Dad was particularly thrilled to be in the village of his ancestors; I was happy that I was able to play a small part in making this possible. We realized that we were the first descendants of Louis Gruntz to return to his village in over 120 years.
With the aid of the Gruntz telephone list we acquired from the hotel clerk, we made a brief stop in the town of Hesingue, which had the most Gruntz names listed. Unfortunately, our inability to speak French, coupled with our inability to locate someone who could speak English prevented us from making any contact with any of the Gruntz families.
Although we were unable to make contact with any distant relatives during our trip, in the subsequent months after our trip I sent dozens of letters (translated into French) and received return correspondence from several Gruntz families who were surprised to discover that there was a Gruntz family in America.
Alsace has been battled over between the French and the Germans for several hundred years and even though the people speak a dialect of German, the majority of the population was more sympathetic to the France than to Germany. In 1871 Germany annexed the area of Alsace, in the Rhine valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and on the east side of the Vosges Mountains.
My ancestors were apparently on the losing side of that conflict or they were merely tired of war, but Louis Gruntz and his family emigrated to Louisiana in 1873.
The territorial entity of Elsass (the German name for Alsace) was created by the German Empire in 1871 and remained under German domination until the Armistice after World War I. In the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had to cede the territory back to France. When the Germans invaded France during World War II, they immediately occupied Elsass and quickly drafted most of the able body men into the service of the German Army. Many were sent to Normandy. Dad said that he had always wondered if he had fired upon any of his distant cousins during the war. That question remains a mystery.
CHAPTER 14
The Last Time I Saw Paris
…the freedom of Paris is associated with a persistent belief that nothing ever changes. Paris, they say, is the city that changes least. After an absence of twenty or thirty years, one still recognizes it.
Marguerite Duras (1914-1996)
Dad and I began the final leg of our journey by automobile. By midday, we had arrived at the outskirts of Paris.
Since it was a Sunday afternoon, I presumed that the traffic would be light and so we ventured into the middle of Paris in our rented automobile. I presumed incorrectly. Before long, we found ourselves hopelessly trapped in the traffic circle, circling the Arc de Triomphe.
After what seemed an eternity, I was determined to position our car on the outer lane of the traffic circle and exit at the first available street. I eventually accomplished this maneuver, but was even more disturbed to find us on the Champs-Elysées. After several blocks, I spotted a sign for a parking garage off on a side street and quickly found the entrance and we parked the car. As we were walking down this prestigious Parisian boulevard toward the Arc de Triomphe, by chance I caught sight of a plaque near the entrance to 92 Champs-Elysées. It was the building in which Thomas Jefferson resided when he was the United States Ambassador to France from 1785 to 1789.
After visiting the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the middle of the Arc de Triomphe, we did a little shopping and then made our way back to the car. In the safe confines of the parking garage, we studied the map to determine the best way back toward the airport. Our plan was to find a hotel near the airport, return our rental car and use the subway as our means of transportation to continue our tour of Paris.
Finding a hotel room that night near the airport was relatively easy. After unloading all of our belongings from the car, we returned it to the rental agency at the airport the next morning. We circled the airport traffic ramps several times in frustration, before we were able to see the small sign indicating the entrance to the rental return lot. After the last day and a half in Paris traffic we were truly happy to be saying goodbye to our automobile.
Dad and I boarded the subway train at the airport for our first full day of sightseeing in Paris. While walking through one of the subway stations as we were transferring trains, I was taken aback at one of the sights. Several French soldiers in camouflage fatigue uniforms, armed with Uzi sub-machine guns were patrolling the subway station. In those days prior to September 11, 2001, that was a strange and an amazing site for this American to experience in a public facility.
For the next two days we experienced Paris as typical American tourists. We shopped for souvenirs, visited the Eiffel Tower, Invalides. We visited Notre Dame Cathedral, one of the most revered Catholic sites in France, where I was dismayed to see a sign at the entrance, “Beware of pickpockets”.
