Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:36 | After the war in the Pacific, Curtis Banker got married, but the Army still beckoned and he reenlisted in 1947. After a year of driving a target tank on the Fort Benning firing range, he got orders to ship out to Korea, where a desperate force was clinging to a perimeter around Pusan.
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After training for over a year on both large and small artillery weapons, Curtis Banker deployed to the Pacific, where he manned a howitzer mounted on a tank chassis. On New Guinea, his men found that even lighter armored vehicles were at the mercy of the mud.
Tanks weren't used the same way in the Pacific as they were in Europe, but Curtis Banker was a loader on an unusual armored vehicle that came ashore at the Luzon beachhead. The 105mm howitzer mounted on a tank chassis was an effective weapon where the terrain allowed, but the lack of cover for the loader meant that bullets were always whizzing by his ears.
Curtis Banker was with an armored artillery unit in the push to take back the Philippines when he had to be evacuated with a serious illness. He recovered fine but he nearly wound up as an unassigned replacement when he was ready to return to service. He said no, I am going back to my own unit. After the atomic bomb settled the war, he got a brief look at the homeland of the enemy.
At first the tank battalion supported the line around Pusan, but then they became a part of the huge landing at Inchon. Tank Driver Curtis Banker drove his vehicle ashore with only one boot, which still makes him laugh.
Curtis Banker's armored unit was part of the force that came into Hungnam to support the Infantry and Marines who were "advancing in a different direction" out of North Korea. After the evacuation of thousands of civilians and Allied personnel, and as they were sailing away, he saw the warehouses full of supplies burning, torched so the enemy would not benefit.
Curtis Banker shares his memories of growing up in rural NY during the depression, being in the Army during WWII (43rd Infantry Division, Pacific Theater), the Korean War (73rd Heavy Tank Battalion), and spending the Cold War in Germany, and the many lif
Curtis Banker shares his memories of growing up in rural NY during the depression, being in the Army during WWII (43rd Infantry Division, Pacific Theater), the Korean War (73rd Heavy Tank Battalion), and spending the Cold War in Germany, and the many lif
Curtis Banker shares his memories of growing up in rural NY during the depression, being in the Army during WWII (43rd Infantry Division, Pacific Theater), the Korean War (73rd Heavy Tank Battalion), and spending the Cold War in Germany, and the many lif
