After the Naval Academy, he was refused admission to the Air Force and flight training because of his Annapolis record. He made several trips to Australia as a merchant seaman before enlisting in the army and volunteering for parachute duty.
As a paratrooper, he was one of the original Toccoa men. When they were first putting Easy Company together, my uncle was a private, then quickly became one of their earliest staff sergeants. He was a noncom in the 3rd Platoon and was known as a good sergeant.
He ran his platoon in the army on naval terms—he told his men to go “starboard” instead of right, or to “swab the deck” instead of “mop the floors.” Apparently he was quite a character. Shifty Powers told me that they used to ship these guys by railroad to a training area, and Salty got incredible joy out of tormenting his men by repeatedly singing Navy songs. I’m not sure what the songs were, but apparently he sung them over and over until the men were all sick of them.
The big story about Salty is how he was one of the instigators in leading the mutiny against company commander Captain Herbert Sobel. Mike Ranney was one of Salty’s closest friends and also involved in the mutiny. In his journal, Ranney describes Salty as “a broad-faced delightful Irishman with whom I had many adventures.” Ranney also writes extensively about the mutiny:Salty Harris and I had been concerned for some time about the capabilities of Captain Sobel, the Black Swan. He was a well-meaning man, but not quite the sort to instill much confidence about combat. Naïve innocents that we were, Salty and I organized a mutiny. Essentially, we got all the non-commissioned officers to threaten to resign unless Sobel was removed. The only exception in our ranks was the first sergeant, [Bill] Evans. Several of the company’s officers were aware of the plan and gave tacit, if not overt, approval. In fact, Lt. Dick Winters, our company executive officer, sat in on our final planning meeting. I was in charge.
The next morning, Salty and I were arrested by military police and taken under guard to the regimental headquarters. Colonel Sink outlined the situation tersely and succinctly:“I don’t know who in the hell you two bastards think you are, but you obviously don’t realize the seriousness of the situation you have created. I could have you shot for mutiny in a war zone. But this regiment is going into combat and I don’t want any disturbances just now. Plus, you both have had good records and we may be able to salvage something of the investment we have in your training. So I’m just going to bust both of you in the rank of private, transfer you out of Easy Company in separate directions, and keep an eye on you so that you can’t cause any more problems.”
Salty was transferred to A Company in the First Battalion. I went to I Company in the Third Battalion. We were separated immediately and not permitted to return to the Easy Company area to get our bags, which caught up with us a few days later.
Ranney explains how, after the transfer, he was recruited by Lieutenant Walter Moore for special assignment. Lieutenant Moore had been the men’s platoon commander right at the start of training in Toccoa. Ranney agreed to the assignment and was shipped to special duty to an airbase near Nottingham, where he reconnected with my uncle. There, Moore explained the assignment more fully. Ranney continues:The airborne command had decided that existing navigation systems weren’t entirely adequate to assure that airborne parachute units could be landed in the right spots. We were going to invade France and probably jump at night. Our special group was to jump slightly ahead of the rest of the airborne units, put up special navigational aids (electronic homing beacons), so that the planes carrying the main body of troops could hone in on those beacons. The task was considered essential to the success of the invasion. We were called Pathfinders. And, oh yes, Salty was already there along with Carl Fenstermaker and Dick Wright of Easy Company. I headed for the barracks to see Salty. We were together again.
There were about 80 men and officers in the Pathfinder group from throughout the 101st division. Most were malcontents or busted non-coms. [Charlie] Malley [from F Company], ended up as first sergeant of the detachment, Salty as leader of a sub-unit, and I became supply sergeant.
Ranney was later able to transfer back into Easy Company before the Normandy jump, but my uncle stayed with the pathfinders for D-day. Being a pathfinder was not an easy job. It meant being out in front of the pack and facing most of the German army head-on and alone, thus being in a dangerous and costly position. When he jumped as a pathfinder, it wasn’t just security detail either, or setting up lights on the ground. Along with Holophane lights and brightly colored panels to help guide in the vast armadas of C-47s carrying paratroopers and gliders to their drop zones, one pathfinder in each stick also carried radar transmitters called Eureka beacons, top-secret technology back then, that were to be guarded at all cost. A radio receiver in the aircraft honed in on the beacon on the ground. Only one guy in each stick jumped with a beacon, and in his stick, that was entrusted to Salty Harris. So he was an important guy. I got that information from the Ranney family, and it’s also listed in a book by George Koskimaki.
Killed Instantly
My uncle’s gravestone in Europe reads that he was killed June 18, 1944. But that is probably a little late. The battle for Carentan happened between the tenth and fourteenth of June. Burr Smith and Mike Ranney both indicate in letters that my uncle was killed in the same action in which he was wounded, which would have placed his death slightly earlier than recorded.
Ranney writes to my mother on July 25, 1944:Dear Annette:
. . . You’ve probably gotten by now a crudely written letter concerning Salty. You see, Annette, I guess I liked him better than I ever have anyone else—he was that kind of a guy. He was the sort of a leader whose men would do anything for him. I’m not, and because of that I guess I make him my example. I tried to do as he did. And I’m trying now.
