
immediately ignited turning him into a “human fireball.” (2)
Amazingly, even though he was running like only a man on fire might
do, he managed to remove blazing uniform, all except for his breeches
which would not pull over his boots. Fortunately, a quick thinking
mess cook grabbed a tent shelter-half, tackled Dad and wrapped him in
the thick canvas smothering the flames. Although he suffered severe
burns over most of his body, he was lucky to be alive. So, while the
1st Army, now under the command of General Omar Bradley, slugged its
way through the highlands of central Sicily, taking, and giving, heavy
casualties, Dad spent the next five weeks recumbent in a hospital in
Oran, Algeria.

Oran was monotonous weeks passed in a hospital with one notable
exception. While there, he made friends with a soldier from the “Big
Red One.” Near the end of his stay, the two of them were outside
taking in some fresh air when they noticed a jeep with a star on the
front plate. Sitting in the passenger seat of that jeep was the
assistant commander of the 1st Infantry Division, Brigadier General
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Upon recognizing the General, Dad’s buddy
strolled up to him as if to an old friend and furthermore, invited Dad
top join them. General Roosevelt was a very personable and the three
of them enjoyed mutual small-talk for about ten minutes before he bade
them farewell. It proved to be one of the few fond remembrances of
Dad’s military career.

By the time Dad rejoined his unit at Palermo in August of ‘43, the
Allies had thoroughly thrust the German and Italian troops across the
Strait of Messina to the toe of Italy. While there, he enjoyed
swimming in the Tyrrhenian Sea, U.S.O. shows with such Hollywood
legends as Al Jolson and historic scenery, like the macabre exhibit in
a local Catholic church of a centuries old Sicilian warrior preserved
in a glass coffin. The rest and relaxation at Palermo was nice while
it lasted, but after he had been there a month, the 9th boarded ships
in a “big convoy” (3) bound for England.

Many ships sailed that day and
were joined by others in transit. The large fleet gave a sense of
security that was betrayed by the incessant zigging and zagging of the
ships as they attempted to present a more difficult target for the
German U-Boats that constantly stalked the waters of the
Mediterranean. After the two week voyage, they disembarked at
Portsmouth and were trucked north to Winchester. This area of England
was chosen for training due to its hedgerow country which was so
similar to that of Normandy.

England was not a bad place for a handsome, young farm boy from
Tennessee. Although the training was long, rigorous and often
dangerous, there were occasional passes to allow the men a chance to
rejuvenate. Even though the weather was sometimes cold and damp, it
was a welcome change from the miserable heat of North Africa and
Sicily. Of course, there was plenty of sight-seeing to do and the
English ladies were pretty and friendly, but not overly friendly. Dad
and his cohorts would sometimes make a game of speaking to the young
ladies in town just to see who could get a smile from on of them. He
got to know some of the British soldiers through an exchange program
whereby two “Tommies” were interchanged with two G.I.’s for a week.
Dad says the English were “nice people,” but they did have the
attitude that American soldiers were “overpaid, overdressed and
oversexed!”(4) He never did figure out British military rank, so he
just made a habit of saluting every British soldier he met. He found
the British soldier impressive since, “They really know how to
march.”(5)

After what seemed like endless months of training among hedgerows and
in landing-craft, the time for invasion finally arrived. “On May 27th
at 0630 the division was put on six-hour alert status. The men knew
the time was at hand.”(6) On the third of June, the men were moved to
marshaling areas in preparation for boarding ships that would
transport ultimately hundreds of thousands of men across the English
Channel to the beaches of Normandy. The night of June 5th was one
spent “under the ceaseless drone of unseen planes”(7) On the 6th of
June, 1944, the 21st Army Group, under the command of Field Marshall
Bernard Law Montgomery, stormed six separate beaches on the coast of
Normandy, France. The United States 1st Army under the command of
Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, Assaulted the beaches of Utah and
Omaha. The 9th Infantry Division, under the command of Major General
Simpson, reached Utah beach on D+4. Although the Americans did
control a firm beachhead, they faced a German force determined to
prevent the capture of the Cherbourg Peninsula. General J. Lawton
Collins, commander of the VII Corps, upon becoming dissatisfied with
the slow process of the 90th division, ordered the 9th to “leap-frog”
over the 90th and take the lead in the attack up the peninsula.(8)
Here it was that Dad was to witness the awful price paid by the brave
men of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions who had made the initial
landings on D-Day. Everywhere there were mangled gliders; they were
hung up the trees; they were torn apart by
poles strategically placed by t;he Germans to demolish them
as they descended to the to the earth. One particularly
heart-wrenching sight was the lifeless form of an Airborne soldier
lying all alone in the hedgerows.

