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

by Louis G. Gruntz

  On February 27, B Company was alerted to join the 6th Cavalry Group in the taking of the town of Krautshied. When the tanks were moving to this assignment, the infantry guides took the tanks to the wrong town, Bellschied, where they drew fire from a German tank on high ground. Lee Miller, who had won the Silver Star in Dillingen, was killed and two of the tank crew were seriously injured.

  By March 8, the 712th was moving through western Germany. This area was an industrial area, particularly coal mines, which were used to run the manufacturing industries further north. This section had never been a Nazi hotbed and more often than not the streets would be lined with cheering civilians, waving flags in much the same way as the French had. But even more gratifying to the 712th was the overflowing joy of the liberated slave laborers as they were released from their miserable camps and cheered the tanks. People from all over Europe who had been taken as slave laborers were found in every town and the roads were soon jammed with these people making their way back to their homelands.3

  During this period, Jack the Russian left the battalion. Dad stated, “After he went a little distance with us and we liberated towns in Germany he met one of his buddies, one of the kids from his home town so he got out and said ‘I’m going home.’ He got out and tried to make his way back to Russia.

  Dad never saw him again and never knew what happened to Jack.

  The Second Moselle Crossing

  As the 90th and the 712th continued their eastward movement, they approached the Moselle River, which once again had to be crossed. March of 1945 brought spring rains to Europe and the Moselle River was beginning to overflow is banks again.

  Most of the tanks had to be ferried across. Dad described the second crossing of the Moselle on March 14. “One night we had to cross the Moselle River, so they put artificial moonlight so we could see to cross the river. That’s the way we made the crossing and the next morning we were over there behind the Germans. It was called ‘artificial moonlight,’ they would shine two or three powerful air raid search lights up into the air. They got in a certain area in the rear and they would shine on the clouds overhead. It just like the moon. You could see on the ground, just like a good moonlit night.”

  The opening scene of the movie Patton contains one of the most famous quotes of Gen. Patton: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

  Dad said he remembered such speeches during training. “In those days they never had, uh, that Rambo (style) so the General gave us a speech to learn how to fight and to fight battles. He said ‘Don’t try to be a hero, you pay attention to what you learn and you live, because (dead) heroes don’t win wars.’ And if you stop and think about it that’s true.”

  Dad went on to say that during training they were taught various safety procedures when the tank needed maintenance. For example, occasionally a shell would jam in the 75-mm cannon on the tank. When that happened someone had to get out of the tank and ram a rod down the barrel of the gun from the outside to dislodge the shell casing out of the breech. Dad said when this malfunction occurred, they were taught to turn the turret to the rear of the tank. This maneuver of turning the turret 180 degrees away from the direction of enemy fire was designed to protect the crew member who had to get out of the tank.

  As the 712th and the 90th were moving into the town of Mainz, Germany, a shell got lodged in the barrel of the 75 mm in Stanley Muhich’s tank. Muhich jumped out of the tank to ram the rod down the barrel and somehow, in the heat of the battle, the turret was not rotated. As Muhich was dislodging the shell, with the barrel still facing the direction of the fighting, a sniper shot him in the back of the head and killed him. Muhich was the last person in B Company killed in battle.

  The tank platoon retrieved Muhich’s body and withdrew to the little town that had just passed through. Later, a German sniper in a camouflage uniform was captured and brought into town with his hands up. After the capture, another member of Muhich’s tank crew took the sniper and marched the prisoner around the back of the tank and out of view and shot him. Dad commented, “I wouldn’t want to have to live with that (on my conscience).”

  I asked Dad what had happened to the soldier who killed the sniper, and whether he was court-martialed. Dad said nothing happened, no one reported it to the officers, or if they did, the officers just ignored it and did nothing.

  Dad said that Muhich’s tank mate who shot the sniper even attended a few reunions after the war but no one ever brought up the subject of Muhich’s death.

