A Tank Gunner's Story: Gunner Gruntz of the 712th Tank Battalion

by Louis G. Gruntz

  Dad sighed, “I always regret – they (the Army) made a picture of H Co. and sold it for $1 but I never bought one I didn’t have the money. We could live for a day on $1.”

  When I asked Dad about boot camp, he related one of the first lessons he learned – Never Volunteer! “They told you when you get in the Army, never volunteer. Once there was a group of soldiers gathered and the sergeant asked ‘Who knows how to drive?’ Three or four raised their hands. The sergeant then said, ‘Ok you, you and you, drive those wheelbarrows over there and pick up that dirt.’”

  During basic training, although Dad spent the nights with Mom in the boarding house in town, he still had a bunk space in the barracks at camp. “We had about thirty guys in one barracks together. I had to be in there each morning for inspection and in the daytime if I had to go in there for something.” Ed Swierczyk, Richard Grable, Clifton Booth, and Floyd McBride were friends with Dad. “We were in the barracks together, these guys bunked right next to me.” McBride was the oldest guy in the outfit, he was forty-two years old when he was drafted.

  In addition to being a primary base for tank training, Fort Benning was also a primary base for training paratroopers. The tankers, however, considered themselves the toughest soldiers in camp. It was not unusual for the troops who got passes on Saturday nights to often seek liquid refreshments. After too many of these beverages, a few soldiers would occasionally become embroiled in fisticuffs. Dad said that the officers counseled the tank crews about such situations and advised them, “If you see two paratroopers fighting with one tanker don’t get involved, it’s an even fight.”

  Dad trained in Company H throughout his period at Fort Benning and on June 14, 1943, was promoted to the rank of corporal.

  Shortly after Dad’s promotion, after approximately seven months of training, the entire 10th Armored Division went on maneuvers in Tennessee under the command of the Second Army. During the period of the maneuvers, from June 24, 1943, to September 2, 1943, Dad’s unit was still Co. H, 11th Armored Regiment of the 10th Armored Division. As Dad explained, “We were at Fort Benning first and we were there a good while, all through basic training and then we went on maneuvers in Tennessee.”

  Prior to leaving for Tennessee, Dad received a furlough for a few days. The wives were not able to accompany the troops while they were in Tennessee, consequently Mom and Dad scraped up enough money to come back home to New Orleans for Dad’s furlough. Mom would stay home during this period in order to undergo surgery to have her tonsils removed. She planned on rejoining Dad when the unit returned to Fort Benning at the conclusion of the maneuvers.

  In 1942 and 1943 reports were circulating throughout New Orleans of German U-Boats patrolling the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi River and sinking many Merchant Marine vessels.7 These news reports also fueled an atmosphere of suspicion and speculation that coastal residents and fishermen were aiding the U-boats with shipping information or supplies.

  While Dad was home on furlough, his friends told him that Mr Stanley, the service station operator that had befriended Dad when he was a newsboy, was no longer operating the service station near Dad’s boyhood home. His sudden and unexplained absence from the neighborhood fueled the gossip that he was a Nazi collaborator or spy.

  When Dad heard this news he recalled how Mr Stanley had always acted strangely, he never trusted anyone. He remembers being in a nearby café when Mr Stanley ordered a ham and cheese sandwich. He wanted it without any mayonnaise or butter, just plain and dry. When he received the sandwich, he took all the ham and cheese off and examined each piece to make sure no one had tampered with it.

  Although there were no confirmed reports of any such Nazi agents in southeast Louisiana, rumors of Nazi spies and saboteurs in the southeast Louisiana persisted. Dad was never sure if the rumors about his old benefactor were true, but his recollections of Mr Stanley’s idiosyncrasies and paranoid tendencies definitely added credence to the scuttlebutt.

  “Somewhere in Tennessee” – Maneuvers

  Maneuvers were war games in which the various military units participated in mock battles. Dad explained, “We had red and blue teams.” These teams engaged in mock combat to review and test training methods and the proficiency of the commanders and the troops. Senior Army officials served as umpires, they measured and graded the performance of participating units. The hilly farmland of Tennessee was chosen because of its similarity to the terrain American forces would encounter in France. To achieve realistic combat conditions in these simulated engagements, the military units traveled across the countryside and farm fields of Tennessee the same as they would during actual battle.