On the 13th, the Americans linked up with the 82nd and the 101st
troops who were in the more westerly sector of the peninsula. On the
18th, the 9th reached the town of Barnville on the Atlantic and, along
with the 4th and 79th, turned north toward Cherbourg. On the 20th,
these three divisions were pressing the German defenders at Valognes.
Outside the city, Dad once again met with a fate that fell just short
of disaster.

At Valognes, the fighting was horribly intense. The cornered Germans
were pulling out all of the stops, when suddenly, in Dad’s words, “a
Jerry hand grenade almost landed in my pocket.”(9) luckily, it only
tore his right knee and a medic helped him into a French cottage. He
and three others in the cottage were listening to the battle outside
when someone stuck hi head through the door just long enough to tell
them that their position was about to be overrun and if they wanted
to get out alive, they would have to make a run for it! They were
almost gunned down trying to get out the door, the Germans only manage
to shoot the door to pieces, but on their second attempt they were
successful and made it through. Although his leg spurted blood with
each heart-beat, Dad still, “ran so fast the Germans thought they were
shooting at a ghost.”(10) Two ran one direction while Dad and another
man went another; the first two were captured, but Dad and the other
guy somehow made it to friendly territory

It was more time in England, but less than before and soon he was on
another boat bound for France. On the 26th of July, Dad returned to
his unit at Aachen just in time for the St. Lo breakthrough. The
Germans had been holding up the Allied advance toward Brittany at the
St. Lo-Periers road, but on the 24th through the 26th there was the
horrendous bombing on the German defenses. As the battle intensified,
Dad sought cover in an abandoned enemy fox hole hoping not to be blown
to kingdom come by the shells the German tanks were throwing in his
direction. Apparently his company lieutenant thought this a good idea
too and dove in the dugout beside him forcing him to move to the to
the opposite side. At that moment he felt the enormous impact of a
tank shell on his side of the fox hole. He closed his eyes fearing
the worst, but opening them discovered the angle of the blast
protected hi upper body though not his lower extremities. He saw the
blood gush from the same knee as before, but he also saw that the Good
Lord had saved him from a more critical injury. As he looked for the
man he had spoken with seconds before, he found only his stilled,
decapitated remains. Dad knew in that instant that had the lieutenant
not jumped into that fox hole with him, it would have been his own
bloody corpse left on that lonely battle field.

Back to England for four months, but back again in time to participate
in the battle of the Huertgen Forrest. This dense woodland lying on
the border between Belgium and Germany, became the sight of one of the
bloodiest spectacles of the war. The Americans hope to clear the
Forrest of the enemy to protect the Allied northern flank
and capture the Roer dams before the
Germans could flood the river ;thereby delaying an Allied crossing.
The overextended 9th paid the price of forty-five hundred casualties
in September and October to gain less than two miles of ground. Of
the 120,000 Allied troops in this particular battle, 33,000 ranked
among the casualties.(11) It was an awful sight of snow and dead
flesh: both of men and animals. Antipersonnel mines, artillery and
tank fire, specifically air-bursts which had torn the tops out of all
the trees, was very conducive to promoting death if not to advancing
armies.

