A Story of Love and war
At the close of World War II, Indiana was a typical Midwestern state. Located along the Wabash River on the western edge of the Indiana border with Illinois is the city of Terre Haute a French name that means“high land.”and is the seat of Justice for Vigo County, named in honor of Colonel Francis Vigo, an Italian merchant born in Sardinia. The use of French and Italian to describe the town and its location is about the extent of any international recognition the city might lay claim to. At the end of World War II it was still, as it always had been, home to mainly traditional American families who understood and appreciated the opportunities available to citizens willing to work hard and push on to get ahead. Assisting in that effort was Indiana State University, which since 1865 made Terre Haute its home. In 1947 Donna Slinkard, a student at Indiana University (IU), was in the process of completing her degree in journalism and had emphatically informed her friends that she had no plans to marry, preferring instead to pursue a full time career in publishing. New York, she said, would be her new home because after all–if you can make it there . . . However, this all changed one night when she met another IU student named Bob, a med student who had made the decision to become a dentist. Like Donna, Bob had grown up in Terre Haute but the two had never met until that night. Donna, shortly after meeting Bob, in an about face of significant magnitude, informed her friends that her New York plans were on hold because she had just met the man she was going to marry! Bob and Donna became Dr. and Mrs. Green in 1950, and in 1951 Bob received his degree in dentistry. Donna put aside forever her journalistic ambitions so Bob might for a second time serve his country; it was a part of his college tuition obligation. But this time it would be different . . . always a gentleman, Bob would now also be an officer and a dentist!
America was at war in March of 1943 when high school senior Bob Green turned 18 years old. He knew his duty and he was prepared to put his life on hold until the war was over. On his 18th birthday Bob took the army physical in preparation for joining the service after his June 6, 1943 graduation. While he was certain his future would be in some aspect of medicine, he had not yet made any specific plans. Almost before the ink on his high school diploma was dry, Bob Green found himself on the way to Indianapolis, basic training and life as an Army enlisted man. One of the first things about army life that Bob objected to was their hours; the army held the strange notion that every day there was so much to do that each day must begin at 5a.m. After 8 weeks of getting up early, long marches, constant drills, policing areas of little importance for trash, cigarette butts and anything else thrown to the ground, newly minted Private Green found himself assigned to the field artillery and on his way to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for training. Here he assumed he would be taught to man and fire the big guns. The 150 to 200mm shells were for Bob, who was in excellent condition, just too big for a man of his size to handle; he could hardly lift them let alone load and fire the gun. Fortunately for Bob he had taken a lot of math courses in high school and the army decided to make good use of his educational achievements. He was assigned to a field artillery observation unit. It seemed at the time that luck was with him since he was able to escape the life of an infantry man as well as the heavy lifting required to operate the big guns. As Bob says, “I did not know what the job (artillery observer) entailed but it sure seemed better than the obvious alternative.” Training as a field artillery observer began in earnest once he was assigned to school in Ft. Sill. “After we had completed the training necessary to become a field observer, I was sent to Ft. Dix, New Jersey, where I joined the 13th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. The unit was preparing to be shipped overseas to England.”It was December About the trip over, Bob laments:“I don’t know how many men were on the ship but I knew it was way too many!”Bunks on-board the ship were stacked 6 high and Bob was assigned to a top bunk. That had a few good points but it certainly in his case was not the perfect situation. To say the ship was overcrowded would be an understatement. Imagine being with hundreds of men jammed into a kitchen area that also doubled for your sleeping quarters. Then imagine you had the top bunk, a weak stomach, and each day the stench of newly fried bacon grease, ham fat, eggs and whatever else was being prepared in the way of food on that ship was continually overwhelming the air meant for you to breathe. For a boy from America’s heartland that combination was a bit too much! It became instantly clear that in addition to math, Bob Green had, as part of a broad, well-rounded education, acquired excellent powers of perception and observation, for he realized and grasped in his first few moments at sea that navy life would never be his forte. For the 5 days at sea required to reach England after leaving Ft. Dix, Bob became intimately familiar with the sight of navy ships stretched as far as the eye could see in any direction traveling at the slow and agonizing pace of a convoy.