  View from the turret crossing the Rhine. (Company B photograph)

  In the tank next to Muhich was a friend of Dad’s, Cleo Coleman, one of the original Company H/712th tankers who trained with Dad at Fort Benning. Coleman was from Pike County, Kentucky and was descended from the Hatfield clan of the famous Hatfields and McCoys.

  Coleman stated he witnessed the sniper being brought into town and saw the member of Muhich’s tank crew march the prisoner out behind a stone wall and close the gate. Coleman did not pay much attention, but then heard a gun fire. Someone said, “He shot that prisoner.” Coleman and several other went to look. The sniper had a hole between his eyes. Coleman stated, “And he came back through the gate and his face was white. It did something to him when he shot that man in cold blood.”4

  Germany’s defeat was inevitable as the 712th and the 90th crossed the Rhine River into the heart of Germany on March 24, 1945, at Mainz. The vast majority of the German Army in the west were killed, wounded or captured during the Battle of the Bulge. Even though the fighting continued, the German Army now consisted of the Volksgrenadiers, or Volkssturm comprised of old men and young boys.5 Deaths, like Muhich’s were occurring needlessly all across the front due to the zealot young German boys who were fighting a vain and useless fight. Lt Cochran of the 359th, expressed the frustration on the part of the American GI:

  …while moving through a small village, (we) ran into more Hitler Youth. Several of us were moving down the street, an automatic rifle fired on us. One man was killed. After placing artillery fire on the block, we moved through the buildings. As we neared the block and were on its flank, we opened up and killed three. One youth, perhaps aged 16, held up his hands. I was very emotional over the loss of a good soldier and grabbed the kid and took off my cartridge belt.

  I asked him if there were more like him in town. He gave me a stare and said “I’d rather die than tell you anything.” I told him to pray, because he was going to die and die now. I hit him across the face with that thick heavy belt. I was about to strike him again when I was grabbed from behind by Chaplain Kerns. He said, “Don’t! Let me have him.” He took the crying child away. I knew later that the Chaplain had intervened not only to save a life but to prevent me from committing a murder. Had it not been for the Chaplain, I would have.6

  The Merkers Salt Mines

  During its trek across Germany, the Third Army leapfrogged its units; the 90th and 712th would spearhead a movement for several days and then go into reserve as other units passed through them and took the lead position in the advance.

  In February 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin had met in Yalta and had made plans for the occupation of Germany at war’s end. Each of these Allied nations would occupy a certain sector. By April, the 712th and 90th was once again one of the lead units and had advanced into the German State of Thuringia a sector that would eventually be occupied by the Soviet Union in post-war Germany.

  Just before noon on April 4, 1945, the 712th and the 90th entered the small town of Merkers, Germany. There was nothing outwardly unusual about this town other than it was the site of a salt mine. Two days later some chance remarks by German civilians led to the discovery of gold and other riches of the Third Reich. Gen. Patton said that except for the instincts of human decency on the part of two Americans, the Americans might never had discovered the treasure until much of it had been more securely hidden away.7

&nb
sp; Upon capturing Merkers, the US troops had established a curfew law. Any civilian in the streets after dark was instantly picked up for questioning. In the early morning hours of April 6, Pfc. Clyde Harmon and Pfc. Anthony Kline, two 90th Division military police, observed two women hurrying along a street; they stopped them for interrogation. One woman explained in broken English that her friend was pregnant and needed a midwife. After further interrogation at the Provost Marshall’s office, the women’s story proved correct. The MPs then intent on helping the pregnant woman picked up the midwife. Sgt Mootz, another MP, then drove the women back to their homes in Merkers. Along the way, Mootz saw a large derrick next to a factory building near the salt mines. In the course of making conversation, Mootz asked what it was. One of the women exclaimed that it was the salt mine in which much gold and art objects were buried. The woman went on to relate that the gold was the German gold reserve and the art objects were brought from the national museum in Berlin for safe keeping. Slave labor had worked for days unloading all of the gold and art and moving it down into the mine

