9:28 | Norm Kosarek discusses how he ended up about the USS Wright and his experiences during WWII.
Keywords : USS Wright Pacific Panama Canal
The ice at the Sauer River seemed like it would hold him up but, loaded down with gear, Glen Gooch broke through into the freezing water. He was OK but chilled to the bone. The objective was a hill that the Germans were using for observation.
Michael Mirson was a prisoner of the Germans but that was actually better than being in the Russian Army. He was a trained veterinarian so he was valuable to them as they retreated from the Caucasus. One day, an officer told him that the Americans were fifty kilometers away in that direction and the Russians were close in every other direction. That began a mad dash to the American line.
As the fighting raged around Aachen, Antonio Mendez watched men fall all around him. The Germans had a tank with an 88 dug in and it was forcing them to withdraw. Antonio Mendez saw a perfect spot for cover and dove in. He yelled for others to join him and they soon had a good fighting position set up. Before it was over, he had earned a Silver Star. Part 1 of 2.
They fought hard to take and keep the top of that hill. Both sides had on white snow gear and you couldn't tell friend from foe. Glen Gooch describes the action which earned him a Bronze Star.
He didn't even notice that he'd been hit. A piece of shrapnel from a Japanese artillery shell found Harold Barber's leg but he kept right on fighting because of the adrenaline. The Corpsman bandaged him and he was right back in the battle for Peleliu. The Navy was able to stay and take part in the fight unlike when he was on Guadalcanal.
In the middle of the night, thousands of paratroopers loaded into C-47's for the crossing into Normandy. Carl Beck was just a teenager but he was ready. His plane was hit by flak when it neared the drop zone and the jump was rushed, resulting in scattered men and equipment. Part 1 of 2.
Because of illness, Glen Gooch didn't ship out with his friends from basic training. They were put through the wringer at Utah Beach and he would see the same kind of action when he arrived a few weeks later as a replacement.
The officer stumbled upon a group of men hunkered down in a gully during the battle of Aachen. Where's the line? Right here. Where are the Germans? Right over there. Who's in charge here? Silence. Finally, they pointed to Antonio Mendez. He had put the ad hoc group of GIs together and rallied them to fend off the Germans, worthy of a Silver Star. Part 2 of 2.
After a nerve-wracking mission to bomb Tokyo and a typhoon, B.E. Vaughan and the destroyer O'Brien suffered a second kamikaze attack which killed all three of his hometown pals who served with him on board. Then, began the grim task of collecting the personal belongings of the dead and preparing them for burial at sea.
Glen Gooch recalls a man in his unit who had a personal vendetta against the Germans. He fought them viciously because of what they did to his brother. It was late enough in the war that they were taking many prisoners, although one in particular still had a little fight in him.
Two engines were out, a third smoking, and they were were losing airspeed and altitude, but they were flying level and pointed home. Then time ran out for the B-17 and Don Scott had to slip down the hatch into the slipstream. Part 2 of 3.
Frank Pomroy prepared his last stand. He had a bayonet wound and three machine gun bullets in his leg but he was still ready to fight. He lined up his hand grenades on the coral ridge in front of him and waited. At daybreak he heard Japanese voices coming. Part 4 of 4. (Second interview)
It was their third mission over Berlin and they were heading home. Four German fighters pounced on the B-24 and it was engulfed in flame and going down. Clyde Burnette fought for consciousness as the other crew in the back of the plane bailed out. He woke in free fall with no idea how he had made it out, and soon he was in German custody. Everyone made it out of the plane except George "Danny" Daneau, the nose turret gunner, who went down with the aircraft.
The first operation for the 4th Division was the landing on Roi-Namur. Lawrence Snowden remembers that, though it was an easy victory, valuable combat experience and important lessons were imparted on the Marines.
As soon as Glen Gooch left the chaos and destruction of the Hurtgen Forest, he ran right into the desperate German attack at the Battle of the Bulge. It was a running battle and his unit was nearly surrounded at times while playing cat and mouse with Tiger tanks.
The German guards had fled in the night. The next day, a Russian tank was at the gate of the POW camp and, soon, a Russian general to go with it. Downed pilot Clayton Nattier recalls that the Russians wanted to remove the men to Soviet territory, but the senior Allied officer wasn't having it.
After the end of the war, George Stamps had a different kind of mission. His entire bomb group would fly to Austria and pick up newly released French POW's and fly them home. It sounded simple.
He'd had his feet frozen but Glen Gooch hadn't been shot yet. It was twelve days before the end of the war when German bullets finally found him near Nuremberg.
The Japanese had given up on the Banzai charges by the time of the Peleliu landing. Instead they would send raiding parties toward the beach and it was during one of these attacks that Frank Pomroy took a bayonet wound to his knee. It only slowed him down a little, he was not out of the fight. Part 2 of 4. (Second interview)
Drafted out of high school in 1943, Burt Vardeman went to basic with the Army Air Corps. He scored high on radio aptitude and trained as a radio operator on a B-24 crew. Flying out of Italy, he had a close call when one engine after another failed on the return flight. The order came from the pilot, prepare to bail out!
The combat could be close at times with the Germans right up in your face. Glen Gooch was worried about one young soldier who wasn't very careful when the action started and, sure enough, he came to a bad end.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Fred Eichenbrenner couldn't believe it. He and all his friends were eager to serve and he got into the Army Air Corps as a result of his test scores. After his training as a mechanic, he languished in a unit training pilots. He began to think he would never get to some combat.
It was a wonderful childhood for Elizabeth Tilston in Southport, which was near Liverpool. When the air raids began, her father built an underground bunker for his family, complete with plumbing and beds.
Glen Gooch tells what it was like to capture a German soldier for intelligence purposes. You had to be fast and strong.
If you enlist together, you can serve together. Like so many others, Marvin Russell and his buddies joined up, only to be split up almost immediately. He went to aircraft mechanic school and became a flight engineer on a B-17 crew.
They were like knights in armor. B-17 pilot George Stamps describes the multi-layered suits and flak protection used by the crew. He recalls a mission to East Germany which was just about at their maximum range. When they got there, the target was obscured by clouds and a secondary target had to be found. it was a very good one, especially if you were in the Russian infantry.
Glen Gooch describes how his company commander received a concussion during an artillery barrage and how he came to earn two awards during the Battle of the Bulge.
The company was down from 250 men to less than 100 and had to be placed in reserve to regroup and get replacements. It wasn't much of a break for Dick Whitaker because soon they were assigned to make a beach landing behind the Japanese defenses so the southward push to Naha could proceed.
At the air strip in India, there was a company clerk who was a real character. He was a good guy, he just didn't like to work all that much. Fred Eichenbrenner recalls the stunt he pulled after being reprimanded.
There was an incredible barrage from German 88s in the Hurtgen Forest but it wasn't the tree bursts that nearly killed Glen Gooch. A German hand grenade came his way.
