Welcome to the America’s Veterans Stories podcast. Kim Monson is your host. John Schaffner turned eighteen on August 11, 1942 and was drafted into the Army on March 7, 1943. We are re-broadcasting an interview where Schaffner shares experiences of training at the Tennessee Maneuver area. Schaffner describes his trip across the Atlantic, arriving in England, and ultimately in Belgium. Before dawn on December 16th, 1944, his position came under heavy German fire and the Battle of the Bulge began. _________________________________________________ Copyright 2023: America’s Veteran’s Stories Visit us at www.americasveteransstories.com America’s Veteran’s Stories airs on KLZ Radio every Sunday
SPEAKER 03 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and her other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Monson.
SPEAKER 10 :
And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. And the show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. Returned stateside realizing that we need to know these stories. We need to broadcast them and archive them. Hence, America’s Veterans Stories was born. But we have such a treasure trove of interviews that we thought it might be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear history from the men and women who lived it. I am thrilled to have on the line with me John Schaffner. John, how are you doing today? Yeah, still hitting on all eight. Thank you. Well, I’m glad to hear that. That’s for sure. And, John, you are a World War II veteran, and you served in the 106th Infantry Division, right? That’s correct. Okay, can you break that down a little bit more for us? What makes up an infantry division?
SPEAKER 05 :
Sure. An infantry division comprised of about 14,000 men. It’s divided up into three infantry regiments, which are supported by four artillery battalions, and of course is comprised with engineers, medics, mechanics, other support people. So that’s the general makeup of Infantry Division.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. And you served in the European Theater. And just so all of you listeners know, you can actually go to indianamilitary.org. Yes. Find John’s complete story. This is really, really fascinating. It’s extensive. So go to indianamilitary.org. And then where you see over, it says, let’s see, bios and all that kind of information. Click on that, and then all these guys’ stories come up, and you’ll see John’s story there, and you can click on that. So again, that’s indianamilitary.org. So let’s jump in here. John, where were you when you heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, I was in a movie, as a matter of fact, that day. And they stopped the movie, and the theater manager came out on the stage and announced that Pearl Harbor had been bombed, and it certainly looked like we were going to be officially in the war.
SPEAKER 10 :
Were you surprised?
SPEAKER 05 :
I suppose so. I suppose I was surprised. I was still in high school, so… It wasn’t until Pearl Harbor hit us that… everybody realized that their lives were going to be changed.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s for sure. And yours was because you graduated from high school, and then you were drafted, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. I turned 18 in my senior year, and I, of course, registered for the draft. And I was out, I graduated, I was out two weeks and in uniform.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wow, that’s pretty astonishing. And so when you were drafted, did you indicate which branch of the service you’d like to serve in?
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s kind of funny. Sure. The recruiter said, you know, what branch of the service would you like? I said, I’ve liked airplanes all my life. I’d like to get in the Air Force. And he looks at me and he says, oh, you’re wearing glasses. You can’t go in the Air Force. And I said, well, a lot of my friends are in the Navy. And he said, stop, stop. He says, the Navy’s full. I have to put you in the Army. But since you wear glasses, I’m going to stamp your papers. Limited service, which he did. So there I was. I stood there with my papers that said limited service. I thought, what does this mean? I’ll probably be shuffling papers at Fort Meade the rest of the time. Well, of course I wasn’t. There was a shortage of infantry and a… infantry at that time. No choice.
SPEAKER 10 :
So you ended up in the 106th Infantry Division then at that time?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, yes. We went through our basic indoctrination at Fort Meade, which was only about a couple days, and then a whole trainload of us mounted up and wound up in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where in March of 1943, the division was activated.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. And tell us, while you were at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, about your carbine.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, we were issued a carbine. The artillery had a lot of work to do with their hands, you might say. And an M1 rifle was considerably heavier and would be in the way of what we were doing. There were cannoneers that had to hop around the howitzer all the time handling heavy ammunition, and rifles like the M1 were not suitable. So infantry guys were issued the M1 and, of course, other rifles, BAR, Thompson, and so on. Artillery were all issued the smaller carbine. It was .30 caliber. The magazine held 15 rounds, but it didn’t have quite the range or accuracy of the M1 rifle, but it was adequate. I never had any problems with mine.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and John, one of the things I found interesting in your biography is that you mentioned that these carbines were stamped with different manufacturing companies that you would never dream were in the firearms business.
