But first I had to get through customs. “Do you have anything to declare?” a civilian clerk asked. “Yeah,” I answered: “I’ve got nine pistols and two bottles of White Horse scotch in this bag.” This set all his wheels into bureaucratic motion: “It’s against customs regulations to allow the flow of firearms into the United States.” I informed him I had a certificate saying they were legitimate war trophies. “I don’t think that’ll do it,” he replied.
The certificate was a mimeographed form with blanks for individual items, written in ink. It was signed by my superiors, and listed my nine pistols with their serial numbers. He looked it over, then replied: “To be legitimate, everything’s got to be typed in.”
I just knew he was going to take those pistols, and that would be the last I ever saw of them. I said there’d been many times in the war when we hadn’t been sitting in our foxholes with typewriters in our laps, busily typing up our trophy certificates. But he repeated, “I can’t let you into the United States with these pistols.”
Finally, I had had it. “If these pistols stay here, I stay here,” I said. “So make up your mind what you’re going to do about it.” And that was how I passed through customs with nine pistols and two bottles of scotch.
Still smelling of bug spray, I finally ended up right where I began my active military career in 1941, at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation in Pennsylvania. The next day, I set out for the old milk run from Harrisburg to Erie. Several of us were waiting for the train in a bar when a crowd of cheering people burst in. The war was over! VJ-Day totally surprised us—we didn’t even know the atomic bomb had been dropped.
Three days later, I hitchhiked back to Erie. There were parties and many visits with family and friends, but most nights I was ill at ease. I was a twenty-year-old combat veteran going on a hundred. Call it wartime experiences, nervous energy, or what you will, but I had a hard time falling asleep if I was cold sober; I often went to sleep in the front room chair, then woke up every hour or two and never went to bed.
I had joined the Army as a high school sophomore, and now I faced a void. At seventeen, I had my wings, but in civilian life I was suddenly a minor. I had served my country for more than five years, but I still couldn’t vote. I had been a platoon sergeant responsible in combat for up to fifty men, but I couldn’t get married without my parents’ permission. I had made three combat jumps, but I never learned to drive. I could not even legally go to a bar, sit down, and order a beer.
Almost all eligible males were still in the service, including most of my friends and my brother Vern. Nothing between my enlistment and the present had prepared me, or given me any indication of what I wanted to do for a living. I only knew I wanted to settle down to raise a family. I was like the ski trooper who was asked what he wanted to do when he got home. “First, I’m going to climb in bed with my wife and make up for my absence,” he said. “Next, I’ll take off my skis.” First, I wanted to find a wife. Next, I would take off my chutes.
Soon after my return, I bumped into an old friend, Lillian Myers, who gave me the address and telephone number of her friend, Mildred Shugart, written on a little scrap of paper. Millie was twenty and living in an apartment with her aunt Elizabeth. There was only one telephone, and whoever answered it down the hall had to call out to the person who was wanted on the phone. I called Millie for a week or so, but she was always working or out, or no one would call her to the phone. Finally, I decided to try one more time. “If I can’t get through now, that’s it,” I told myself.
Someone, bless him, answered and went and got Millie. We made a date, and within six months we were married. Millie was a beautiful bride, and all I had ever wanted in a wife. We had an evening ceremony followed by, of all things, a tea at the Ladies’ Club set up by one of Millie’s more uppity aunts. This, of course, meant that alcohol was strictly forbidden. Years later, my friends were still bitching about those little sandwiches. “You didn’t even offer us a beer!” they said.
Meanwhile, in late August, I returned to Indiantown Gap Military Reservation for an exit interview from the Army. So it was that one bright morning, I found myself across the desk from an interviewing officer, a captain in his late twenties. He had nothing in the way of decorations except a little “fruit salad”—some ribbons that showed he had never been outside the States, and maybe the Good Conduct Medal.
The interviewing officer was supposed to write my military occupations on some form or other so my prospective employer would know my skills. “So, what did you do during the war?” he asked. I explained I had held the positions of squad leader, platoon sergeant, and platoon leader in combat in the parachute infantry. “Yes, but what did you really do in the war?” he replied.