  Dad said that these simulated battles did not always sit well with the local citizenry, “The farmers had stone fences made of slate. When the tanks hit those fences, stones went flying everywhere. The farmers would come out raising forty kinds of hell. We told them, ‘Call your governor, the government will pay for it.’”

  Maneuvers were, in fact, intended to reveal all aspects of actual combat, including mechanical breakdowns in the equipment. “If the tank broke down we stayed wherever the tank broke down until somebody came around to fix it. When we broke down they just left us there because they were going on with the maneuvers. Two of us stayed with the tank. They came back later and rounded up the stragglers.”

  Dad’s tank broke down near Alexandria, Tennessee, close to the farmhouse of Walter Reeves. Dad fondly remembered the Reeves’ eight-year-old son, Joe Mack, and the days he spent on Reeves farm. “We stayed by this … house about three or four days. (Reeves) had about eleven cows and he had two kids, him and his wife. Every morning and every evening he milked those cows. He had those five gallon (milk) cans; he’d take the cans and drop them down in the well. The well kept the milk cold. The next morning he’d pull the cans up from the well and carry them down the hill to the road and put on the side of the road for the dairy truck to come by and pick them up. That’s what he made his living off of.”

  Little Joe Mack was fascinated by all of the military equipment and soldiers conducting maneuvers near his home. During those few days, Joe Mack befriended Dad. Dad reciprocated and let Joe Mack get inside the tank and showed him how everything worked. Dad gave him his Crations and other small items. Joe Mack was exuberant with all the Army souvenirs. After the tanks were repaired and moved on with the maneuvers, Joe Mack wrote Dad several letters and sent pictures. Dad responded a few times before he was shipped overseas to Europe. Unfortunately, while being transported overseas he lost Joe Mack’s address and never communicated with him again. Dad still had the two pictures of Joe Mack in his box of mementos. He often wondered what had become of little Joe Mack.

  While on maneuvers, the Army supplied everything the soldiers needed in the field; they instructed the troops not to buy anything in the local stores because the stock in the stores was low due to the war and the goods were being rationed to the local citizens. These shortages, however, did not dampen the southern hospitality of the Tennessee farmers, who often treated soldiers to home cooked meals.

  Joe Mack Reeves. (Author’s collection)

  “Another time our tank broke down outside of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. We were stuck there for several days. They left us behind and we didn’t see anyone else in the Army, they all went on to another location. The people on that area were real nice, they brought food every day, like fried chicken. They brought us fresh milk every day. Harold Slayton was in the tank with me and every time he drank that fresh milk he’d get the shits; he would grab the shovel and go run into the woods.”

  In an article published in the Tigers’ Tale, the 10th Armored Division’s Newspaper, a soldier described the conditions on maneuvers in a dense forest “Somewhere in Tennessee”.

  During tactical operations the troops were not allowed to have tents up during the day and at night had to operate in total blackout. Such conditions made it necessary to put tents up after dark with only the sense of touch to gui
de. “It is fairly easy to pick out an area which is not covered with underbrush or blackberry vines, but not always easy to see just what we are getting into. We’ll never forget the night we picked a cozy little place, which had a nice carpeting of ‘something’ to protect us from the hard ground, and awoke the next morning to find we had spent the night in a growth of poison ivy under which reposed a neat little ant hill. However, the ant bites and a slight case of poison ivy which resulted didn’t bother as much as we could hardly distinguish these from the chigger and mosquito bites which already covered large areas of our body.”8

  Sherman Tank. (Company B photograph)

  Les Vink and Louis Gruntz. (Company B photograph)

  Sgts Les Vink, Warren Willinger and Orin Bourdo. (Company B photograph)

  Top L-R: Les Vink, Warren Willinger, Orin Bourdo, unknown, Ed Swierzyck. Bottom: Roy Bardo, unknown. (Company B photograph)

  Company “H” 11th Armored Regiment, 10th Armored Division. Eighteen months after Dad passed away, I learned that Eva Bardo had discovered a copy of the Company “H” photograph among the belongings of her late husband, Roy Bardo. Eva graciously sent me a copy. (Company B photograph)

  Louis and Audrey. (Author’s collection)

  Augusta, Georgia – Camp Gordon

  After the completion of the Tennessee maneuvers, the 10th Armored Division was transferred to Camp Gordon, outside of Augusta, Georgia, where training continued. Mom rejoined Dad in Augusta where they again found a room in a boarding house.