SPEAKER 05 :
When we got into the war hammer and tongs, all the manufacturing industry that was suitable was put to work making implements of war. And our carbines were made by Rockola Jukebox Company, Wurlitzer, Singer Sewing Machine, I can’t think of all the names.
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s astounding just how everyone came together to support this war effort. Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER 05 :
Any machine shop that was able to manufacture what was needed was given a defense contract. So, you know, we were turning out stuff. Almost impossible to think about. Liberty ships were being launched at the rate of one a day near the end of the war. One a day a ship.
SPEAKER 10 :
That is astounding.
SPEAKER 05 :
It was all production line stuff, modular construction. All the pieces came together at the shipyard, and the welders went to work putting it together.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wow. It is astounding. It was. Let’s talk a little bit more about training, though. You said, tell us about the war games that your battalion, you know, took part in as training.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, we started out, you know, one, two, three, four, drilling for several weeks and learning the points of what our specialty was. And then the battery commander one day came out and said, well, fellas, we’re going out into the field for a week. And we thought, okay, we’re in South Carolina. The weather’s not too bad. It won’t be so hard. So we went out in the field for a week, and then we came back in and cleaned everything up and then went back out in the field for a week. And then for a month, well, come January, around the first of the year, we were transferred into the Tennessee maneuver area, which is up in the hills of Tennessee, and there was no shelter there. And we performed maneuvers for January, February, and March out in the field the whole time.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, it was important training, though, to prepare you for what was coming up then, wasn’t it? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And so then from the Tennessee field maneuvers, you went to Camp Atterbury in Indiana. Tell us just a little bit about that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, Camp Atterbury. We wound up there around the 1st of March. No, near the end of March, I guess it was. Anyway, on the way, we had vehicles, and we all drove Jeeps and trucks. And on the way, the weather got better. And I thought, man, Indiana, all I could think of was the Stephen Foster songs. I thought, Indiana’s going to be neat. When we pulled into Camp Atterbury, the temperature was just above freezing, and the wind was blowing hard enough to blow your mustache off. Uh-oh, we’re in for more bad weather. But it did get better, and we trained further until June. And then when D-Day happened, apparently the… Eisenhower’s staff and whoever was running the war decided that we were going to take a lot of casualties during the invasion. So they reached out for trained troops for replacements, and they transferred about half of our division to replacement depots in Europe and then filled in those slots with… The troops that they thought were no longer necessary, like Coast Artillery, the threat of invasion had not materialized. The Air Force at that time had enough pilots in the pipeline, so anybody that was training to be a pilot was transferred out into the infantry. So the division was half trained and half untrained. But by the time we got to Europe around the first of December, everybody was pretty much on board, I think. We were ready to go.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. So you’ve crossed the ocean, and you’re in England now. So what happens after that, John Schaffner?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, when we got to England, we were placed in a camp near the town of Gloucester. They called it the Gloucestershire Barracks, and it apparently had been a part of the British Army. They were typical small one-story buildings that were furnished with double-decker bunks, but no plumbing, just a little potbelly stove at the end of the big room. And what they called the ablutions was… building at the end of the street, not much of a street, but anyway, it was a building dedicated to showers. during daylight you were in trouble because every night was foggy and rainy and it was blackout conditions so there was no light anywhere and when you walked out of the door If you didn’t know how to get to where you were going, you were in big trouble because you really couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It was that dark. The first time I ever saw it that dark. There was no skylight. Nothing penetrated that fog from the sky. And there was no artificial light. So there was just no light at all. Wow. Anyway, you know, we could handle that. Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Now, we’re talking, is this December of 44 now?