I was getting a little upset. The guy was a captain and I was a second lieutenant. I said, “What do you mean? We fought the war.” Then he said, “Yeah, but what skills did you learn?” Now I was really agitated. “You don’t have to put anything on that form,” I said, “because there’s not much need in civilian life for how to throw a grenade, push a bayonet into someone, shoot people, tear down a machine gun and reassemble it, or for combat leadership skills. I don’t know how you’re going to relate these things to civilian experience.”
He continued all the same, saying, “Well, then, what did you do after the war?” I said that I had briefly been officer of the day at POW camps. The grand, lump sum total of my wartime occupations on my employment form was “helped guard prisoners of war.” I managed not to tear it up in front of him, but if we had continued much longer in this vein, I think I would have reached over the desk and slapped the captain in the face.
All of us on the front lines knew this was what would happen if we managed to survive the war. When it came to civilian jobs, the people who did the hard fighting got the least credit, while those who were fortunate enough to learn a trade taught in the rear echelons benefitted from their occupational training. Combat veterans used to banter about the value of our medals. At the time, coffee cost a dime. One of our standing jokes was that the Silver Star and ten cents would get you a cup of coffee.
And the upshot of my interview? I reverted to inactive duty as a second lieutenant in the AUS, the Army of the United States. So it was that in September 1945 I started looking for my very first civilian job, a period I think of as a comedy of errors. The Army had taught us to trust our unit, and it took me a long time to understand that Millie and I had to take steps to protect ourselves. I knew how to defuse a minefield, but throughout my first year back from the war I was often disarmed by civilian life.
I’m happy to say that I’m writing this today, January 18, 2002, on Millie’s and my fifty-sixth wedding anniversary. In spite of our early trials, in our case it is really true that “they lived happily ever after.” We settled down and established a fine family, two boys and a girl, who now have good careers and grown-up children of their own. I rejoined the 112th Infantry of the 28th Infantry Division and had a successful career in the National Guard as platoon leader, company commander, regimental S-3, and commander of the 112th Infantry, where I first enlisted in 1940 as a lonely, uncertain boy. I ended my military career in 1975 as assistant chief of staff, G-3, and retired as a colonel after thirty-five years of service. Although I never did learn to negotiate the rocky terrain of civilian employment well, I worked at General Electric from 1946 to 1982, with the exception of two years active duty as a tank company commander in one of the first four American divisions of NATO.
I’ve written this book after sixty years of silence so my children and their children would have the opportunity to understand what it was like to fight on the front lines in Europe, and what winning the Second World War cost and meant for the generation who fought it. I did not want to leave this earth without chronicling the day-to-day horror, drudgery, struggle, courage, heroism and dreams of that time, in the hope of helping younger generations become aware that all of the most precious rights and privileges we enjoy, and often t
ake for granted as American citizens, came at a very high price.
Part of that price was paid with the blood and lives of the members of F Company, 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, which had 61 troopers killed in action. I still think of the combat deaths I have witnessed, and often fondly recall the many friends and comrades who gave their lives in the war. The 505 PIR had 544 men killed in action, 146 missing in action, and 2,117 seriously wounded or injured. I am proud and deeply honored to have served with such a regiment.
Today my wife and I live in upstate New York on a hundred and ten acres of woodland. When I look around at all we have in our retirement, I am constantly amazed. Sometimes I still can see myself as a fifteen-year-old kid, trudging along in an awkward wool uniform, pulling that old water-cooled .30-caliber machine gun on a two-wheeled cart. When I think of the many times I, too, could have become a casualty of war, and realize yet again how dependent we are on chance and the mercy of God, I feel wonder to be alive.
In 2000, I finally got around to framing some of my war photographs, military ribbons, and medals—a project I’d threatened to undertake for years. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I gave the government all I could, and the government kept its promise to me. And I still have that piece of paper from August 1945 with Millie’s name, address, and telephone number on it. It, too, is framed on the wall of my study, one of my most cherished possessions.
