When I arrived I was taken in by my three aunts and one of their husbands, all of whom lived in one house in Brooklyn. It took awhile before I also realized that they were, like many of their friends, refugees of modest means, and a place higher on the economic scale had to be worked for and earned. Yet, at age seventeen, being able to put deprivation and persecution behind me was indeed like being reborn. At least for a short time, for Pearl Harbor occurred ninety days after I arrived in Brooklyn.
Soon after I arrived, I concluded that I should not be a burden to my loving and caring relatives. Somehow I remembered that my father had once indicated that I should not go into business like most Jews of our Bavarian surroundings, but that I should learn a trade; he suggested becoming a watchmaker. This possibly influenced me to get a job as an apprentice tool and die maker in a Manhattan shop owned by a Swiss-born craftsman. I commuted from my aunts’ home in Brooklyn, worked six days a week, and attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn at night. My English teacher was a guy named Bernard Malamud, later a famous short story and novel writer. I had not been in school since I left Mainstockheim in 1939, except briefly in a vocational school in Brussels of which I recall very little. Working fulltime and going to school was probably quite a handful, but I was young and conscious of time I had lost and needed to be made up. Besides, it was wartime, and everyone was working hard.
The Brooklyn and Manhattan of those days was quite different from today. The Depression, although just about over by then, was on everyone’s mind and expectations and lifestyles were still guided by it. Our expectations, especially as refugees, were scaled down because we always compared the present situation with what we had just escaped. In other words, we adapted quickly and enthusiastically to the American way of life, though always as outsiders. Baseball had to be learned, even by just listening to commentary on the radio, for we seldom would go to a game and TV had not yet been invented. American slang became a curiosity for the refugees and seemed like yet another foreign language. I soon strove to master all of that and become a “real” American, which was probably a typical teenage reaction, for my relatives and their many refugee friends were still always comparing things to their former lives.
Our house was in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn, then a mixture of Jews and working people of Italian origin, with elevated trains rumbling along behind our house. (In recent years, Brighton Beach has become a Russian Jewish immigrant section.) No one had air-conditioning and many did not have cars, so the subway was our lifeline and there were mostly neighborhood stores interspersed with the typical soda fountain places of that time. When it got too hot in the summer, we escaped to the beach at nearby crowded Coney Island.
I do not recall my relatives having any connection with people other than their relatives and other refugees. Non-refugee neighbors were strangers and many of the refugees still spoke only German. In other words, they were all typical first-generation immigrants, not yet integrated. The sole exception was my unmarried aunt Sarah, a nurse who owned our house and who had immigrated in the early 1920s as a young woman, thus she was the “American.” After a while, this isolation from the mainstream began to grate on me and my annoyance heightened after I had been in the army for a while, beginning in 1943. Looking back decades later, I realized that this was the typical immigrant experience all over the world, not just in America.
My refugee family and I had, of course, a much more realistic understanding than any American of what was going on in Europe. I had a personal experience of what German invasion and domination meant from my time in Belgium and France. With the attack on Pearl Harbor and the total U.S. involvement in the war occurring immediately thereafter, we and other Americans soon were on the same footing—“They’re attacking us, we’re in danger, we got to fight.” Having been in Europe and “knowing” the Nazis soon faded into the background and was replaced by the danger we all equally felt and were determined to fight against. Being a refugee from over there soon became less relevant; we now were all in the same boat.
In 1941–1942, America was still so geographically isolated that war coming to it was as unanticipated as the attacks of 9/11, and therefore a tremendous shock. Europe was far away and crossing the Atlantic (or Pacific) was still a remote possibility for the average person, so the direct involvement of the United States was not foreseen. Besides, I was too young to contemplate military strategy, I had no illusions about the Nazis’ determination to conquer all of Europe, but the United States and most of its people did not get worried until Pearl Harbor. After that, Long Island went on U-boat alert.
At first, like everyone else I was surprised, but then I’d seen it all before—Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Western European countries, Russia—so it was not nearly as shocking to me as to native citizens. After all, I’d heard the Nazis singing about it in the streets of Mainstockheim and propaganda constantly blaring it over the radio when I was less than fifteen years old. Now, however, I felt more reassured knowing that the power and determination of America might have a chance to counteract and even end the Nazi terror against other nations.
All of the other German refugee boys I knew—all young guys of course—had been trying to assimilate and therefore felt that their country was being attacked, so they did not object to being drafted by the army. As for me, I definitely wanted to avoid the draft until after I had finished high school. I was now eighteen years old and that was more important to me at that time than going to war.
While many enlisted with enthusiasm, others were not that eager to be soldiers or sailors. At first I managed to get deferred so that I could finish school; also, tool and die makers were needed in defense plants, so deferment was granted to me once or twice throughout 1942.
Early defeats of the United States in the Pacific and questionable success in the early stages of the Africa campaign tightened U.S. requirements and draft board leniency. So I was drafted in March 1943 and soon found myself reporting to Fort Dix, New Jersey. Becoming a GI was inevitable—that’s how I then looked at it. I was no screaming patriot, the way McCain seems to remember himself, though I doubt the accuracy of his recollection.