SPEAKER 1 :
44.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. And so you’re in England. And what happens after that, John Schaffner?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, about December the 6th, we were alerted to move. And… All of the equipment that we needed had been withdrawn from the dumps, that is, vehicles, howitzers, all the heavy stuff had preceded us there. So we drew our equipment and drove to the town of Weymouth, which is down on the coast. And it was one of the ports that the British were using to transfer troops from England across the Channel. So we crossed the Channel, I guess, between the 1st and the 5th of May. December. And then the ship just circled around in the channel for about a day and a half, maybe two. bouncing up and down. This was an LST. And when it came our time to go up the Seine River, the ship got in line, and it was one ship after the other going up the Seine River. And they were close enough to where you could almost throw a baseball from one to the other, like circus elephants, one holding the tail of the one in front. went all the way to Rouen on the Seine River and beached the LSTs and drove off. And the division assembled in a huge field somewhere just north of the town. And when everybody was there, we formed up a convoy and began driving east. went up through France, through Belgium, and 99% of us had no idea where we were going. And we wound up just inside the German border near a place called Herzfen. And this was a place where the 2nd Division had been in position for quite a long time and was considered a rest area. However, nothing was happening there yet. And the line there, I call it the line, kind of paralleled the German border from Aachen in the north down to Switzerland in the south and Three divisions were in the front. 99th in the north, 106th in the middle, and 28th in the south. Okay. Hey, John, let’s go to— 99th and 106th were both green divisions. Never heard a shot fired in anger. The 28th had been moved in there from the battle at Hurricane Forest, and it was pretty beat up. So the three divisions were out of front of about 26 miles.
SPEAKER 10 :
Excuse me. John, I tell you what, let’s go to break, and let’s continue with this story. I’ve got to back up anyway. Okay, sounds great. We’re going to go to break. And a sponsor that I greatly appreciate for America’s Veterans Stories is Hooters Restaurants. They have locations in Loveland, Westminster, and in Aurora on Parker Road. And great specials Monday through Friday for lunch and for happy hour. Great place to get together with your friends to watch the sporting events and just have some great food. In particular, their fish and chips and their nachos are delicious. I hear that their fish tacos are quite good as well. So, again, thank you to Hooters Restaurants for their sponsorship of the show. The official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado in Golden at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977. And it is time for a facelift. And the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently. to raise the funds to make that happen. And a great way that you can honor our military, to say thank you to those people who have put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom, is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk. And it was founded for several reasons. One, to honor our Medal of Honor recipients. And they do that through… Over 160 portraits of valor of Medal of Honor recipients. But additionally, they are teaching these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism through many of their educational programs and also their On Values presentations. So for more information about the center, go to AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.org. This is Kim Monson with the World War II Project. We’re talking with World War II veteran John Shafter. We will be right back.
SPEAKER 09 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening. Hey, welcome back to the AmeriChicks World War II Project with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out my website, AmeriChicks.com. And check out my Facebook, AmeriChicks, as well as that’s where I am on Twitter also. Talking with World War II veteran John Schaffner with the 106th Infantry Division. We’re talking about his experience in the European theater in World War II. So, John, it is such an honor to get to talk with you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you. I started to talk about the front that we were assigned to defend, and it was about a 65-mile-long stretch that was divided up between the three divisions. Normally, an infantry division would have four miles, maybe maximum five miles up front. and wound up with these three divisions having about 20 miles each to defend. Very thin, very thin. And what made it even worse was that the Germans had been there. They knew where we were, and they knew that we didn’t have the facility to defend if they attacked. with a rifle and a shovel. We didn’t know anything. Word never seems to get down to that level, which is probably good. I don’t know. Anyway, we had two green divisions and one beat-up division, and none of us were able to mount an effective defensive line. So on December 16th, when the Germans attacked, it was not a difficult thing for them to mass their troops in front of us and surround our positions, which were just thinly defended. So they came through us like water through a sieve, you might say. The 106th Band right in the center took the brunt of the attack. A lot of their positions were surrounded by the Germans, and they could only hold out as long as they had ammunition and food, and that ran out in about two days. So essentially two regiments of the 106th were surrendered. And that amounted to about 6,000 that were made prisoners. There’s about 500 and some were killed during the battle. I don’t have really accurate numbers, so you have to excuse me for that. It seems like every time you pick up a different book, because statistics are different anyway. But anyway, as I can… Close as I can tell you, it was a chaotic experience. Being in the artillery, we were behind the infantry line, and I kind of figured we were relatively safe. And the infantry line collapsed, and that left the artillery next in line, and we had to scramble.