. . . If he could have known what was ahead, he’d have asked that you take it in stride and go on just the same. Maybe all this sounds strange to you, but I think that’s what he’d want. Annette, there’s a bunch of guys in this company who feel as you do—“it just doesn’t seem possible he’s really gone,” but it won’t stop them from doing their job, don’t let it stop you.
Ranney writes my mom again, a short time later, apparently after receiving a letter back from her:Dear Annette:
. . . I found out all possible information.
Salty was killed instantly by a sniper within our lines during the fighting near Carentan in Normandy. I’m sorry I haven’t been able as yet to find out where he’s buried. As soon as I do, I’ll let you know. At the time, he was with [a different] company—so I wasn’t with him.
. . . Take this the way he would want you to, Annette. He believed in a fate—most of us do now—the kind of fate that has little regard for race, color, or creed. If he could have known what was in store, it wouldn’t have changed his actions. It came the way he’d want it to—he didn’t suffer.
Burr Smith writes to my mother on September 7, 1944, from a field hospital in England. This is one of the letters I found in my parents’ trunk. Burr’s letter is written on that really thin paper they used back then.
Dear Annette,
I don’t know if Salty ever mentioned me in his letters to you or not, but I’ve been his friend for nearly two years, ever since the first day at Toccoa. At any rate, I feel that I should drop you a line to let you know how sorry I am. . . . If it was in my power to do so, I’d have taken his place, and I say that in all sincerity. I was wounded the same day he was hit, and I didn’t know [he was dead] until I was released from the hospital. You’ll never know how I felt when Red Wright told me.
The last time I saw T.C. he came trudging down a dusty lane—all smiles—and I was so glad to see him that I cried—actually cried with relief to see him. I thought he was gone D-Day, and to see him was heaven on earth.
. . . I hope I haven’t made you feel worse. We all miss him like mad. [He was] one of the grandest people God ever placed on this rotten earth. . . . The only course open is to
pledge myself to the cause of making sure that the things he died for are not forgotten.
There’s a picture that’s circulated on the Internet that shows fellow E Company veteran Forrest Guth visiting my uncle’s grave over in Europe. Paul Woodage, who runs a company called Battlebus that tours the D-day beaches and battlefields of Normandy, accompanied fellow E/506th veteran Paul Rogers to Salty’s grave in 2007 and notes that both Rogers and Guth shed a few tears over their lost friend. For me, to see the emotional effect of visiting a friend killed six decades earlier is moving beyond words. These men truly were a Band of Brothers.
23
GEORGE LAVENSON
Interview with Joel Lavenson, nephew
I am the oldest living relative of George Lavenson. I never met my uncle, and my parents and grandparents rarely spoke of him when I was growing up. But I knew of his existence when I was a boy, and in the years that have followed, our lives have connected in some highly unusual ways. It chokes me up today: it’s such a passion for me now to talk about his life. My uncle never had any children of his own, and I feel like I’m the only one to carry on for him. He was being forgotten, and I had to go find out about him because I didn’t want him to be forgotten anymore.
A Tree Struck by Lightning
Growing up, I had what I’d call several “brushes” with my uncle’s life. There were occasional traces of conversation, little tokens of remembrance in our houses, that pointed to who he was.
I was the oldest boy in our family, and every once in a while my grandmother slipped and called me George by mistake. I didn’t really get it.
I was a kid in the 1950s, and once as a Thanksgiving present my grandmother gave me some brown combat boots. I really liked them and was fascinated by them, but there was never a story attached to them that she told me about, or an explanation of why she got them for me. I felt like a soldier whenever I wore them.
In a hall closet, my grandmother kept her son’s soft cap with the blue and white patch from the Airborne, and from time to time as a young boy I snuck in and wore it. I didn’t know why I was fascinated with it, but I always was.
My grandfather had taken up painting after the Second World War, and he had painted my uncle twice: once in portraiture, and once symbolically in a picture that showed a lightning bolt hitting a grove of trees and striking one down, leaving the rest of the grove of trees standing. There was never any specific talk about the painting, but each of the trees represented a member of their family, I knew that much. There were two big trees that remained, the parents, then two little trees left, his two brothers, then one tree was being struck by lightning. I was always curious about that painting, and what the story was behind the tree struck by lightning.
My dad spoke occasionally about his brother. Even then, very few details emerged. He described him as a blue-eyed, handsome fellow, very well liked, very physically strong. My father was a wrestler, a lieutenant, and could certainly hold his own in a fight against most men. But when his brother got back from training with Easy Company, George quipped, “I don’t think you want to wrestle me now.”
“What do you mean?” my father asked.
My uncle snatched my father’s lieutenant’s bars off his shoulder and squashed them with his fingers. “That’s how I’m going to treat you if you wrestle me,” my uncle said.
My father told that story with great pride. His brother was a paratrooper, the best of the best.
Those were about my only brushes with my uncle until I was a grownup. Until recent years I never understood why they never spoke more about him. Now I know it was just too hard, too devastating. In 1985 I bought this summer camp in Maine. Camp Kennebec, it’s called. Little did I know that owning this camp would change everything I knew about my uncle.