  Actually, as soon as the 90th and the 712th entered Merkers, Intelligence Officers had been interviewing displaced foreign workers in the town and several French workers had given reports of gold treasure in the mine. When the news of both stories reached higher level officers, tanks from the 712th and soldiers from the 90th were ordered to guard the various entrances to the mines.8

  On the morning of Saturday, April 7, Lt-Col. Russell of the 90th Infantry descended deep into the mine on a rickety elevator with a German guide and several other officers. Included in this group was Lt-Col. Kedrovsky and Capt. Forrest Dixon of the 712th Tank Battalion. The elevator took them to the bottom of the main shaft, twenty-one hundred feet beneath the surface.

  The find proved to be immense: 110 tons of gold bullion valued in excess of $100,000,000; several thousand burlap bags filled with gold coins from various countries including 711 bags filled with US gold coins. The total amount of gold in bullion and coin totaled $238,490,000. There was also paper currency from various countries including 2,000,000 American Dollars and 5,000,000,000 German Reichmarks.

  The mine contained over two thousand priceless paintings and sculptures much of it looted from various European museums. The mine also revealed a darker find: valises full of silverware, cups, candelabra and other treasures looted from families, churches and synagogues, all of which had been hammered flat to fit into the valises. And to the rear of the chamber, the most gruesome discovery, a large quantity of bags, containing pearls and other precious stones, also contained gold fillings and inlays taken from the bodies of the Holocaust victims.

  The vast wealth in the mine attracted visits by the highest ranking generals, on April 10, and was described as probably the largest collection of generals of any operation during the war with the exception of the D-Day planning in England.9

  Generals Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Manton Eddy and Otto Weyland, along with a group of officers entered the mine. As the jittery elevator descended down the pitch-black shaft, with a German operating the elevator, one of the officers was concerned about their safety. Patton, looking at the single cable, said if the cable snapped promotions in the United States Army would be considerably stimulated. Gen. Eisenhower said, “OK George, that’s enough. No more cracks until we are above ground again.”10

  Since Merkers was in territory that the Soviet Union was to occupy in post-war Germany, Eisenhower ordered that the contents of the Merkers mine be transferred to Frankfurt, Germany, within the American sector.

  The 90th and the 712th were continuing on the offensive and needed all of its forces. Gen. Eddy had originally ordered only minimal troops be diverted for guarding the mine. After learning the extent of the discovery he countermanded that order and for the next ten days troops from the 357th Regiment of the 90th and three platoons of tanks from the 712th, two from C Company and one from D Company, had a break from combat and were given the assignment of guarding the mine while the treasure was being transferred.

  While these three tank platoons remained in Merkers, the remainder of the 712th and the 90th continued in battle trudging their way across the rest of Germany toward Czechoslovakia.

  Transfer to Headquarters Company

  It was sometime in late March, with only a few weeks remaining in the war, Dad said he was unexpectedly transferred to Headquarters Company. He asked Capt. Vutech, “Captain, why am I being transferred?” Vutech told him, “Louie, you have seen enough action, go back where it is safe.”

  Dad was upset that Vutech had transferred him to Headquarters Company, although he was perplexed over this development, he followed orders. New replacements were coming in to handle the front line action and there were still important things that needed to be done in HQ Company in order for the battalion to operate smoothly until the end of the war. Dad knew that in HQ Company he was still part of a team.

  Dad came to believe that Vutech thought that Dad might have been suffering from some sort of battle fatigue. Dad recalled that before his transfer he had an argument with his tank commander at that time, Sgt Schmidt. Schmidt had called to Dad at his gunner position to fire on a target. Dad looked through the gunner’s periscope and didn’t see anything, he responded, “What target? I don’t see anything.” Schmidt said it again; Dad looked again through the periscope and even stuck his head out of the turret to see what Schmidt was referring to but he still didn’t see anything. Schmidt yelled at him, “If you want to survive you had better see those targets.”