SPEAKER 10 :
So what happened exactly then, John?
SPEAKER 05 :
The 589th Funeratory Battalion was made up of three firing batteries, A, B, and C, and a headquarters battery. And when the Germans came into our position, they surrounded the battery, and captured almost all those people intact. There were some casualties. A battery commander was killed and several of the enlisted men before they surrendered. But then A and B batteries were able to extricate their howitzers and vehicles and move back. several miles, and before these two batteries could get set up, the Germans were on us again, and I had to move again, and when that happened, we lost all the howitzers from B Battery, and only three howitzers from A Battery got on the road. We wound up with about 125 or 130 men and three howitzers out of about 500 men and 12 howitzers at that point. Now, time marches on. That was the 16th and the 17th of December. The 18th of December, we found ourselves driving around behind the lines with no communications with any higher command. Of course, sooner or later, somebody finds out where you are and they say, you know, go here and do that. And what happened was whoever sent the orders down told our commander to split up his forces. take the weapons and go to this place where there’s a crossroads and defend the crossroads. And the other half of the troops were to go to some area further back where they would be in reserve. I was a lucky one. I happened to be in the group that went to defend the crossroads.
SPEAKER 10 :
That doesn’t sound lucky. That sounds like the more dangerous thing.
SPEAKER 05 :
It was. It turned out to be what was later written up as an Alamo defense. If I had heard anybody say Alamo at that time, I don’t know what I’d have done. But anyway, we found ourselves at this crossroads that later on I found out it ran between Bastogne and Liège. And it was the main road that the Germans had to acquire to continue their advance. So, anyway, I don’t think any of us realized the precarious position we were in. But we set up with the three Alexers, defended three of the roads to this place. It was known as Raktapratur. later to be called Parker’s Crossroads. And that was for Major Arthur Parker, who was our commander at the time. We had gone through a couple commanders. Anyway, we set up there on the 17th, 18th, on the 19th of December. The Germans were held up down at Bastogne, but finally they decided to bypass that and come north. And when they did, we were in the way. So it was all quiet on the day of the 19th, but that evening I find myself in a foxhole. on the road where the Germans are going to come up. And I had no idea. I didn’t know where I was. Didn’t know north from south. Didn’t know anything, except the captain said, you two go down there and get that foxhole and keep us informed if the Germans attack. But we had a telephone and a wire back to the command post. And about midnight, very, very quiet, myself and this other fellow, we hear this strange noise, like a swishing sound. And it turned out to be about a dozen German soldiers on bicycles. And the swishing sound was made by them coming up this wet road with a little dust and snow on it. And we had a string of mines across the road in front of us to stop any vehicles. Well, when the bicycles got to those mines, these guys stopped and began talking about what to do. Of course, they didn’t know where they were either. So I picked up our telephone, and I gave the crank just a little twist, And the captain came on the phone, and he said, what do you have? We have about a dozen Germans at the road right in front of us. Well, he says, I’ll fire my .45, and you guys just get down as low as you can in the hole, and we’ll open up with this M16 half-track that had four .50 caliber machine guns on it, and we’ll sweep the road. And then when we stop that, I’ll fire my .45 again. That’ll be a signal for you to get out of the hole and come back to the command post as fast as you can.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s basically what happened. When they stopped firing those machine guns, the other guy and myself got out of the hole, and we ran back to the command post. And, of course, on the way back, it didn’t all go well. As I approached one of the howitzer positions, a guy took a shot at me. And I was calling the password out, but it didn’t seem to matter. So I used some other language. And then he realized I was an American. I guess he stopped firing. Anyway, he missed me. Okay, well, that’s… So anyway, that was my first experience being shot at and missed.
SPEAKER 10 :
John Schaffner, I’m thinking that, you know, you’re just this young American kid. Here you are across the big blue ocean. You’re in a foxhole. Why? Why did you do this?
SPEAKER 05 :
Good question. I think all of us had the attitude that it had to be done, and we were going to take our chances. At that age, I guess you think you’re bulletproof. I don’t know. I don’t think anybody that I encountered was worried about being killed. It was happening, but I guess you think it’s never going to happen to you.
