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Email to Andy Waskie, Jr. son of Lt. Andy Waskie.
Story 1. A cold good morning! 4 above zero. One occasion was a bit dramatic was when we were boarding the HMT Samaria, a British tramp steamer, at the port of embarkation. It was night-time and we were lined up with our duffel bags, etc., waiting to board. Then we started to walk up that gang plank to the ship. Out of nowhere someone shouted "forty eight", followed by many shouting "forty nine", followed by "fifty", each time getting louder. The last word was "fifty", very loud, instantly followed by a thunderous roar, "SOME SHIT", a bit weird but very dramatic! Saying goodbye to the good old USA!!! Just a little something that exhibits what we felt about going on our voyage. It was the day that FDR was elected for the third time. The HMT Samaria was an old round bottomed British tramp steamer, barely able to float. We crossed the stormy north Atlantic and were sea sick most of the time. The waves were huge and the boat was like a cork, bobbing up and down and sideways. The propeller would come out of the water rotating and the whole ship would vibrate. It was run by a British crew and we were lucky to get enough food to stay alive. The crew would sell us sandwiches consisting of two slices of bread with a slice of onions between them for five dollars and they made a lot of money. There was some sort of commissary aboard where we could buy candy, and many guys spent a lot of money there. That was our first exposure to the British(limeys), and it left a lasting expression. Just another bit of history about our division. By the way, there were ships around us as far as we could see, a huge flotilla, with freighters carrying the division armament and supplies, with destroyers, called tin cans, escorting us. The waves were so big that the tin cans would almost disappear when they would knife through them. There is more to tell about that voyage and I will continue it later if you would like more about it. It was a huge adventure! One final thought: when we were going out of the harbor and were getting close to the Statue of Liberty they made us go below deck and we didn't get to see it! When we were a few days out we were ordered to fall out on deck in raincoats and boots, in nasty weather, for "SHORT ARM INSPECTION", with medics waiting to inspect us! Guess about that! Too long winded today!
Story 2. There are many stories that could be told, but I recall one that was bad. We were in Austria someplace, near a small airfield. As usual we had DPs, displaced persons, around us. Also, as usual, the troops wanted some booze to drink. One of the DPs said that he could make some good alcohol by straining aircraft de-icing alcohol through a loaf of bread and make it safe to drink, so some of the guys had him do it. They got some bread from the cooks and some de-icing alcohol, which was like our vehicle antifreeze, de-natured alcohol, and had him strain some of it through the bread, about a gallon. They then had a party and got drunk, with very bad results. I don't know the exact consequences, but at least one guy went blind and maybe one died. Those DPs would find something to drink quite a few times in different places. They would find something that would ferment and make booze. I didn't drink, still don't, so I didn't get involved. One DP gave one of our guys a small bottle of booze, about a pop bottle, to drink, and a short time later the guy was so drunk he couldn't get up the steps to where he was staying, and he had consumed only about half of the booze! At another place, don't recall just where, we sent a truck to a wine producer and it came back loaded. Many guys got laid out drunk. Wine has a strange effect the next day, when they would drink some water and be drunk again! The army was great, the furnished free cigarettes, I think there were three in a small pack, and rations of booze, whatever was available! Another story. We were in Germany somewhere and near a brewery, which had small kegs of beer for the taking. Some enterprising guys found some plastic tubing, took a small keg and put it on a small rise, put the tubing in the keg, laid down close to the keg at a lower level and sucked beer from the keg through the tubing! Great sport! OK, one more. In Austria we occupied a place that produced seltzer water, bottled under pressure in bottles that had levers on them to dispense the seltzer water. We got a bunch of bottles and had a ball chasing each other around, squirting seltzer water on each other. At least it was non-toxic! As the old saying goes, "boys will be boys," and many of us were barely out of high school! Long message today, but I thought it might be of interest.
Story 3. I remember going thru the Ardennes just after the Germans were driven out of that area. There was a lot of snow and it was cold. We saw places where tanks or artillery vehicles had been, with shell casings around those places, thrown out of the vehicles after firing. The trees were almost all blown apart. It was a heavily wooded area and nobody thought that the Germans would attack through there. I don't know if any 8th Armored units were involved in the action. I also recall that when we were in France and cut down a few trees for firewood, that we were chastised for destroying the French trees, when the whole area was blown apart and we were saving their country! A similar thing happened in Germany somewhere when our cooks shot a German cow and butchered it to prepare a meal that was a great relief from K-rations. How dare we kill one of their cows, when we were killing their soldiers? Our cook was Domrud, called Hung Chow, and he did a great job of feeding us.
A short addition to the cow story. The reprimand came from the military government. They were looking out for the civilian population and knew that they needed their livestock and other things to recover from the war. The French were also in that condition, but they were also a different breed of cats, poor soldiers and slovenly civilians. We didn't get along with them too well. I remember some advice from a Belgian bartender when we were in his pub. They were a weird country, beset on all sides by the French, Germans and others. The bartender told us "don't have anything to do with Belgian women, because they welcomed the Germans with open legs"!!! A wise man!
Story 4. Another offbeat story from England. While we were a Tidworth we had no way to bath or shower. One evening a couple of us were taken to an old English house, where we were met at the door by a very proper butler, the spitting image of the typical butler in movies, dressed formally and very polite. He led us inside to a bathroom which had a large old clawfoot type bath tub, with warm water drawn for a bath. We were invited to bathe and we did. Those people had almost nothing, food, fuel or luxuries. We toweled off and dressed and went back to our barracks, where we slept in second story cold rooms, which had a fireplace at one end for heat. We froze at one end of the room and baked at the other end. It was a truly exceptional event which I remember well. Tidworth was an old British cavalry training facility. The British treated us very well. Some of them resented us and said that we were "overpaid, oversexed and over here"! Lots of memories! Merry Christmas!!!
Richard Jenkins
Richard Jenkins, 2017
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