Dad also double as a wire specialist, so he had the job of trying to
keep communications lines up that the Germans were constantly blowing
up or cutting down. In typical Army fashion he was once given a two
mile roll of wire and ordered to stretch it to twenty using whatever
scrap he could find along the way. One night while Dad and two others
were searching for communication lines that had been downed by shell
bursts, they were shocked to see two airborne troops floating to the
ground in the distance. As the two drew closer, Dad realized that
they were actually two G.I.’s walking g down the side of a big snow
covered hill. The Belgium snow was so deep that year that foot
soldiers would sometimes have to swing from tree limb to tree limb to
move around.

In December of 1944, the Germans counterattacked in the Battle of the
Bulge. While the 9th missed the main bulge, they faced vicious
Wehrmacht and Panzer units near Monschau in the North. In March of
‘45 the 9th crossed the Siegfried Line and was the first to cross the
Rhine by capturing the Remagen railroad bridge.* Dad reached the
bridge only hours after its capture, even before the famous 9th
Division “welcome banner” was hung at the western end of the bridge.
By March, the 9th had reached the Elbe River a few miles west of
Berlin. In Agfe, a town famous for its film production, the streets
were strewn with pictures of Hitler. At that time, no G.I. would
have had an interest in a picture of “the Fuhrer,” but in retrospect
he says he just wonders if they would have any value as collector’s
items. By this time, the German soldiers were driving themselves by
the truck-load to the Allied positions to surrender; they were no more
than pathetic starving wretches by now. Dad and some of his men even
captured a large group of sad looking “Hitler Youth.”

In may, the Allies captured Berlin and Adolf Hitler took his own life
in an underground bunker. Needless to say, there was no small
celebration among the 9th Division soldiers on report of these two
events. Some of the guys from Dad’s unit drove the short trip to
Berlin just so they could say that they had been there; Dad declined
an invitation since it was still such a potentially dangerous
situation. The irony of their predicament dawned on him when they
were told that after all the pain and suffering, all the sacrifice of
men and material and all the miles paid for n blood to reach Berlin,
that orders had come down from the top to pull back from the city and
surrender it to the Russians. It was an unforgettable spectacle to
see the Russian trucks and tanks
coming into the suburbs of Berlin while
American trucks and tanks were pulling out of them.

Dad was on furlough in Paris when the news came of the surrender of
Japan. The streets were filled with happy people and not the least
happy was my Dad. He had good reason to celebrate since when he
joined the Army back in ‘42, his contract with Uncle Sam stipulated
that he was in for “the duration plus six months.” Now, instead of
having to make plans for Christmas in Tokyo, he could plan for
Christmas back home in the states.

On September the 10th of 1945, Dad
set sail for the United States arriving in New York Harbor on the
18th. The war was over for Dad and millions of others and as he so
typically understated, “...it was just a war story that you read of
every day...” like, I suppose, a million other stories. Still, the
same story multiplied a million times is the story of World War II and
every other war. While most men were not “combat soldiers,” they all
fought the good fight and did whatever job their country called them
to do, each willing to sacrifice everything for the right. They were
just ordinary men who reached inside themselves and found the strength
to do extraordinary things. Today, we enjoy the freedom that they
secured for us almost half a century ago.

Let us never forget!

God bless America! God bless these men! God bless my Dad, Floyd Davis!
































Notes

1) James Floyd Davis, Personal Interview, Athens, TN, September 20,
1991


2) Ibid.


3) Ibid.


4) Ibid., October 20,1991


5) Ibid.


6) “England and D-Day Build-Up,” The 9th Inf Division,
G.I. Stories of the

Ground, Air and Service Forces in the European
Theater of Operations, U.S.

Government Information and Education Division, Special and
Information

Services, ETOUSA, Paris, 1944, p.23.


7) Ibid.


8) John Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy, The
Viking Press, New York, 1982,

p. 159.


9) Sergeant James Floyd Davis, Letter Home to Sister, France, June 6
1945,

p. 1.


10) Ibid.


11) John Keegan, Times Atlas of The Second World
War, Harper and Rowe,

New York, 1989, p. 314.