His days were quickly consumed with a crash course in survival at sea in an effort to soothe a land-locked stomach. Each morning he would grab several Clark bars and an orange, head for the open deck above a fresh breeze and a bit of relief provided by a breath of sea air. Here, until the last possible minute, he would hang over the side of the ship in agony and dream of his home–the city on the high land snuggled next to the Wabash River in a county named after anItalian immigrant. Threats to those memories were the essence and the reason why an 18-year-old boy from middle-America would go to war. On December 6, 1943 the 13th Field Observation Battalion landed in England and took up quarters in the small town of Broadstone, taking over several of the large homes that belonged to the English people. “We slept on the floors in our bed rolls,” Bob said, “as every day the American 8th Air Force left for Germany on bombing runs. The Air Force and the RAF ruled the skies over England during the daytime but the Germans came out at night making life, especially in cities such as London, precarious.” In fact Bob received a three-day pass with orders not to go to London because it was too dangerous. Fearing he might not get a chance again to see London, he went there anyway and spent three days sightseeing while simultaneously avoiding the Military Police. This was an act that was in and of itself a display of a special kind of bravery that even surprised Bob, but in the end he said he was thrilled to get back to the post having avoided grease, ham fat, eggs and whatever else was being prepared in the way of food on that ship was continually overwhelming the air meant for you to breathe. For a boy from America’s heartland that combination was a bit too much! It became instantly clear that in addition to math, Bob Green had, as part of a broad, well-rounded education, acquired excellent powers of perception and observation, for he realized and grasped in his first few moments at sea that navy life would never be his forte. For the 5 days at sea required to reach England after leaving Ft. Dix, Bob became intimately familiar with the sight of navy ships stretched as far as the eye could see in any direction traveling at the slow and agonizing pace of a convoy. His days were quickly consumed with a crash course in survival at sea in an effort to soothe a land-locked stomach. Each morning he would grab several Clark bars and an orange, head for the open deck above,the size and scope of the mission became evident for there were allied ships, mostly American and British, for as far as the eye could see. On the morning of June 6, 1944, 19-year-old Bob Green and the 13th Field Observation Battalion arrived off shore of the American landing zone, code named Omaha Beach, as the Normandy invasion began. It would be the largest invasion force ever assembled . . . its mission: to re-take Europe. Officers picked the highest elevation possible along the front lines, which by June 8, 1944 stretched some 30 to 50 miles, to be used as artillery observation posts. Many times theposts were located on top of the highest buildings in the area. Teams of snipers from both sides were dispatched to kill the observation post (O.P.) team members and they were very aware of thepossible location of these posts. Now having attained the rank of Corporal, Bob was put in command of his post–a church steeple on the front lines! He took himself and 4 others of the team into the church and ascended to the top of the steeple, leaving one man to protect their truck and to notify friendly soldiers who was in the steeple. “After communications with the other O.P.s and headquarters were established, we began relaying our information so that they could direct artillery fire on to enemy targets. Soon after we were set up, a group of U.S. infantry came around the corner and surprised us with weapons drawn ready to fire. Fortunately we were able to identify ourselves before being shot as we wondered where our lookout was.” Tongue in cheek, Bob says: “I think he was at the alter praying!”This was the beginning of the march across Europe.“We operated our post 24 hours a day, plotting flash and sounds from artillery, sending the information back to headquarters for coordination. Our heaviest work load was at night when both flash and sounds were easier to plot. Bypassing Paris we moved quickly across France into Belgium and its border with Germany near a city called Aachen on the edge of the Hurtgen Forrest where we established an Observation Post above the city.” No one, including—and perhaps especially—Corporal Bob Green could have been prepared for what would take place next. The fast moving American advance across Franceinto Belgium came to ascreeching halt at the edge of the Hurtgen Forrest just outside of the German City of Aachen. Speed and conquest, the stuff that made the newsreels spin in September of 1944, suddenly evaporated as the fighting became more gruesome and the pace slowed to a stop– resembling the product of a meat grinder built into the bowels of a slaughterhouse.
The fighting and the misery became known as “The Battle of the Hurtgen Forrest”and as it lost its allure, newsmen moved on to more exciting and less gruesome battlefields. Cpl. Green and his men spent the next three months at a standstill outside Aachen. The longest battle ever fought in the history of the U.S. Army, as well as on German soil, lasting from September 1944 until February 1945, would somehow become a footnote in military history because the savagery, barbarianism and general inhumane conditions suffered by those involved are not only incomprehensible but defy explanation. 65 years after “The Battle of the Hurtgen Forrest” ended, the bodies of American soldiers—the forgotten, seemingly lost forever men–as if seeking their due recognition year after year continue toextract themselves from the grip of rocks earth and roots and rise to the Forrest floor. It is a place where 30,000 American military men were slaughtered– either killed, wounded or abandoned–seemingly by both god and country. The longest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army has yet to be given full recognition. It is perhaps the reason few who suffered the consequences of that clash and carry the vivid images of friends lost to the battle, the woods and the war in a place too horrible to remember can find the emotional strength to even speak about the atrocities they witnessed. Later, after leaving the Aachen observation post, Cpl. Bob Green, barely 20 years old, found himself again on the doorstep of history. His unit reached the Rhine River just as the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen was captured by soldiers of the U.S. 9th Armored. The capture of the Remagen Bridge, Bob said, “shortened the war by 4 or 5 weeks.” He added,“Everyone–infantrymen, tanks and trucks—needing to get to the other side were attempting to get across the bridge before the inevitable happened and it did; five days later the bridge collapsed. Pontoon bridges were built on either side to get the rest of our army across.” In a sobering moment, Bob remembers sampling wine from the many large homes along the Rhine River and he insists that, full of courage and spirits, he valiantly made his way to the river’s edge and became the first U.S. soldier to make contact with the Rhine River. However there is a second account which says Bob got drunk, fell in the river and damn near drowned! Surely this important military adventure will be left to historians to sort out the details and establish the facts. The German soldiers fought hard to defend the homeland but within a few months the war in Europe was over. There was another ongoing war taking place in the Pacific and Bob and so many others who had won the war in Europe were preparing for the battle against Japan when It was finally over. The war was over. It has been 67 years since an 18-year-old boy fresh out of high school put his plans for medical school on hold and went to war. By the time he was 20 years old he had marched across France and fought in the longest, bloodiest battle the American Army ever engaged in. There in the Hurtgen Forrest Bob Green lost good friends and comrades, many of whom he still misses and thinks of even today. The blood and the carnage of that protracted battle is something he cannot forget and even now, 67 years later, finds it difficult to talk about, even with his family. I think Bob says it best:
I know I did not talk about the death and hell that so many of our men and their families went through. I know today that a lot of you are still suffering from the loss of a loved one who served not only in that war but the many that came after. I did not and could not bring myself to comment on that part of the war. I did not mention the great friends that I lost, for I know it would only bring sad moments for you. ■