Although Brooklyn to Fort Dix is not very far, from the very first day, I understood that I had entered a totally different world. Refugee recruit Werner Rindsberg immediately became U.S. Army Private Rindsberg.
After a few days, I was sent to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri’s Ozarks for three months of basic training. GIs then tabbed it as “the hellhole of the world.” This referred to the landscape, the accommodations, and the beastly summer heat without air conditioning. The slop, which was cooked by whom everyone claimed were truck-drivers-turned-chefs, and the purposely harsh drill sergeants contributed to the desperate description. I was now nineteen, but had not engaged in athletic activity since I was kicked off the soccer team in 1937. The obstacle course, crawling on my belly with rifle in crooked arm, or scaling the wooden wall via a rope net, singled me out as the typical awkward Jewish kid among the whooping and hollering natives. I felt inadequate and embarrassed. Fortunately, though it took time to discover this, there were other “city” types in the same boat.
Until I entered Fort Dix, I had never been west of the Hudson River, thus my America was limited to Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, and ubiquitous Washington Heights of Manhattan, dubbed the “Fourth Reich” because of its heavy Jewish refugee population. Since all troop travel was by train (first from Fort Dix to Missouri), I quickly realized both the enormous size of America and the diversity of its regions. This understanding increased when I was transferred from Fort Leonard Wood back east to Camp Holabird, outside Baltimore, where I was trained for three months as a Corps of Engineers bulldozer repair mechanic.
From there, I received another train transfer to the Ordnance Depot at Granite City, near East St. Louis, Illinois. Besides the landscape and the cities of St. Louis and Baltimore, I also became intermingled with all sorts of young Americans from many backgrounds an
d locations. This opened a whole new and daunting horizon, because many of my new co-soldiers came from all walks of life and attitudes. Shooting dice on a blanket, a frequent pastime and passion, was as strange as attending mass, which I also had never done before (and still haven’t). I never really did learn the intricacy of gambling with dice. I quickly sensed my “otherness.” I certainly did not seek out other refugee soldiers, or make special associations with them, and actually did not encounter that many until I was transferred to Military Intelligence in France in 1944. In that capacity I worked with many refugees, including those trained at Camp Ritchie. By then, I was more acclimated to being a U.S. GI than a guy who had been a refugee, so I probably was less timid about comparing notes with other refugees.
Frankly for me, it was never about “getting back at Hitler,” or worrying about killing my former countrymen. People often ask me about that, especially students when I speak at schools. It was mostly “these Krauts are going to kill my buddies,” “let’s get them first,” or “they killed our buddies, let’s go get even.” I do not recall anything about revenge or retribution from the point of view of a Jew. I was very young and easily influenced by my surroundings.
For quite a while, my different background and experiences definitely made me feel like the outsider. I just didn’t quite “get” what it was like to go to high school in Ashtabula, Ohio, or to grow up on a farm in Indiana. Moreover, with a name like “Werner Rindsberg,” coming from Brooklyn, I must have been a strange animal to many of my companions. Of course, many of them had the same problem, though from a different American perspective. They too were mingled with guys from different backgrounds and experiences from their own, but I didn’t think about that until much later. I thought that I was the only odd one who had to watch and learn how I should react or conduct myself. Drinking and chasing women was another new aspect for me, at least from how the typical GI approached these topics. I tried to learn and sometimes faked interest when I didn’t have any. It soon became part of my desire to blend in and also to have equal opportunity, even though I was not a native. Eventually, I had just as many friends as anyone else.
Among the Jewish refugee groups in New York, becoming a citizen was a universal objective, and all my relatives were proud to seek or obtain citizenship. Wanting “equal opportunity” for me certainly included wanting to be a citizen. So when I was notified at the camp in Granite City in the summer of 1943 that I was to appear in court to become a citizen the following week with other GI citizen candidates, I was glad to get ready. Someone apparently informed me that those who wanted to change their names could do so easily during the naturalization court procedure.
I was definitely embarrassed to go around as Private Rindsberg, because I felt that it instantly stereotyped me as a Jew and as a foreigner. This was the case not only with fellow soldiers and officers, but also with the girls we were usually chasing wherever we were hanging out. So I picked the new name about as quickly as McCain “selected” Sarah Palin; however I have stuck with “Walter Reed” all my life, which was not Palin’s fate with McCain. I vividly recall that I had qualms about changing the name my parents had given me, so I intentionally kept the initials “W. R.” and also selected my original first name of “Werner” to be my new middle name. I didn’t know then that my parents would not survive to find out.
Once I had become Walter Reed, I wanted to be like everyone else (as I perceived it then). Having been persecuted for being “different,” I was very intent on being considered as “equal” and “belonging.” Like most immigrants, I have both felt proud to be an American, but also have always sensed an obligation to be a “good” citizen by voting and serving my community. I think my original background and experiences have put a special value on the privilege of being an American.