We also found the Opera House and the adjacent Grand Hotel where Dad once stayed during the war. Between the capture of Metz and the assault on Dillingen, there was a lull in the battle for the 712th. When this occurred, Dad wrote home to Mom and told how he came to be in Paris:
November 29, 9 p.m.
Darling I promised to write you a blue letter yesterday, but I didn’t get chance to. Just as I sat down and started to write they came around and said the fellows were going to draw for a pass to Paris. 2 fellows out of the Company were allowed to go. Well I won one of the passes. I am in Paris now. I just got here so I can’t tell you much about it as it is dark. But I will write and tell you about it tomorrow Love. I am going to be here until the day after tomorrow…
Troop transport trucks picked up soldiers going on furlough at the forward areas and drove them to Paris. Sgt Edward Dowgiert was the other member of B Company who won a pass; he was in the truck with Dad. In Paris, the transport trucks pulled up next to the Grand Hotel near the Paris Opera House. The hotel had been opened to Allied troops in October, only one month prior to Dad’s stay. A Life Magazine reporter and photographer were there doing a story about soldiers on leave in Paris. The photographer snapped a picture just as Dad and Dowgiert were getting out of the truck. That picture ran in the February 26, 1945 edition of Life. Standing next to the truck was an old Frenchman. Dad said that the Frenchman was dealing in the black market and was trading for cigarettes. Dad traded a carton of cigarettes for a silver bracelet which he sent to Mom.
I asked him what was Paris like during the war. “It was just like another world. It was like back home. They (the Parisians) were celebrating, they were still celebrating. Everything was wide open, all the stores were open again, but we never had any money. But they never had much stuff to sell.”
Life cover.
Cpl Gruntz in Life Magazine.
Cpl Gruntz in Paris. (Author’s collection)
1944 Christmas cards home. (Author’s collection)
It was the first time in months that Dad was able to sleep in a bed with sheets. The hotel housed 850 soldiers per night with the cost of the room being approximately $0.40 per night. When Dad and I visited the hotel, Dad inquired about the room rates. They had increased considerably since 1944 – the rate was now approximately $400.00 per night.
The hotel managers had opened the grand ballroom of the hotel to the GIs where they could enjoy a hot meal. The French were not as hospitable to the German soldiers billeted at the hotel during the Nazi occupation; the French managers kept them out of the grand ballroom telling them that the huge chandeliers were likely to fall during air raids.
I inquired as to whether Dad bought any other souvenirs. “No. I had a picture taken on one of those two-bit cameras that I sent to Mom. I looked like a French refugee.”
The back of these pictures indicates it was taken on November 29, 1944. I asked Dad what he did while he was in Paris. He said, “I went sightseeing. We went to eat in the dining hall.”
Dad got to be in Paris a total of 36 to 48 hours. “We got there one evening, stayed that night, went to see Paris, stayed another night, and then the next morning at 7:00 o’clock we were on the trucks to go back.”
Even though
Dad could not reciprocate Mom’s daily letters to him, Dad wrote home to Mom every chance he had. In late November, particularly while he was in Paris, he took the opportunity to mail several Christmas cards to Mom in order that she would receive them by Christmas. The cards were some of the few souvenir items he was able to purchase while shopping in Paris.
CHAPTER 15
Going Home
I, for one, know of no sweeter sight for a man’s eyes than his own country.
Homer, The Odyssey
Dad and I spent our last night in Paris, packing all of our gear and preparing for the long flight home the next day. In a matter of hours we would be home, unlike Dad’s trip home in 1945. What took us only hours in 1994 took weeks in 1945.
The day after the war in Europe ended, Mom clipped a news story headlined as “Pacific is No Tank Country”. An Associated Press story from Washington DC stated:
The tank carried the load in the European war; in the Pacific, it will be the doughboy and his bayonet […]
Europe was tank country, for such end-run generals as Patton, Hodges and Simpson, with wide flanking movements, big pincers operations and lightning stabs.
The Pacific is totally different. The home islands of Japan do not lend themselves to tank warfare. […] in a campaign where the terrain is overcome by the yard instead of the mile, it is the foot-slogging doughboy with his rifle and bayonet who must carry the burden.