SPEAKER 1 :
I don’t know.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, well, let’s continue on. So you have gotten back to, was it the command where you were headed back to? You got back there. What happened after that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, well, we’re all in position around this crossroads, you know, with a string of foxholes. And we were armed with three howitzers. There were three anti-aircraft guns. M16 half-tracks, which I just described having four 50-caliber machine guns on them. There was a scout car with a 37-millimeter little cannon on it. And that and all the small arms is what we had. And we had no means of resupply. So what we had to defend with ammunition, when the ammunition was gone, We were done for. But we held it until the 22nd of December. And the night of the 23rd, as it got dark, the Germans attacked it in force. They captured most of the guys that were there. A lot of them were wounded. I think a few were killed. I was in a position where I could get away. Myself and another guy were in this little stone farmhouse trying to get warm when the When the wall came in on top of us, I’d say it was hit by an artillery shell, I guess. Anyway, we didn’t wait to find out if they were going to send another one. We went out the door. It was about almost getting dark, and there was about 12 cows in the road between us and the woods. So we ducked between these cows. and started down across his field. And my buddy was hit. I still don’t know what happened to him, but probably a mortar shell went off too close to him, and he went down. But I went over to see what was going on with him. I had no idea what I was going to do. He was too heavy for me to carry. And I just happened to look down in the woods, and there comes a couple of American soldiers out of the woods. And I motioned to them to come up, which they did. It turned out they were from a patrol of guys from the 82nd Airborne Division. And between the three of us, we got our buddy. out of danger. He was pretty badly wounded. So the 82nd guys put him on a jeep and took him out. And he wound up in a hospital and never got back to us. I never saw him again until 1986. We had a reunion in South Carolina and he showed up. And that was the next time I saw him. Wow. And, of course, we’ve developed a friendship over the years. He’s still alive.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
Although he’s still, he’s walking with a walker now.
SPEAKER 1 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
Not as good a shape as I am.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, you’re doing an awesome, awesome job, John Schaffner. So what happens after that then?
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, now we have no more 589th Field Artillery Battalion. They’re all gone. The few of us that got away from the crossroads before we were captured or killed or wounded wound up in other units. And I found the 592nd Field Artillery Battalion the next day. And I didn’t sign anything or anything, but I was accepted into their unit and wound up being an observer. And I worked in their, what they called their Far Direction Control Center, which was a job where I received… target information from an observer and transposed that into directions for the howitzers to fire. Gave them coordinates and directions from the observer. So I had it pretty easy.
SPEAKER 10 :
John, let’s go to break. When we come back, let’s continue on with your story. And I think there’s kind of an interesting personal story with the 592nd and a shower or bath or something. So let’s go to break and we’ll be right back. This is Kim Monson with the AmeriChicks World War II Project.
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SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening. Hey, welcome back to the AmeriChicks World War II Project. I’m Kim Monson. I’m talking with World War II veteran John Schaffner about his experience in European theater in World War II. These are just fascinating stories. John, first of all, thank you. Thank you so much for granting this interview. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, I’m glad I can do it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. And so there was no longer any of the 589th because it had taken significant losses.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, the two that were left were scattered around to other outfits. So I had a pretty easy compared to what I had gone through. And so one of the things that was kind of interesting, could have been a tragedy, I guess, but it wasn’t. I was on an observation post with a lieutenant and a radio operator, and we were in the attic of a house where we could oversee the area where we thought the Germans were. And we had a radio hookup back to the command post. Here, you take care of my weapon here. I’ll have to go outside and take care of business. Okay. So the weapon that he referred to was called a grease gun. It was officially an M3 submachine gun. And it looked like a grease gun. I had never seen one before, but I picked it up. And I said to the radio operator, I said, I wonder how you operate this thing. It had a little crank on the side. So I got dumb and happy. I pulled the crank back, and when I let it go, it fired a bullet. Bang! Fortunately, it went out the window. When the lieutenant came back, I thought I was going to catch it. He says, what’s going on up here? I said, what? I saw some Germans out there, and I just took a pot shot at them. I said, oh. That was the end of that. That was the end of that. Nothing happened there. Okay. Anyway, I learned then to keep my hands off of something I didn’t know what it was all about.