  The 10th Armored Division, activated in July of 1942, was among the several established at the beginning of the war. The establishment of these new armored units was accomplished by converting the horse mounted cavalry force to armor. The old cavalry organization structure followed through to the new armored divisions.

  Sherman tanks manned by Americans first entered the war in Tunisia, North Africa with disastrous results. Between Christmas 1942 and February 1943 over 110 Sherman tanks were wiped out by enemy forces. The debacle, involving elements of the 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions in North Africa, pointed out many command and organizational problems with maintaining the old cavalry organizational framework; the new armored divisions had an excess of tank personnel and too few supporting infantry forces.

  Consequently, in September 1943, the War Department adopted Gen. McNair’s recommended revised organizational structure for armored divisions. Three tank and armored infantry battalions in the armored division replaced the regimental structure of the old cavalry. Each tank battalion included one light and three medium tank companies, also included was a service company to perform maintenance. These new service companies replaced the former regimental headquarters and service units.

  This move fit in with Gen. McNair’s pooling theory, which was adjunct to his theory on streamlining, wherein battalion size units of field artillery, engineers, tanks, tank destroyers, and other forces were planned to be used by the corps level commanders and attached to various combat divisions on an as needed basis. The tank companies sliced off of the old regiments after this reorganization were allocated into separate and independent battalions to be attached to infantry divisions when needed.

  712th Tank Battalion Activated

  As a result, on September 20, 1943, less than 3 weeks after arriving at Camp Gordon, the 712th Tank Battalion officially came into existence, as one of these independent battalions. It was formed out of the 3rd Squadron of the old 11th Cavalry (3rd Battalion of the 11th Armored Regiment). By General Orders No. 18 of the 10th Armored Division, the following companies of the 11th Armored Regiment were re-designated:

  Old Designation New Designation

  HQ Company, 3rd Battalion, 11th Armored Regiment HQ Company, 712th Tank Battalion

  Company “G”, 11th Armored Regiment Company “A”, 712th Tank Battalion

  Company “H”, 11th Armored Regiment Company “B”, 712th Tank Battalion

  Company “I”, 11th Armored Regiment Company “C”, 712th Tank Battalion

  Company “B”, 11th Armored Regiment Company “D”, 712th Tank Battalion9

  Companies “A”, “B”, and “C” of the 712th were equipped with the M4 Sherman tanks; “D” Company was a light tank company equipped with M5 Stuart tanks. A newly activated Service Company was also included within the newly formed tank battalion.

  Major William E. Eckles was named acting Battalion Commander and assumed immediate command. On September 30, 1943, Lt-Col. S. Whitside Miller, Commanding Officer of the 2nd Battalion, 11th Armored Regiment on detached service with XII Corps, was assigned to the Battalion as Commanding Officer, however, he did not immediately assume command – he remained on detached service. From September 30 through December 31, Capt. Vladimir Kedrovsky and then Maj. Baxter Davis commanded the Battalion. Lt-Col. Miller assumed command on New Year’s Eve, 1943.

  Officially relieved from assignment to the 10th Armored Division, the 712th became one of sixty-three independent tank battalions created by the Army under this reorganization plan. Thirty-two of these independent battalions, including the 712th, were assigned to the European Theater of Operations (ETO).

  The remainder of the 11th Armored Regiment was also reorganized. The personnel and equipment of the former 1st and 2nd Squadrons of the old 11th Cavalry was combined to form the newly designated 11th Tank Battalion and remained assigned to the 10th Armored Division.10

  Columbia, South Carolina – Fort Jackson

  Very soon after the re-designation, the 712th Tank Battalion moved from Camp Gordon to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. The relocation of the battalion to Fort Jackson also meant another move for Mom as well. In Columbia, they found an apartment in town at 1219 Calhoun Street.