A Name on a List
For many years my father had worked for his father’s business, which had been his grandfather’s business, the Lavenson Bureau of Advertising. After that my father became the president of the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Then he owned one of the top fifty resorts in the world in Montecito, California, called the San Ysidro Ranch. John and Jacqueline Kennedy honeymooned there, and Churchill wrote his memoirs there. As a result of my dad’s influence, I worked in the hospitality industry for many years.
I had another career influence as well. For many years my grandmother owned a children’s camp in Maine. In fact, Millie Strayer, the wife of Colonel Robert Strayer, (2nd Battalion commander) was a nurse who worked for my grandmother at the camp during the war. So I had grown up learning the insides of the camp business. I loved it and always wanted to go into it as a career. After I had worked in the hospitality industry, I knew it was time. I searched all over New England and stumbled on Camp Kennebec. It wasn’t the camp my grandmother had run, just another camp in the area. The camp was going through a hard time, almost empty, and available for sale. So I bought it and switched careers.
Here I was trying to resurrect this thing, and during my very first summer running it, early in the summer’s activities—July 4, 1985, in fact—I was charged with the responsibility of reading the names of all the young men who went to Kennebec as campers who had died in the wars. It was an annual tradition. On Independence Day all the campers gathered in a place on the grounds called the Belltower Circle, and the director read the names in tribute. No one ever went into this ceremonial area except this one time each year.
So this very first summer I’m listening to myself speak the names of all these young men, and all of a sudden I come to a familiar name: George Lavenson. It was unmistakable. The realization hit me like a load of bricks. My uncle had gone to this very same camp when he was a kid—the camp I had just bought—and I didn’t even know it. All these boys for years had been hearing his name read to them in honor. My family couldn’t even speak his name out loud because of their grief. I saw my uncle’s name on the page and couldn’t continue. Right there, I started to cry. It was more than I could take. The ceremony ended early. Immediately I went to my office and phoned my father.
“Dad!” I said. “Did you know that Uncle George went to Camp Kennebec?”
“Yes,” he said. “I went there with him when we were boys.”
“How come you never told me this, particularly when I just bought the place?”
There was a silence on the phone. Some habits are hard to break.
“My brother was my best friend, you know . . . ,” he said at last. Dad still couldn’t talk about his brother in any detail, even so many years later.
Little by little, the story came out. Kennebec had been started in 1907. My grandfather had helped out at the camp in the 1920s, then my dad and uncles went there as campers in the 1930s. I searched around and found pictures of my uncle in the camp’s yearbooks. His favorite activity was canoeing. He had been voted “best athlete” and “best looking.” The camp was a traditional, old-time, rough-and-tumble, teach-people-how-to-be-resourceful-in-the-outdoors type of camp. The kids learned a lot of outdoor and survival skills. My father and uncle loved the place and it made many special memories for them growing up.
Here’s the other twist to the story. As I talked with my father, he said that he and his two brothers had decided to run the place one day as a canoe camp. Not only was this a camp they had gone to as kids, this was the very same camp they had dreamed of owning one day.
I had bought the very camp that they wanted! I was living my uncle’s dream!
To Whom Do I Owe Thanks?
From that moment on, I started doing everything I could to find out more about my uncle. I wanted to know as much as I could.
My uncle, George Lavenson, was born in Pennsylvania, graduated high school, and went to Haverford College in Philadelphia where he studied journalism. Before he enlisted he worked as a newspaper reporter in Philadelphia. All the family lived near each other not far from my father’s farm. They were very close.
As young men, my uncle and my father both considered themselves pacifists. When war
broke out, they initially talked about going off and holing up somewhere in the backwoods of Maine until the war was over. They figured they could come back then and start their camp—what they really wanted to do. But the tone in the country then was one of strong patriotism, and my father and uncle realized they needed to protect their country. It had been attacked, after all, and if they didn’t step up, who was going to? They enlisted.
They both went to Officers Candidate School (OCS). My uncle heard about a new elite outfit, the paratroopers, and volunteered. He proved a capable, qualified soldier. He was one of the original Toccoa men. Winters notes, “Senior commanders only assign the most talented officers to headquarters staffs. Colonel Sink and Major Strayer were no exception,” and within the first eight months of the company’s existence, my uncle, along with Lieutenants Matheson, Nixon, and Hester, were all assigned to 2d Battalion staff.35 There, my uncle became the battalion adjutant, a staff officer who assists the commanding officer in issuing orders. It meant he was often near the battle front.
Information trickled in over the years. Then, in the early 1990s, the book Band of Brothers came out. My father got a copy and gave it to me. I read it from cover to cover. It contained accounts of my uncle’s life and death and added more fuel to my fire. My hobby turned into an obsession, and I called all the people who knew about my uncle, including Stephen Ambrose. I couldn’t even find a number for Ambrose, only a fax number, so I sent him a fax about my uncle, and he was kind enough to call me back right away. I had collected some stories about my uncle by then, and we both shared information. The story I told Stephen Ambrose made him gasp.
A Company of Heroes Page 26