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, that’s probably good advice, John Schaffner, that’s for sure. Now, personal stories. I find this interesting about this shower, this bath. Tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah. I’ll tell you about the first bath I got after the battle. The sergeant went around, he was looking sober, and he says, you, you, you, and you, you. And he picked out about a dozen of us. He says, get on a truck and take a towel and a change of underwear. You’re going to go get a shower. I said, okay. So we all piled in the truck, and we wound up in the town of Spa in Belgium. Spa is like a little resort town. It had mineral baths, you know, that sort of thing. So we lined up in front of this building, and like everything else, you stand in line and you wait, and finally it becomes my turn. I’m first in line, and this door opens. This woman comes, and she speaks French, and I don’t speak anything but English. So she points at me and clicks her fingers and says, come on. And it’s bathrooms on both sides of the hall. They’re just kind of sparse. Just a big tub in the middle and I think one chair in the corner. So she directs me into this bathroom and goes over to the tub and turns the taps on and walks out. Well, I stand there and I watch the tub fill it up and it’s getting pretty high. I thought, well, she’s not coming back. So I go over to turn the taps off. First of all, I take off all my clothes to get in the tub, and then go over to turn the taps off, and she walked back in the room. And, you know, that’s the first time that a woman has seen me bare naked since my mother gave me a bath in the sink. So that was a new thing for me. But later on, when the positions were kind of static, the engineers would put a pump in a stream or a river and pump the water out through a filter and into a heater. And they had constructed a web of pipes with shower heads. And they would get the water moving and get it warmed up and start pumping it. And we would get in there under the shower heads and soap up and clean off. And probably put our same old dirty clothes back on.
SPEAKER 10 :
Probably felt better. Anyway, it was a way to get clean. I was always wondering, John Schaffner, as I’ve done these interviews, and you guys didn’t get to shower very often. I’m kind of like wondering, could the Germans not smell you guys?
SPEAKER 1 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
We were pretty cruddy, but it was day in and day out. You just live it one day at a time and not worry about it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, let’s move on just a little bit. Oh, you don’t get hurt. You’re doing all right. That’s for sure. Let’s talk about, and again, I’m taking a look at these are your memoirs that you have on indianamilitary.org. This is John Schaffner. And certainly, I mean, there’s all kinds of history here, but this is your personal story. So we’ve got, you know, maybe a couple more stories left. What should we hit? Should we hit rebuilding the 106th or where would you like to go?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, that’s a good plan. The war was actually over on May the 8th. Prior to that, we had been in action up in Germany. and had not been filled in where the casualties were incurred. We were not up to strength, is what I mean to say. So we began to take in replacements. They pulled us out of Germany and sent us back to France to a place that became known as Camp Jones. And there was an area that was allocated to artillery firing to train the artillery, the howitzers’ crews. So… One day they sent the unit out to fire the howitzers on this range, and for whatever reason I didn’t go. I don’t know why, but anyway, I was still in camp, and the first sergeant said, to me to go over to the motor pool and get a truck and a driver and then go out to the German POW camp, which was not far, and get a truckload of German prisoners and take them out to the firing range. The commander out there wants them to do some menial tests, dig a latrine trench and So he gave me a little piece of paper with a sketch on it about showing the roads to take. And I was not familiar with the area at all. So when I got over to the motor pool and arranged for the truck and the driver, I gave the driver the piece of paper and I said, you know where this is? He says, oh yeah, I know where it is. He says, okay, let’s go, let’s go. Yeah. We started going down the road, and we get to this place where there’s a little road turning off, and the driver says, I think this is it. So we start up the road, and it was not a paved road. It was just more of a farm road or a trail. And we go through this little… shot-up village is just wreckage. There’s a stone wall around the edge of the road where it made a curve. And we proceed on up through the woods, and finally I hear some artillery shells. Boom, boom. I said, well, we’re getting close. And we went a little bit further, and then there was four shells exploded right out in front of us about 200 yards away.
SPEAKER 1 :
hey, we found the range, but we’re at the wrong end. Oh, my gosh. We’re on the receiving end. And the driver says, let’s get the hell out of here.