Image Gallery
Chemistry class, Millcreek High School, 1940. Spencer Wurst is sitting in the front row on the far left. Author collection
Members of the First Platoon, Company H, 112th Infantry, of Erie, at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, March 1941. Private Spencer Wurst is in the front row, far right. Spencer’s good friend Elmer Carlson is standing on the far left. Author collection
Full field pack inspection, Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, 1941. Author collection
Sergeant Rohaly’s extra duty work detail, “port arm” with shovels and picks. Private Spencer Wurst is holding the sledgehammer on the right. Author collection
Spencer Wurst cleans his canteen cup with steel wool in preparation for a First Army inspection at Wadesboro in 1941. Author collection
Corporal Spencer Wurst, Squad Leader, with an M1903 bolt-action Springfield rifle, at the base camp at Wadesboro, First Army maneuvers, 1941. Author collection
Captain Gustav Hoffman, 1941. Hoffman was a tough, no-nonsense officer, and one of Spencer’s role models. Author collection
Weapons carrier, 1st Squad, 1st Section, 2d Platoon, 1941. Driver: Robert Mesick. In truck bed, from left: Zdzislaw Dabkowski, Walter Zaborowski, Raymond Krupinski. Author collection
Spencer Wurst and his brother Vern, reunited in Erie for their sister Vangie’s funeral in August 1941. Author collection
Sergeant Spencer Wurst, 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, home on furlough in March 1943. Author collection
Sealed in for Normandy on June 5, 1944: members from 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division at Cottesmore Airfield. In door of C-47: Leonard DeFoggi. Back row, from left: unidentified, Richard White, unidentified (pilot), Clifford Maughn, W. A. Jones, Sgt. Stanley Smith (Co. G), Ralph Hyler. Front row, from left: unidentified, Lawrence Neipling, Donald Glovier, unidentified, Dominic Marino (leaning over), Andrew Kovach. Leonard DeFoggi
Sealed in for Normandy: Members from the 1st Squad, 3d Platoon, Company F, 2d Battalion, 505 PIR 82d Airborne Division, at Cottesmore Airfield, England, on June 5, 1944. Back row, from left: Harold Post, Victor Sargosa, Howard Krueger, W. A. Jones, John Zunda; 2d row, alone: Donald Bohms; Sitting, from left: Andrew Fabis, George Paris, Thomas Watro, Aruthur Lemieux, Reclining: Spencer Wurst. Author collection
D+11 after the battle at St. Sauver-le-Vicomte, Normandy. Spencer Wurst is standing on the left; Andy Fabis is standing next to him. Seated, Donald Bohm (left) and Harold Post (far right). Author collection
The squad in battalion reserve area before the battle for Hill 131, Normandy. Front row, from left: Howard Krueger, Lloyd Eisenhart, Harold Post, and John Zunda. Standing, from left: W. A. Jones, Andrew Fabis, Lawrence Neipling, Donald Bohms, and Spencer Wurst. Author collection
Sergeant Spencer Wurst, shown here in a studio portrait snapped in Paris in November of 1944. Author collection
September 19 and 20, 1944: A key objective for the 82d Airborne in Market-Garden was the ferociously defended half-mile-long highway bridge at Nijmegen spanning the Waal (Rhine) River. The 505 PIR secured the southern end, assaulting directly into the teeth of 9th SS Panzer Division Reconnaissance Battalion defenses. The 504 PIR made a valiant daylight river crossing in canvas-sided assault boats, to seize the northern end of the railroad and highway bridges. Both the 2/505 and 3/504 received a Presidential Unit Citation for their actions. Mandle Family
Aerial view of Nijmegen, approach to the Highway Bridge. RAF
Aerial view of Nijmegen, Waal (Rhine) River, Highway Bridge, and Railroad Bridge. RAF
Andrew Fabis, 1st Scout, 1st Squad, 3d Platoon, Company F, 505 PIR, at Camp Quorn, during General Dwight Eisenhower’s review of the 82d Division on August 10, 1944. Fabis was killed at Hunner Park, Nijmegen, on September 20, 1944. Author collection
Aerial view of Nijmegen, bridge approach, traffic circle, Hunner Park, and the Highway Bridge. RAF
View of the partially destroyed railroad bridge across the Waal River at Nijmegen, as seen from the southern riverbank. The north end of the bridge fell to the hands of the 3/504 by late afternoon on September 20, although fanatic defenders still crept forward from the middle of the bridge to throw potato-mashers at the victors. These missions amounted to suicide, and dusk saw the mass surrender of over 200 German defenders. Mandle Family
This photo of the 60mm mortar squad, 2nd Platoon, Company F, 505 PIR, was taken at Camp Quorn, England, a few days before the invasion of Normandy. From left to right: John Ray, Philip Lynch, John Steele, and Vernon Francisco. John Steele is the man whose parachute was caught on the steeple at Ste. Mère-Eglise. He survived. The other three men were killed in action.