Earlier news stories throughout the war had indicated that tanks had been used in various island campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO). Mom had hoped and prayed that the May 9 newspaper assessment was correct.
I asked Dad if the 712th Tank Battalion was ever considered for transfer to the PTO to fight the Japanese. He replied, “Well they said about sending the troops from Europe over to Japan because they had to invade it, you see. But then when the atomic bomb came out and they dropped that. I didn’t want to think about that (being sent to Japan). I had to start counting up my points, anyone who had 85 points didn’t have to go. And I had 85 points. So we felt like we were going to go home.”
America’s use of the atomic bomb, ended all concerns of being deployed to the Pacific. The camp newspaper, Tank Tracks, described the mood on August 15, 1945:
The tense waiting of the men was rewarded today as headlines screamed the war was over and radio broadcasts kept repeating Japan had surrendered. There was no change in the camp’s activities. It seemed like any other day. The change was great though. It was the change that took place inside. It was the feeling of joy and silent prayer. It was all over. It meant home was much closer – so much closer now.
It is hard for one to realize what the end actually meant. To those who were fortunate enough never to see a day of it, there was great celebration. A screaming, crazed exhibition of joy without realizing its true meaning. To the man who knows, there was no shouting or screaming just a prayer inside thanking God he was spared and hoping never again will he be part of the game of death. Yes, it was accepted casually but inside was that little prayer, “Thank God, it’s over.”
Later, when I asked Mom about the events back home in New Orleans when the war ended, she told me about V-E Day, “When the war was over many in our neighborhood went to Canal Street, they were celebrating. They had dances and everything. I wasn’t in the mood for all of that. I was still home crying because I didn’t know if Dad was still alive. So until he came home, I didn’t celebrate. I don’t remember V-J Day because I was just concerned about Dad.”
The Army had developed a formula by which troops earned points. Points were awarded for each medal awarded, and for each month of service. 85 points was the lucky number; once anyone received that amount, he was shipped home. Shortly after arriving in Amberg, most of the Battalion was just below the magic number. But replacement troops, who had just arrived toward the end of the war and had fewer than 65 points were reassigned to other units to remain in Germany for the occupation. Those with more than 85 points waited in anticipation for the news that they would be going home.1
Waiting to come home – killing time playing solitaire. (Author’s collection)
That word came in mid-September of 1945. The joyous atmosphere that surrounded the news however, was shattered several days later. When one hears of a soldier’s death during the years 1941-1945, one naturally assumes the death occurred in combat, but accidents occurred not only in the combat zone but also in the occupied territories after hostilities ceased. The final Battalion casualty was Andrew Lampman of B Company. He had survived combat; he is even pictured in the post-war company photograph taken at Camp Randolph, yet on September 15, 1945, Andrew Lampman was killed in a truck accident four days after the Battalion received orders that it was being sent home. Death did not take a holiday because the war ended. Just as civilians had to be safety conscious, Lampman’s death pointed out that all of the 712th had to remain vigilant to prevent accidents.
Even Gen. Patton suffered this cruel irony. After surviving the war, he died as a result of injuries sustained in a post-war automobile accident in Germany in December of 1945.
On September 11, 1945, the redeployment took place. Those few with less than 85 points were reassigned to the 90th.
The 712th was still a Tank Battalion on paper, but the 712th of FORET DE MONT CASTRE, FALAISE GAP, MAISIERES, METZ, DILLINGEN, OBERWAMPACH, THE SIEGFRIED LINE, and CZECHOSLOVAKIA was a thing of the past. The “best tank battalion in the US Army” that the Boche could hurt but never whip, an outfit that never retreated in the face of the enemy – broken up by the point system.2
The 712th Tank Battalion moved by motor convoy and train to Camp Detroit in southern France and then to the Calais Staging Area near Marseilles.