SPEAKER 05 :
So he put us in reverse, backing up in the woods, crunching little trees, turned around, started down the road again to get out of there. And when we come to this little curve in the road, there was a stone wall about 30 inches high, maybe, and just stone, like farmers, you know, just lay stones. The truck wasn’t going to make the curve. We were going too fast. It started to slide, and it hit that stone wall and rocks through everywhere. And we stopped. The driver put the truck back and reversed it back off, and the wheels turned, but we didn’t move. We got out, and we found out that all ten wheels in that truck were off the ground. They were sitting on stones. I said, go on, get off. And Bob, using sign language, had a pile of stones up underneath the wheels. And we were able to back off. So everybody got back in the truck. I said, let’s go on back. And we went back to the POW pen, checked in the prisoners, went back to the motor pool, checked in the truck and the driver. I went back to the battery position and I said to the sergeant,
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, my gosh. They never missed us. That is quite a story. So we probably have time for one more story. Occupation of Germany, where do you want to go with the next story?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, how about, yes, we’d go to occupation of Germany. We were notified one day that we were going to participate in a campaign an operation, and it had a name, but I can’t think of it right now. But what we were going to do was to get up in the middle of the night, and about two or three in the morning, we were going to occupy this village where the Germans had moved back in. But the mission was to search for and confiscate any Nazi materials of any kind. So that’s what we did. Everybody piled in their trucks and we went into this little village. Wasn’t too many houses. There is middle of the night, we bang on doors and we run all the civilians out into the street and we invade their houses. all the nooks and crannies looking for weapons or any Nazi material and that was kind of interesting it was a lot like what the Nazis did but not near as severe we didn’t hurt anybody and we didn’t arrest anybody but we did find metals, and armbands, like you see on TV, and small things like that. As far as I know, we didn’t find any weapons. And that was interesting.
SPEAKER 10 :
For the people that you pulled out of their homes, how did they react to all this?
SPEAKER 05 :
They were dumbfounded. They didn’t know what was going on. And we didn’t have a common language, so we couldn’t tell them. Nobody got angry or gave us a hard time. I think they just… Went along with it. Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
It was part of war then. But you didn’t hurt anybody. You didn’t take their stuff or anything like that. You just was searching, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, no. Yeah. And I walked out. I’m looking at it now. I have a medal that was awarded to the German women for having children for the Third Reich. It’s called the Deutschen Mutter. in a gold finish to a woman who had eight. That’s eight children for the Third Reich. It was in silver for one that had six children, and in bronze for one who had four. And it’s rather attractive, engraved on the back with a Hitler.
SPEAKER 10 :
And that’s what they were doing. Wow. Boy, now that’s the first time I’ve heard that. But, yeah, I now remember those stories of encouraging.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so I have that, and I have an armband, you know, like the ones they wore around the upper arm. Right, right. With the Nazi swastika on it. And I have an iron cross, which is a German medal, which was given for just about… The one I have is actually a replica. While there on one of my visits, I was escorted around by a Belgian fellow And we were in this town where they were having a yard sale of all military memorabilia. You could buy anything from a bullet to a two-and-a-half-ton truck. It was one of those. Anyway, this one fellow had a display of medals. And I was looking at this one, R. Cross, and this fellow, Henry. I said, do you have one of those? I said, no, I don’t. He said, I’ll give you one. And when we got back to his house, he gave me this Iron Cross medal. And he said that his wife doesn’t like having that stuff hang around because during the Nazi occupation, her family lost about nine people that went to concentration camps. never came back. Wow. So she had a little sympathy for the Germans.
SPEAKER 10 :
Got it. John Schaffner, we are out of time. This has been just fascinating. Love this interview for the World War II Project. Thank you so much, John Schaffner.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you, Kim, for your interest. We don’t want anyone to forget.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you for joining us for this episode of America’s Veterans Stories. While some of the details may be a bit dated, the courage, sacrifice, and stories of our veterans never go out of style. For more incredible stories, past and present, check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com or catch new episodes each week. Until next time, thank you for listening and for honoring those who served. We indeed stand on the shoulders of giants. God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 07 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
