Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Historian Stephen Ambrose appropriately described World War II as “history’s greatest catastrophe”. But from the smoldering rubble of that war there emerged amazing stories of ordinary men and women doing extraordinary deeds of valor, sacrifice, and heroism in the midst of extraordinary times.
Today, over 80 years later, there are still such stories being unearthed, stories that need to be told. Such is the purpose of Ron Eckberg’s Ordinary Heroes Project podcast. You will hear stories that you will most likely not have heard before, stories that will inspire, educate, and hopefully challenge you to help in this effort to keep alive the memory of what the Greatest Generation did to keep the world from succumbing to the madness of those who would seek to rule it.
Ron Eckberg is the “proud son of a World War II combat veteran”. Join him as he brings new stories of man’s greatest conflict in the Ordinary Heroes Project Podcast.
VOX INTRO: This is the ordinary heroes project and I am your host Ron Eckberg.
INTRO: (Machine gun fire)
It was a terrifying sound but not an altogether unfamiliar sound to these young American soldiers. But this time there was a difference. The sound of the German machine gun was followed immediately by the pained cry, “I’m hit! I’m hit!”.
It was 2:30 a.m., March 11, 1945. For these young soldiers—already veterans to warfare— it was their “night of nights”.
This is their story, the story of three ordinary heroes. This is my father’s story.
MUSIC INTRO:
BODY:
After entering the service in 1943 my father, Harold Albert Lincoln Eckberg (don’t ask me why two middle names, I don’t have a clue), found himself part of the 324th infantry Regiment of the 44th infantry division. After a year of training and maneuvers in virtually every corner of the US, in September 1944 he found himself on a liberty ship, the USS Gordon, on his way to Cherbourg France and the European theater of war.
He was, according to the records he left behind of his training, an expert rifleman, which I find interesting since I don't remember him ever having a rifle around our home when I was growing up. He was assigned to an I&R platoon, the “I” meaning “intelligence”, and the “R” meaning “reconnaissance”. They arrived in France on September 15, 1944 and spent the next month organizing. Then it was on to the front lines, crossing France by train, loaded into boxcars labeled “40 & 8”s, meaning 40 men or 8 horses” It was an arduous three day journey since most of the men reached France with severe cases of dysentery (what we call Diarrhea ) and the train stopped for nothing, not even that.
They reached their destination of Luneville, France and unloaded at 1:00 in the morning in pitch dark and made their way forward.
The 324th reached the front lines on October 23rd—my dad’s 22 birthday—and was immediately greeted with a German artillery barrage that lasted three days. Not much fun, especially for men in foxholes with dysentery.
Over the next months my father and his buddies would get tested time and again in combat. Almost immediately their unit suffered its first combat loss, a crushing one at that, when their commanding officer, Colonel Thatcher Nelson, mistakenly entered a mine field and was killed by an exploding ordinance.
But the 324th moved on, continually pushing the Germans back and gaining valuable combat lessons in the process.
My dad learned one lesson the hard way.
“Once, while we were riding (on the back of a tank), our tank came to a sudden stop and before I could get off he fired his cannon and it knocked by off…”, dad later recalled, “The concussion almost killed me.”
He also learned you didn’t necessarily fare any better by walking behind the tank.
Dad and his fellow soldiers were doing just that when they entered a dense woods. When they broke out into an open field a German tank was waiting.
Dad kept a vivid memory of that moment;
“He fired from about a 1000 yards, and I’ll never forget seeing that red ball off fire coming at us and landing no more than 100 feet away.”, he said.
Steadily, the Allied forces moved toward Germany, liberating one French town after another.
On November 20th, Thanksgiving day, the French city of Saarebourg was liberated by the 324th.
There my father and his buddies enjoyed their hot Thanksgiving meal. Dad loved telling his kids and grandkids that he ate his “sitting on a dead horse”.
