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| (Source) |
The halftrack made it's way down the river road from Niederau, where 2nd Platoon was bivouacked along with all of Charlie Company. The mood was somber, 3rd Squad was heading back to Kreuzau to check on their missing men. Sgt. Stump Gentile didn't hold out much hope, but he hoped that if he wound up missing, his guys would look for him. You didn't leave people behind.
As the M3 halftrack turned the corner, Gentile saw a Jeep parked in the road. Two military policemen stood nearby.
"Pull up just short of those MPs, Ray."
The M3's driver, Pvt. Raymond Holloway, nodded and said, "You got it, Sarge."
One of the MPs was holding up a hand to stop the vehicle, Gentile stepped out when the vehicle came to a stop.
"Something I can help you boys with?" the ranking MP, a corporal, said with a smirk.
"Yes, you can address me as sergeant and get this goddamned Jeep out of the road. We're here to look for our missing. We fought here a few days ago. First across the Roer we were, some of our guys paid the price." Gentile said, in a commanding tone.
"Well, Sergeant, I'm afraid..."
"You should be very afraid, Corporal." Cpl Charlie Gammell said from atop the halftrack. "We've been ordered here to check on missing personnel, if you try to stop us, we will just go through you."
"Now wait just a second..." The MP corporal stuttered. At that moment a captain wearing a Red Cross armband came up to the road.
"Is there a problem here Corporal Beddows?" the captain asked.
"Well, Sir..."
Gentile had noticed the captain's insignia and interrupted the, by now, thoroughly flustered MP. "Excuse us Sir, we were ordered here to determine the status of some our missing men. You're with Graves Registration, right Sir?"
"That's correct, Sergeant..."
"Gentile, Sir, Flavio Gentile."
"Captain Herb Smith, Graves Registration, as you guessed." The captain then reached into a pocket of his field jacket, extracting a number of dog tags. "Might make your trip quicker, Sgt. Gentile." He said as he handed the tags to Gentile.
Gentile went through the tags, there were nine: Gomez, Allen, McBride, Webb, Stanley, Estrada, Maxwell, Pacheco, and Manderson. Gentile sighed, then handed the tags back to the captain. "Yes Sir, those are our guys, all 2nd Platoon or Weapons Platoon from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry."
"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Sergeant. Some of those men, well, we were lucky to find their dog tags. Artillery?" Captain Smith asked.
"Yes Sir, 75s and mortars. It was rough for a bit until our own arty took over." Gentile paused, looked down at the town. He would remember this place. "Thanks Sir, appreciate it. We'll be on our way."
"Stay alive Sarge."
"Tryin' Sir, tryin' awfully hard to do just that."
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| (Source) |
To the east of Kreuzau, at the edge of the Drover Heath, another Graves Registration party was working. Though the men were Americans, they were recovering the German dead. Collecting the German identity disks (which one had to break in half, one part stayed with the body) and making notes of where they fell. The German dead would be buried nearby, the same as the American dead.
The supervising sergeant, Leroy Simmons, heard some commotion over by a wrecked German halftrack. He went over to investigate. There, in the wreckage, was the body of a dead German soldier, his pockets were unbuttoned, it looked as though personal belongings had been taken from the corpse. Three men were laughing and horsing around. They got quiet when they saw Simmons. Who glared at the three.
"Hand 'em over. I know you clowns helped yourselves to this dead Kraut's stuff. That ain't right fellas, give it here."
Two of the soldiers looked sheepish and began to pull items out of their pockets. A paybook, an Iron Cross, a Wound Badge, a pair of NCO epaulettes, and various ribbons, two of which the sergeant recognized, the Eastern Front Medal, and the Iron Cross 2nd Class. One soldier looked back at the sergeant with defiance.
"Why we gotta give the stuff back? This Kraut is dead, he don't care." Said the defiant private.
"I've told ya before Jackson, if you get caught by the Krauts, and you have stuff from one of their guys, they'll shoot your dumb ass. Now give, or I'll f**kin' shoot ya!"
Jackson pulled a wallet from his trouser pocket and a watch off his wrist, he knew the other guys didn't like him and that they'd rat on him when they could.
"Money too, numbnuts." Sgt. Simmons said, holding his hand out.
"Jesus Sarge, this is bullshit." Jackson protested.
"That's enough, you're on report." His hand was still out, grudgingly, Jackson handed over the money from the German's wallet. There was a photograph as well.
"You're an asshole, Jackson. Seriously, you took a dead guy's photo of his..." Simmons checked the back of the photo, he knew some German, "...his wife? For f**k's sake, have you no shame?"
The men got back to work, they pulled the dead German from the wreckage. It would be two years before Greta Hartmann knew the fate of her Marcus. Unteroffizier Marcus Hartmann, killed in action outside of Kreuzau. He had grown up in Jülich, not fourteen miles from where the Americans buried him in late February of 1945.
Author's Note: There will be a couple more posts in this series, we're not across the Rhine just yet!
Link to all of The Chant's fiction.
Graves registration must have been a nightmare job.