12) James Floyd Davis, Personal Interview, Athens, TN, October 20,
1991.


13) Sergeant James Floyd Davis, Letter Home to Sister, France, June
6, 1945,

p.3.


*Wednesday, September 24, 1997, Since later discoveries, I have
almost certainly determined that it was the 9th Armored Div. and not the
9th Infantry Div. that actually captured the bridge.

Labels: 9th Infantry Division, Tennessee Wesleyan College, World War II

# posted by The Preacher's Kid @ 5:03 PM 0 comments

So, my president wants me to believe that the biggest power grab by the federal government in our nation's history is only temporary. Who does he think he's fooling?

I can hear it all now: "Mr. Caesar, you've suspended the Roman Senate and have taken upon yourself absolute dictatorial powers. Are we to believe it's all just temporary?"

"Oh, yes. Just until the crisis passes," replies Mr. Caesar. Alas, the crisis never seems to pass.

I can hear it all now: "Mr. Hitler, you've suspended the German Parliament and have taken upon yourself absolute dictatorial powers. Are we to believe it's all just temporary?"

"Oh, yes. Just until the crisis passes," replies Mr. Hitler. Alas, the crisis never seems to pass.

I can hear it all now: "Mr. Mao, you've overthrown the Chinese republic and have taken upon yourself absolute dictatorial powers. Are we to believe it's all just temporary?"

"Oh, yes. Just until the crisis passes," replies Mr. Mao. Alas, the crisis never seems to pass.

What despot has ever admitted that he wants all the power all the time? Almost without exception, they say, "It's only temporary." Well, we all know the story about the camel getting his nose into the tent.

Now, I am nowhere near calling our president, Caesar, Hitler or Mao. While Mr. Obama is sorely mistaken about many of his views, he will, I'm sure...I pray, never desire nor be able to rise to the diabolical level that those monsters have. Some of his beliefs and ideas, though, do border on and even surpass evil. (Such as his defense of partial birth abortion and allowing children who survive abortions to be left to die without medical care.)

The fact is, this is the normal progression of the loss of freedom. We usually just would rather not deal with life's complicated issues. The first tyrant who comes along and promises to make all the hard decisions for us, simplify our lives and care for us cradle to grave, sweeps us into slavery before we know what hits us. Yes, and he even does so by our own leave.

Now, I don't want to hear anyone say, "Not here!" Look around you. We wouldn't be the first nor the last nation to make that arrogant statement.

By the way, where are all those civil liberty banshees now? Where is all the fear and concern about the feds taking our rights from us? Don't they care about property rights? Don't they care about the right to spend our hard-earned cash as we see fit?

Those people are funny. As long as they can retain the "right" to kill their children in the womb, marry men to men and keep the name of God out of the public forum, they don't seem to care about much else. Yes, "funny" in a bizarre, twisted sort of self-centered way.

Labels: abortion, Adolph Hitler, Barack Obama, Caesar, civil rights, dictators, Mao Tse-tung

Finally, a Democrat puts his country before his political party!

Mr. Panetta, in his defense of the C.I.A. against the Battle-Axe of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has shown himself to be a real man. Yes, he and I have disagreed on many occasions and, I'm sure, will again, but today I'm giving him the credit he is due.

That pathetic, small minded woman has had her face lifted so many times that when she smiles, has to stand on her tip-toes. I can only imagine the rest of the world laughing their rears off at her in her silly head-dress and lip-stick when she goes to Muslim countries.

Is anybody besides me sick of the poor, pitiful, pathetic women who want to be taken seriously as leaders of the free world opting for the sad old excuse women have used repeatedly for millennia? If it's not Hillary passing the buck, it's Nancy. "It's not my fault! I'm just a little helpless woman who was used and lied to by a man." Sheesh! How far do they expect to ride that dead horse?

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If your a woman who can't outsmart a man, just stay home and take care of the kids. By the way, have supper hot on the table when your husband gets home, too.

Labels: Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Nancy Pelosi