Assistant squad leader Corporal Howard Krueger (left) and Private Robert Beckman (right) resting on the high ground west of Trois Ponts on Christmas Day, 1944. Both men were killed outside Arbrefontaine, Belgium, on January 4, 1945. Don McKeage
Spencer and Mildred Wurst on their wedding day, January 18, 1946. Author collection
Company F, 505 PIR members at 505 RCT World War II reunion, Columbus Georgia, September 1988. Back row, from left: Ed Slavin, Leonzo “Hoss” Pizarro, Spencer Wurst, unidentified, George Ziemski, Daryle Whitfield, John Jacula, Clifford Maughn; 2d row, standing: Robert Reem, Vincent Wolf, William Borda, Mark Alexander (Colonel, ret.), Donald McKeage; 3d row, kneeling: Roland A. Barone, Leonard DeFoggi, Kenneth Russell, Leonard Rosen, Russell Brown, John Zunda. Front, sitting: Richard “Teddy” Tedeschi. Author collection
Company F members salute a monument to the 505 at Trois Ponts, Belgium, in 1989. Left to right: Robert Reem, John Jacula, George Ziemski, Russel Brown, Chaplain George Wood, Spencer Wurst, Edward Dugan. Author collection
Spencer Wurst, with niece Gayle Wurst and good pal Novi in upstate New York, September 2000. Author collection
Spencer Free Wurst, September 2000. Author collection
Notes
Epigraph
A. H. Smyth (ed.), The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, IX (New York: Haskell House, 1970), p. 156.
Preface
1. Epitaph cited in Michael D. Doubler, Closing with the Enemy: How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944–1945 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1994), p. 265.
2. See Doubler, pp. 234, 235, 240, 242; George W. Neil, Infantry Soldier: Holding the Line at the Bulge (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), Preface, note 4.
Chapter 9
3. For the designated airfields, and in many other instances throughout this memoir, I have relied for details of place, name, and date on Allan Langdon, R
eady: The History of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, World War II, Rev. George B. Wood, ed. (Indianapolis: Western Newspaper Publishing Co., Inc., 1986).
Chapter 20
4. Charles McDonald, The European Theater of Operations, The Seigfried Line Campaign (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1963), pp. 133, 135.
Chapter 22
5. Major Cook, in Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), p. 457.
Chapter 25
6. I am indebted to the excellent account of the Hurtgen Forest tragedy in Chapter 7 of Doubler. See especially pages 179–195.
7. Robert A. Miller, Division Commander: A Biography of Major General Norman D. Cota (Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Company, 1989), p. 117. Cited in Doubler, p. 181.
INDEX
Aachen, Germany, 247
Alexander, Col., Mark, 92, 97, 146
Altavilla, Italy, 76
Altman, Pvt. Percy, 202
Amblève River, 219
Ardennes, Belgium, 215–216, 232, 235, 237, 239, 248
Arnhem, Holland, 167–168, 193–194, 195, 196–197
Arnold, Pfc. Robert, 164
Arnone, Italy, 68, 77, 86–87, 96
Atchley, Pvt. John, 129
Atlanta, Georgia, 50
August, Cpl. Francis, 86
Descending from the Clouds Page 29