ReplyDeleteI read a story while doing the research for this post where a bunch of draftees discovered they were going to Graves Registration, they nearly mutinied.
Delete(Don McCollor)...Sarge, you are channeling Private Ryan...One dog tag would be pinned to clothing and the other tacked to a cross or rife butt.) ..Never read about what they did with dogs when there was nothing else left...BTW Some Quartermaster corps troops (Graves Registration) landed with the gliders in Normandy. They kept their mission pretty quiet..
ReplyDeleteIf possible, the casualty's unit would take one tag for reporting on the loss. The other stayed with the body for identification by Graves Registration.
DeleteSome folks (Beddows) get stripes on their sleeve and think they've become God....too many people like Jackson in this world also. Both should be transferred to a combat unit.
ReplyDeleteJuvat's old saw about a 19 year old with a badge and a gun. Kettenhunde in all armies are often despised.
DeleteThose who rob the dead are particularly disgusting.
Yep, you nailed the mental picture I have of every Air Policeman I ever ran across.
DeleteYou have to read one of the posts of Lex about this officer he knew with an alcohol problem.
DeleteThey caught him driving and tried to give him every break and let someone pick them up because they knew it would be a career ender.
They told him to call the officer of the day and he laughs as I am the officer of the day.
That ended it for him.
I’m sure that description is pretty much for many of them but not all.
Juvat - We're on the same page.
DeleteWilliam - I remember that story.
DeleteThat pic of the flak wagon... Guy looks like he just fell asleep, in a thoroughly wrecked truck. I've heard about a truck my old company used to use. I think they called it a 300. It would fall apart if it rolled onto it's side. I don't remember how many drivers died in those things, but if it fell over, it looked like a deck of cards spilled on the floor. I don't remember who made it, but it had a Ford engine... That flak reminded me of that... When they retired them, they just pushed them over with a forklift and they fell into a pile. Scary...
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine being in graves registration, especially in the Pacific...
Some men killed by artillery didn't have a mark on them, like you say, looked like they were asleep.
DeleteThat photo above, the man is a crewman on an Sd.Kfz. 251/21, a halftrack mounting triple 20mm AA cannon. The one in the picture was destroyed either by artillery or aerial bombs.
When I first saw that photo, I was struck by the dead German looking so, I guess intact is the word I'm looking for, as he lies in his shattered halftrack. The picture haunted me for a few days. I decided to use it in this post. Both sides lost people who were loved by someone, they had families, they were missed.
I wanted to remember, and honor the memories, of the men who fell, on both sides.
You did well, Sarge - thank you for the wherewithal to write about such 'minor' parts of the war that had such impact to an individual and their family.
DeleteAnd I had the exact same thoughts as STxAR (which is often the case, I swear he can read my mind!). The German looked like he was asleep, and I wouldn't want to be in graves registration anywhere, but the duty in frozen Europe would have been much preferred over that in the sweltering Pacific. I guess the latter must have gotten at least somewhat used to the smell, but I don't know how.
I don't know how those men tolerated it.
DeleteI was a tour guide for the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa for the returning veterans. Some of the stories I heard......One that sticks out is one of the guys was coming back to the rear for some odd reason, after the Battle of Sugar Loaf Hill. He said the Graves Registraion folks were using things that looked like giant spatulas to roll what was left of the bodies into the bags. He said it took him 10 years to get his sense of smell back after that battle.
DeleteDang!
Delete@Coffee Man - if you want to get a sense for the Pacific with the Marines read With the Old Guard by Eugene Sledge. He didn't write it until the 1080s, and then as a cathartic experience. Too many nightmares all these years. The Series The Pacific borrowed heavily from this book.
Deletehttps://www.amazon.com/Old-Breed-At-Peleliu-Okinawa/dp/0891419063/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=with+the+old+guard+marine&qid=1614285448&sr=8-1
William, in case you're wondering, Coffee Man is retired Marine Corps.
DeleteI read that book multiple times. And it's sequel China Marine. My uncle fought at Okinawa, too. He never talked about it. I figure I know why now...
DeleteI bought a copy shortly after watching The Pacific. Good book.
Delete(Don McCollor)...Tarawa was small. A transport pilot landing afterwards noted that half the island was runway. The other half was covered with crosses....
ReplyDeleteI just finished reading Ian Toll's account of the attack on Betio Island (part of the Tarawa Atoll, which had many little islands), bloodbath describes it very well.
DeleteThere's a reason so many including me call that action 'Tarawa, Bloody Tarawa.'
DeleteThe combat photos of dead bodies floating in front of the seawall shocked everyone. Everyone. That attack caused a complete revision of US tactics in the Central Pacific. Like, for once, Big Army actually listening to their Marine Corps advisers on amphibious warfare.
More Amtracks, more armor on the Amtracks, a rear ramp on the Amtracks, armoring and up-arming Amtracks into amphib tanks, and more Amtracks. Plus cranes on DUKWs, and supplies landing right after the first wave.
And... better, quicker ways to bury the dead. Not much one can do with those who were atomized, except to burn everything after Graves Registration went through.
Wish they would make a movie about Tarawa, so people can see the horror. On the other hand, I don't think anyone really wants to see that.
The photos of Marine dead floating in the surf was a huge shock.
DeleteAnd a lot of that was because the Navy refused to listen to this Australian coast watcher about the tides - so many were stuck in the coral 100s of yards off shore
DeleteThe Navy and Marine Corps knew about the tides, but their timetable fell apart. They had the amtrak which could go right over those coral reefs at low tide. But they didn't have enough of them. The key mistake made at Tarawa (technically Betio) was the overestimation of the damage that would be caused by naval gunfire and aerial bombardment.
DeleteIt would seem they repeatedly over estimated the damage from shell bombardment from one island to another. Look at Iwo Jima
DeleteIwo Jima was a lot different, Mt Suribachi was riddled with caves, deep ones.
DeleteThank you for showing one of the least popular and most nasty jobs in WWII.
ReplyDeleteYou handled the issue like the gentleman you are. Good job dealing with handling personal effects. Always wished there was some gentlemen's agreement that dog tags and personal effects would go into an envelope for repatriation after the war, but then again, if we were all gentlemen, total war wouldn't be needed.
A sad side effect of war. The need to take care of the bodies.
And, yes, in the Pacific, the heat and humidity really made dealing with dead bodies very nasty.
Thanks Beans.
DeleteI have often th0ought that being on the graves detail would be worse than the front lines. And you'd see things you couldn't unsee. For the remainder of your life. I guess too under these conditions you see both the best in Man and the worst.
ReplyDeleteNope, being on the front line you get to see the same things, and you're getting shot at.
Delete(Don McCollor)..[one I can not find on the internet anymore]...An AF officer escorting the body of a comrade home to the UP of Michigan on a cold winter day. They put the casket on a horse drawn hay wagon with a few old WW1 American Legion men escorting it. The boy's mother was there too - a poor widow who had lost her only son in the war. She had dyed her only good dress black. He attended the funeral Sitting stiff as an officer should while trying to comfort her grief...
ReplyDeleteMust have been devastating for her.
DeleteWhen my uncle died we went through his things and there was a huge flag saying gold star mothers. His mother lost her brother in the great war and family lore was that an angel appeared during the night to tell her that he was all right. This was before she knew he was killed. But after World War I, the government allowed widows and mothers free passage to Europe to see their sons if they so desired.
DeleteInteresting.
DeleteHey AFSarge,
ReplyDeleteWhen we were deployed, we wore one set and had one set wove in our boots because boots tend to survive explosions better than well "us". And there were scum that looted the bodies of the dead, And I recall hearing about the Germans would be brutal to any GI's that had any personal effects of a German Soldier, we did the same thing as did other Armies.
Yup.
DeleteSarge, cannot thank you enough for writing about something that I have really thought very little about. Did the Americans burying the Germans do similar graveyards to what I associate with Normandy? (I really should know this, but I have no idea).
ReplyDeleteAlso, story starter thought: through a series of rabbit holes this afternoon, I ended up re-acquainting myself with the Battle of Iwo Jima. Maybe food for a story? Confined campaign, limited time, compelling characters (the two Japanese commanders, Tadamichi Kuribayashi and Takeichi Nishi, both had been to the US and Kuribayashi wrote that "America is the last country in the world Japan should fight".)
Of course, if you do the whole war, I am in for that as well...
Typically the dead would be moved to one of the major war cemeteries. Both for the Americans and the Germans.
DeleteA German military cemetery tends to be a lot more somber than an American. I visited one when stationed in Germany.
@STxARm fir some reason, at least in my mind, Okinawa doesn't get the attention it should. And yet, correct me if ZI am wrong, it was the bloodies of all by far. It was the casualties and the ferociousness of the Japanese - and the civilians, that had the Pentagon thinking about the Bomb.
ReplyDeleteThe Japanese expected a homeland invasion, starting with Kyushu, then Honshu. And they mobilized the civilians under their plan, Ketsu-Go. The Sledge book sure educated me about all those islands, but particularly Okinawa.
Kadena Air Base was to serve as the springboard to Kyushu.
Much of the Pacific War is unknown to people, Okinawa was the bloodiest battle by far.
DeleteA most essential, if distasteful, task, almost never spoken of. Thanks for including it.
ReplyDeleteHonorable men, mostly, and undoubtedly haunted by their jobs. But, there is a grim satisfaction caring for the dead the best they can, knowing that they are doing it for the loved ones at home. Had some sobering comments from a Gulf War Marine who did the job. May god bless them all, and their companions.
Great photo of the Drilling, compounding the impact of the words.
JB
A little known facet of any war. Those folks did incredible work, I don't envy them, they have not been given the recognition they deserve.
DeleteSpeaking of Graves Registration, during my CENTCOM tour after we went into Iraq, I remember helping draft a requirements letter for additional specialized body bags for those who died due to chemical weapons, and PPE for those who would bury them. Which, at the time, we thought would be a more wide-spread problem than it turned out to be. The plan was to bury the dead in place, then later come back once we could deal with the chems.
ReplyDeleteHaving spent time on an NBC decontamination team, that would have been a problem.
Delete