  While in Columbia Mom had a very surprising encounter. “I had a job at a dime store in town. One time in the middle of the day, I was walking down one side of the street and coming in the opposite direction was a high school classmate, Vernon Richardson. I said, ‘Vernon it’s so good to see you.’ He was in the Army too and was stationed in South Carolina. We chatted on the sidewalk for a little while. When you are in a strange faraway place and you see a familiar face from home, it is almost like being back home.”

  Mom and dad celebrated Christmas 1943 in South Carolina. B Company of the 712th Tank Battalion had a full Christmas dinner complete with turkey and dressing, which Dad also attended. It was on the mind of everyone that for some of the members of B Company, it would be their last Christmas on American soil.

  Fort Knox, Kentucky

  Shortly after the holidays, Dad was among several soldiers from the battalion ordered to Fort Knox, Kentucky for more advanced tank training. “I went to the Armored Forces School at Fort Knox in January, 1944 right before we shipped out to go overseas. There was only about two or three of us in school. Everett Roberts (also from Co. B) was with me at Fort Knox. Your mother and I traveled together by train to Fort Knox. It was cold, it was so cold there when we arrived, there was a huge icicle hanging from the train’s water tower (in Elizabethtown, Kentucky).”

  Christmas Card, 1943. (Author’s collection)

  Joe Roush, KP King. (Company B photograph)

  L-R: Clifton Booth, Chester Martin, Fred Bieber, Joe Roush, Homer Miller, Gerald Thomas, Floyd McBride, Ben Woods. (Company B photograph)

  Joe Blaha and Stanley Gagat.

  L-R foreground on ladder and sitting: Joe Roush, Fred Bieber, Floyd McBride, William Hogue, Elza Sullivan, Roy Bardo, Ben Woods, Jose De La Garza. Standing in middle: Ernest Proctor, William Knowlton, Leo Lolli, J. Williams, Chester Martin. Standing on balcony: Bob Hodges, Theodore Ballman, William Siggins.

  L-R: Francis James, Stanley Muhich, Joe Cavalieri, Gunther Jahnke, and David Dickson. (Company B photograph)

  Dad and Mom rented a room in a boarding house in Elizabethtown. “Each room had a wood burning heater or fireplace all connected to a common chimney. I was going to bank the fire at night (pile up plenty wood) before going to bed so in the morning it woul
d still be burning. That was the only heat we had. So I banked it at night and, the next morning, I banked it too good and all the wood hadn’t caught fire. So I threw some kerosene on it. It went whooomp!”

  When Mom and Dad came out of their room, Dad continued, “The landlady said, ‘I don’t know what happened, I heard a terrible noise this morning and there is soot all upstairs in all the rooms.’ The explosion had cleaned out the flues.”

  Mom later related the same incident, “I said ‘Oh my God!’ and went back into my room without saying anything I was so embarrassed. Dad’s eyebrows were singed and everything.”

  Dad also related what happened when they got orders to ship overseas, “We went to Fort Knox from Fort Jackson. We were only at Fort Knox about thirty days. We had not yet quite finished when they called me back to Fort Jackson because we were going overseas. Then back to Fort Jackson and then we went up to Camp Miles Standish.”

  When the orders came to Fort Jackson for the 712th to ship overseas, the Battalion was deployed to Camp Miles Standish outside of Boston. All of the married men had to tell their wives goodbye at Fort Jackson, since the Battalion would only be in Boston for a few days. “Mom had to go home from South Carolina, around the middle of February, because we were shipping out.”

  Mom remembered, “Opal was so mad with me. She was so mad because I knew they were leaving and she didn’t know it. ‘You know everything,’ she said. ‘Richard doesn’t tell me anything.’”

  The married troops were allowed to take their wives out to dinner the night before the battalion deployed to Boston. The next morning the wives were allowed on base for their last kiss and embrace before their husbands left. “I told Dad goodbye at Fort Jackson.” Mom then boarded a train for the lonely and tearful journey back to New Orleans.

  Troops on board SS Exchequer. (The History of the 712th Tank Battalion)

  Joe Roush and friends deliver mail in Chiseldon. (Company B photograph)

  Dad then said, “We left in February to go overseas, we shipped out on Feb 28, 1944. We were only in Boston a short time. It was cold and rainy – miserable.