AFTER SIX MONTHS’ TRAINING at Camp Holabird and in Granite City, I was assigned to a replacement battalion and sent to an assembly point north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and from there to England in March 1944. I do not have the slightest recollection of the guys in my unit, because we were intended as replacements. We would all be dispersed over time to replace casualties in other units. This produced a certain sense of fatalism among us, rather than cohesive team spirit or long-lasting relationships.
I am not implying that we had low morale. It was just not the “go, go” spirit of troops that would go into battle side-by-side and depend on each other. It was mostly fear of the unknown, heightened by the situation of being replacements. Unlike the usual propaganda about the military—“heroes,” young people “making sacrifices,” and so on—the life of a soldier is fear, discomfort, misery, and complaining. Those were mainly my, and our, emotions before we boarded the Aquitania, a converted ocean liner, to England. The former luxury liner had been outfitted for maximum occupancy, so all the luxury aspects had disappeared. The ship and crew were British, so the food was vilified and rejected by many GIs. I especially recall the troop version of a complete “English breakfast” included stewed peaches. These and other items were castigated as “limey food” (“limey” was our favorite negative moniker for British soldiers and their deficiencies). There was much seasickness, and no one knew where we were heading and how we would be deployed.
Anticipation therefore was limited to speculation, and there wasn’t much basis for the reality we were about to face, as none of us had ever served in combat and few had ever crossed an ocean. We were indeed like sheep about to be shipped “somewhere.” One of the hallmarks of the situation of ordinary soldiers in World War II was that we never knew what was going on, why we were doing what we did, and whether those in charge really knew what they were doing. Hence, the frequently used acronym SNAFU (situation normal, all fucked up).
Our ship arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, in March after a ten- or twelve-day crossing, and we were shipped by train to the Midlands near Chester. There, my military occupational specialty was changed from mechanic to “combat engineer,” with training in hand-to-hand combat and building pontoon bridges. As far as I recall, we remained there until we were moved to southern England just before the invasion. One week after D-Day, our battalion landed in Normandy on Utah Beach. The battle had by then already moved about ten or fifteen miles inland. We camped in the Normandy fields surrounded by hedgerows until after the U.S. forces’ breakthrough at St. Lo in July.
ONCE THE U.S. FORCES had begun their advance through northern France, our unit followed on trucks, usually at a safe distance from the fighting. After Paris was liberated, our unit ended up in the village of Auvers St. Georges, near Etampes, about thirty-five miles south of Paris. It was there where I became the unofficial French interpreter for the battalion commander and learned that the U.S. headquarters in Paris was in need of German speakers to interrogate prisoners. I applied, was transferred to a Paris suburb for about two weeks’ intensive training, and assigned to a seven-man Military Intelligence Service (MIS) interrogator team of a captain, a lieutenant, and five noncoms. With only two weeks’ training I surely was not prepared, but then in war even the best trained often have to improvise and I was well trained for other tasks before I was transferred to MIS. Most people quickly learned by doing, but war is not West Point or Annapolis.
Our MIS team was outfitted with two jeeps and a trailer and assigned to the newly arrived 95th Infantry Division, with two guys from our team assigned to each of the three regimental headquarters, where we did our work. Our task was to interrogate newly taken German prisoners and civilians who had crossed the battle lines about tactical information (location of their ammo dumps, number of troops, etc.) and to report that information to our officers and up the line to G-2 Section. We joined the 95th in September just east of Metz, where the division was already in battle. I’ll never forget the sight when we came through at night of the smoke over the city totally in ruins. (That still-smoking, total devastation sprang into my mind immediately when I saw the second airplane plunge into the World Trade Center.)
We were often on the move as the battle shifted and usually close enough to action that anything could have happened. First we were in Normandy, where the sounds of war were always near, and we were warned that German infiltrators could be over the next hedgerow. I never saw or heard any of them, but when I arrived at the 95th Division regimental headquarters, an incoming mortar shell exploded a few feet away. That was my baptism of fire.
For a time, in December 1944, we were in Saarlautern where the advance had stalled. I think by that time I had already been upped to private first class and it was a short hop to staff sergeant, because interrogators needed a bit of rank to be effective with the German prisoners whom we interrogated for tactical information. I was never actually “fighting,” but once I was driving our lieutenant in a jeep when shelling began. I panicked and ran the jeep smack into a tree.
Saarlautern was followed by the unexpected Battle of the Bulge, during which our division was shifted to the northern U.S. flank and I ended up briefly near Maastricht in the Netherlands; with bad luck we could have been captured, but we weren’t. Once the U.S. troops resumed their advance and entered Germany, we advanced with our division to the vicinity of Aachen, which was in ruins. Now I must say that I deplore the destruction in all of those places—of the private citizens’ homes, assets, and the factories—and the displacement of the people in them. On the other hand, I can mentally separate my regret of that from my realization that if the Nazis hadn’t set out to destroy other places—such as Stalingrad, Soviet Union, or Coventry, England—their places wouldn’t have been burned. They started it.
We then went toward Dusseldorf and into the Ruhr industrial area. We were in the area near Muenster when the Germans surrendered in May 1945. Shortly after that, I was reassigned to counterintelligence, working with U.S. military government units to help with the Denazification of local German governments and also the University of Marburg.
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