On October 15 all personnel loaded the troop transport ship for the voyage back home to America. Dad said, “They loaded us on the USS George Washington and I stayed up on the deck all the time. I slept on the deck and all, it was warm. I didn’t want to go down in the hole, plenty of them got seasick on the way home.”
Cpl Gruntz at Camp Detroit. (Author’s collection)
Camp Detroit. (Company B photograph)
Camp Detroit. (Company B photograph)
USS George Washington in Marseilles Harbor. (Author’s collection)
The voyage home. (Company B photograph)
On October 25, the voyage ended in New York; and the 712th was taken to Camp Joyce Kilmer. “Here the Battalion finally passed out of existence and in no time at all trains, buses, planes and autos were carrying the ex-tankers toward home and civilian life.”3
From New Jersey, Dad traveled by train to Camp Shelby, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Now that he was being discharged, the Army was giving him the hobo accommodations. The train car from New Jersey was a boxcar outfitted with about sixteen bunks. Dad and fifteen others rode and looked at the sights out of the open boxcar door. When it rained, they had to shut the door to keep from getting wet.
At Camp Shelby, he had to turn in his uniform that had been issued to him in Europe. It was a new and comfortable style. In its place he was issued an old woolen uniform that was very uncomfortable. Dad said that it felt like it had been made in World War I.
On November 1, 1945, All Saints Day, Dad was discharged and he had a bus ride home to New Orleans. In a few hours he was back home in Louisiana. After arriving at the bus station on Canal Street, Dad caught a taxi-cab home. Dad said, “I was so excited to get home, I got out of the cab and ran into the house.” After greeting Mom, Dad, realized that he didn’t have his discharge papers. “Oh my God I dropped my discharge papers. We called the taxi company and they found them in the back seat of the cab. So they dropped them in the mail to me.”
On our flight home in 1994, we had the good fortune of having a relatively empty plane; I, therefore, took a window seat. As we crossed the coast of France, I could see all of the little square hedgerow fields. My thoughts turned to eleven days earlier when I was viewing these fields close-up, and how my perc
eption of war had been altered during that intervening eleven-day period. My perception of war as a glamorous adventure, which had been deeply imbedded in my youth, was now supplanted by the more realistic depictions provided by my father.
Following the Civil War, US General William Tecumseh Sherman described War as being Hell. This graphic assessment seems appropriate for all wars. War is Hell for the combatants, it is Hell for the civilian populace in the path of opposing combatants, and it is Hell for the combatants’ families back home.
CHAPTER 16
Other Casualties and a Never Ending War
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.
Jose Narosky
During this trip and in the years that followed I continued to learn more and more about members of the 712th Tank Battalion and World War II in Europe.
I accompanied Mom and Dad to the annual 712th reunions. And in June of 2000, I had the privilege of having a repeat trip to Europe with Dad. Once again Dad told his story as we traveled the battle route of the 712th. The occasion for this trip was the dedication of a World War II monument in Périers, France. This time Mom joined us along with my two youngest children, David and Becky.
The monument being dedicated in Périers depicted four soldiers who were killed in action in the town’s liberation, Virgil J. Tangborn, Andrew J. Speese, Richard E. Richtman of the 90th Infantry Division and Tullio Micaloni of the 712th. These four were representative of the more than 1,000 troops of the 90th killed in the fields and hedgerows near and around Périers.
This was a special occasion for Dad, not only was he attending the ceremony as the official representative of the 712th, but he was there for the dedication of a monument honoring his friend, Tullio.
There were five of us in a medium size car with luggage in the trunk and on the roof. Dad was now eighty-one years old and a knee injury he sustained early in life was now debilitating; he could not walk any great distance without being in intense pain. Whenever we traveled, we brought along a wheelchair to increase Dad’s mobility. We brought the wheel chair to Europe along with an automobile bicycle rack. Due to the luggage taking up most of the space, we had the wheel chair mounted on the bicycle rack on the rear bumper. Traveling down the roads of France, we looked like the opening scene of the Beverly Hillbillies.
A Tank Gunner's Story: Gunner Gruntz of the 712th Tank Battalion Page 23