  At the time Dad did not believe he was experiencing any effects of battle fatigue.

  It is normal for soldiers to experience stress during combat. The adrenaline rush has positive effect on a soldiers body; the physiological and emotional reflexes readies a soldier for battle and enables him to survive, function, and perform tasks under extremely difficult circumstances. Prolonged exposure to the horrors of combat, however, has a detrimental effect on the body increasing the likelihood of becoming emotionally worn down and exhausted. Battle fatigue has been described as basically a temporary overloading and redirecting of psychological defenses. The term described a wide variety of symptoms ranging from disturbance of physical functions such as simple exhaustion, weakness or tremors in limbs, blurred or double vision, ringing in ears, to emotional problems such as anxiety, immense fear, or depression.

  Basic training and drill was designed to get soldiers into top physical condition in order to function effectively in combat. The mental and emotional abilities necessary for effective combat performance were just as vital as being in top physical condition. “Battlefield awareness” was the term used to describe this heightened state of mental and emotional conditioning. Yet with all the physical training, the stress produced by the reality of combat caused soldiers to experience many human psychological defense mechanisms.

  The War Department was not unaware of the psychological effects of constant combat. In 1944 the Surgeon General issued a report based upon studies of American soldiers under combat conditions. The first page of the report stated, “Just as an average truck wears out after a certain number of miles it appears that the doughboy wore out, either developing an acute incapacitating neurosis or else becoming hypersensitive to shell fire, so overly cautious and jittery, that he was ineffective and demoralizing to the newer men. The average point at which this occurred appears to have been in the region of 200 to 240 regimental combat days.”11 The 712th Tank Battalion far exceeded this point with 314 days in the ETO (European Theater of Operations) combat zone, with 298 days in actual contact with the enemy.12

  Capt. Colby pointed out:

  …the feeling of weariness and being unwell was all too familiar among “old” infantrymen who had been in combat since crossing the beach. When we recognized this, which may have been a form of helplessness, we did our best to transfer them to less hazardous duty. When we could not, perhaps because of the situation at the time, it was not unusual
that they would soon be killed. Some thought the feeling was a premonition. Whatever it was, it certainly seemed to lead to a letdown of the keenness of perception so essential for survival in combat.13

  Fighting inside a tank has been described as an even more exhausting and stressful experience. While tankers did not experience the numbing exhaustion of the infantry’s foot-slogging experience, tank combat had its own physical demands.14 “The air inside the cramped confines of the tank became a mixture of sweat, oil, human bodies, and cordite fumes. It was baking hot in the summer and dank and cold in the winter. The interior was dark and the periscopes offered the crew a very limited view of the exterior and was useless at night. The tank was a big and obvious target, therefore, the crew had to keep vigilant eye for enemy anti-tank weapons, like the 88-mm anti-tank gun and the panzerfaust.” 15

  No one was immune to battle fatigue, not even a man of the cloth.16

  Officers learned to recognize signs of fatigue, and perhaps Vutech thought Dad’s inability to see the target pointed out by Sgt Schmidt was such a sign and for Dad’s safety he transferred him to HQ Company.

  Dad said that Vutech had told him to go back to the “safety” of HQ Company, “safety” being a relative term. HQ Company had its share of casualties throughout the war and it was by no means safe. Col. Randolph was killed by artillery fire in the Battle of the Bulge, Lt Marshall Warfield and Sgt Thomas Reilly were killed by machine gun fire near Metz. All in all, HQ Company sustained nine KIA casualties during the war.

  Leon Fowler was back with HQ Company around the same time Dad was transferred. Cleo Coleman commented about Fowler’s transfer to HQ Company and the emotional stress and reaction to the death of his brother, Harvey Fowler, during the attack on Doncols: