Page 119 - Anthology

I was born in 1924 in Leesburg, Harrison County, Kentucky. My family moved to Bourbon County,
Kentucky, in my senior year of high school.

When Pearl Harbor happened, I was put into the draft status. I had a low number, so I started college at
Transylvania in Lexington. I completed a quarter then I saw that my number was getting close and in fact
I was drafted into The Army Air Corps in April of 1943.

At the time no one knew how long WWII would last. I was able to get into an Army specialized training
program for engineering at North Carolina State College. While in this study program I was able to take
and pass a pre-med test and enter that program of study at The University of Kentucky. I just knew that
everyone was going to select pre-med, so I selected the dental program – that is why I got in. During the
pre-med phase, which everyone had to take, they dropped the dental program. I was sent to medical
basic training and after finishing that I went to the 10 Mountain Division down in Texas. The 10 had
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undergone ski and mountain training at Camp Hale, Colorado, and had moved to Camp Swift, Texas, for
mule training.

Main entrance to the Camp Swift facility of the 10th Mountain Division during World War II

I joined the 10 just a few days before departing for Italy. We were assigned to take Mt Belvedere in Italy.
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During World War Two, 13,000 soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division were sent to Italy to fight the
Germans; nearly a thousand would die.

I was a litter bearer along with three others. We went out on night attacks. We followed the 2d Battalion
of the 87 Regiment. We were told to stay back while the platoon moved forward to engage the
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Germans. They came upon what they thought was an open field and one of the Sergeants wanted to get
close enough to toss a grenade into a German bunker that was on the other side of the field. But the
open field was actually a mine field. He stepped on a mine and it blew his foot off. Our job was to go get
him. One man from our team decided that he would not go. The remaining three of us went out. It was
in February 1945, and there was ten to twelve inches of snow on the ground. We made our way to him
and I looked him over.

He wasn’t bleeding; hardly at all. I gave him a shot of morphine and we were in the process of opening
up a folding litter when the German machine gunner opened up fire on us. I don’t think he saw us. I think
he heard us and started firing. It went over our heads. It scared us to death. I started pulling my helmet
down over my knees. After the shooting stopped, we dragged the Sergeant off the mine field and headed
for the aid station.