The Americans moved on, taking Strasburg on the 23rd of November. Great pride was taken in the fact that the soldiers of the 44th division were the first allied soldiers to reach the Rhine and fire the first shots across that great river.
Upon entering Strasbourg, dad’s platoon was ordered to pick up the town’s mayor and bring him in. After breaking down a few doors they reached his bedroom but he and his wife are already dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. A Nazi sympathizer, he died with his Nazi armband on.
My father didn't often tell me the darker stories of war except for one.
It was New Year's Eve and the American and German lines were close enough they could each hear the other celebrating.
According to the 44th Division history account the Germans, "had been given an extra ration of schnapps and were inflamed with alcoholic dreams of victory.”
At midnight they began a charge, crossing wide-open fields without artillery support. Even though they are numbered the Americans three to one they were doomed.
"They came at us droves and ended up as corpses," my dad remembered solemnly, "you could hear them groaning, the ones that were wounded, for the rest of the night.”
When the morning came American medics risk their lives to go out and help care for the German wounded.
"There is a defining moment in every man's life”, an anonymous writer has penned, "within that moment everything that person is shines the brightest."
For my dad that moment came on a dark and dangerous hillside a mile behind German lines.
March and been a defensive month for dad’s division. There was little movement except for forward patrols during the night. Those patrols included his “I&R” platoon.
Their job was to move behind German lines and scout for troop movements, gun placements, etc. It was indeed dangerous work. Three key members of the squad who are my dad, James Renfro, and Joseph Panamas. The three of them would take turns on the “point”—out front— the most dangerous position on the patrol.
Dad recalled one of the many patrols on which he walked point.
"We got out in ‘no man’s land’, he recalled, “and all of a sudden I heard the word “Halt!" and a flare lit up the sky. I was about 20 feet from a German in his hole. Grazing fire from a machine gun went over our heads. … we carefully pulled back suffering no casualties.”
On March 11th, 1944, however, their patrol would not be so fortunate.
This time, as the flare lit up so did a German machine gun. From the point, Joseph Panamas cried out, “I’m hit! I’m hit! I can’t move my legs”. My father and James Renfro carefully moved forward toward their wounded leader and friend. After pulling him out of the line of fire they carried him back though German lines and to safety. Their efforts to save their friend proved to be in vain, however. He died in their arms before they could get him to help.
For their heroic efforts to save their friends life both Dad and Renfro were presented with the Bronze Star with a “V” for valor pin.
My father and the 324th fought on until the armistice was declared on May 7th, 1945. After a short time of occupation duties, dad returned home on furlough, told to be prepared to be redeployed to the Pacific and the invasion of Japan.
He was doubtful about his chances of returning from that fight.
“I won’t be coming home from this one,” he told his mother.
But, fate, American scientists, and Harry Truman intervened, and the dropping of the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at last broke Japan’s resolve to fight. In mid-August Japan’s Emperor ordered his country’s surrender.
Dad and the rest of the surviving members of the 44th Division, 324th Regiment now had a future to look forward to.
And my father did enjoy a good and full future. He married, raised my three sisters and myself, pursued his dream of farming, then became a master mechanic.
Yet no matter what else he did in life he defined himself by those seven months in combat.
As his life was winding to a close he would tell me repeatedly, "Whatever you tell your children and grandchildren about me, make sure you tell them I was a soldier."
I have, I am, and I will. How can I not? I carry a reminder of that March night in 1945 with me every second of every day. My middle name is Joseph, a name my father gave me to honor the friend and fellow soldier he lost that night, Joseph Panamas.
And I am proud to carry it.
MUSIC:
CLOSE:
Well, that's it for episode 2 of the Ordinary Heroes Project Podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it and if you have, I would appreciate it if you leave a positive review, give me a few stars, or drop me a note at ron@roneckberg.com. I would love to hear from you.
So for now, I am your host, Ron Eckberg, and I thank you for listening and look forward to our next time together on the Ordinary Heroes Project Podcast.