John McAuliffe Interview
By James Triesler
Louisville, Kentucky
October 2006
McAuliffe: So it was something you’d get used to, during basic
training. Anyway I was there 17 weeks. I
particularly specified in the heavy weapons.
The 30-caliber machine gun and the 81-millimeter mortar, our particular
group was trained in. Others were
trained in infantry, weapons, and rifles.
Training lasted for 17 weeks, so it was pretty interesting. It didn’t bother me so much because I was kind
of athletically inclined. I was in
boarding schools for ten years and I knew what living in boarding school was
like. The meals in those days [at
boarding school], in the 30’s, I mean, [were not so great.] Some fellas came
from rich families and they were affluent and they were complaining about the
meals, but I thought the meals were great.
It was stuff that we didn’t have in boarding schools you know and I
didn’t mind that. It was a piece of cake going through the training because we
had a lot of discipline in those Catholic schools from the nuns and from the
brothers and it didn’t bother me one bit.
So we were told we were going overseas.
We didn’t know if we were going to the Pacific Theatre or the
European. So after the basic training
they gave us a few weeks furlough. I
went back home to Massachusetts and I was reading the newspapers, and I was reading
the troubles and the situation of our troops in Europe. December came and the headlines were that the
German Nazis turned about and they were in the Battle of the Bulge.
The Americans were pushed back and it kind of scared me because I knew I
was going overseas. Well sure enough, on
January
1st 1945 I was on
the Queen Mary with 18 thousand troops and we were all heading for England. The trip over
was very easy cause the ship was so fast it didn’t need a convoy cause it
zigzagged back and forth to avoid any submarines. I think we went over there in 5 or 6 days and
we landed in the Fifth of Clide up in Scotland. We took a
train down to South
Hampton, England and we got on the LST’s
over to France, in Le Havre. We had all
this new equipment on the ship and it had a very vigorous aroma to it, because
it was chemically impregnated to be waterproof and it was gagging us and we
were all crowded in. So I went up top
onto the top deck because I wanted to get some fresh air and I laid out on the
deck with my overcoat over me and I was trying to sleep and all of a sudden my
overcoat disappears. Some guy came along and took it. Why? I
never know. Just took it off. So we were down in the stateroom which we
converted into rooms with beds and we were packing up to leave the ship and all
of a sudden my blanket was gone. I didn’t
have a blanket. So I got off the ship
and I was freezing cold. It was in the
winter, January, and we got on the boxcars in Le Havre. It was a
three days trip across France. There were
maybe 40 or 50 guys in a boxcar crammed in and it only stopped so people could
relieve themselves or to get a meal. All
of a sudden my helmet was gone. Where
the hell did my helmet go? They were
building a fire in the middle of the boxcar to keep warm so maybe they were
using it for something, I don’t know. So
we got to the depot where the troops came to be sent out into the various
divisions. I think it was a cavalry
school in Metz, France and we got there and we stayed there for one night and at that point
we went through what they call the repple depple replacement depot.
So they furnished me with my missing blanket, my overcoat, a new helmet,
and I got my weapon and my ammunition and then they shipped us off to the
various divisions as replacements. At
that time my division had fought up at Belgium and in Marci, Talay, St. Jubere, and Bonaru. They had some tough fighting right outside of
Baston and one of our men won the Medal of Honor up
there. When that was done they were sent
down to Luxembourg and that’s where I met my division, down in Luxembourg along the Shure River. The sour
river they called it, and we were there maybe on a defensive position. We replaced the 4th Infantry
Division. Well it was down there where
they sent several of us to the M company, 347th regiment and a bunch
of us came into a barn which was used as the headquarters for M company. Captain K sat us down with all the new
arrivals and he interviewed us individually and he was a big fellow, 6 foot 3,
from Georgia. He was a
football player for the University of Georgia and I told him I was from Holy Cross College and we had a good team and we beat Boston College, who was headed for the Cotton Bowl, in December of
’42. That’s the night of the Coconut
Grove Fire. I saw that game and it was
the greatest upset in football history.
Holy Cross beat Boston College, 55 to 12, and Boston College was going to the Cotton Bowl! They were undefeated and they were going to
go to the Coconut Grove to celebrate the victory but, because they lost, they
didn’t go and 400 people lost their lives in the Coconut Grove fire that night,
the night of the game. I didn’t go
because I went to a movie that night and strangely enough the movie was about a
fire. When I came out of the movie, at midnight, I went to South Station in Boston to get the train back to Worchester and I see these
sailors coming in with their girlfriends and they each had their petty coats on
and I said what’s going on here? Someone
said there was a big fire in Boston. I was glad I
wasn’t there. I got home all right and
the papers the next morning were full of news of this awful fire. 400 people
lost their lives. They were bunched up
at the exits. Buck Jones, the famous
cowboy, lost his life. A Holy Cross
fullback lost his life, [and so did] a lot of prominent people. One of the nurses, who later was in my
Central Mass Chapter in Worchester, was at the Regimen Women’s Hospital,
training that night, and they were bringing in all the fire victims and she
helped treat those fire victims. She
eventually ended up as a nurse in the Battle of the Bulge, one of the nurses at one of the general
hospitals. So that’s a little side
element from my training. Anyway, when I
was talking to the Captain down in Luxembourg, at M Company (he interviewed all the new
replacements), I heard something from the command post. I heard a telephone ring and this guy was
talking on the telephone and they was saying that some group from L Company was
getting bothered by a machine gun from the Germans and right then all the
reality set in. You know, the fun and
games were over for me. When you’re a
soldier on leave and you’re going downtown with your uniform, you like the
girls to look at you and all that stuff but, as soon as I heard that word
machine gun, German machine gun, uh-oh, the fun and games were over and reality
set in. So he interviewed a bunch of us
he said ok McAuliffe, you’re going in the mortars and
this guy is going in the machine guns, and so forth. So, the next day, the First Sergeant took us
out into the woods where the troops were and I get out there and we went up to
Sergeant Kelly, who was the first section mortar Sergeant and said okay
Kelly. There were four of us, Manley, McAuliffe, Marini and Labelle,
and he said okay Kelly, take two. He
said, I’ll take Manley and McAuliffe and Manley was a
big 6-footer and the Sergeant says it won’t be hard to remember this guy’s
name, Manley, the big fella. So he took me and my other friend Marini, who was my best friend later on in the war. He went to the other Sergeant. Well that night the Sergeant told us the
situation. We were holding a defensive
position along the Sauer River. The Germans
were on the other side and we were on this side. He said, “Ok Mac there’s your hole.” It was
dug by someone else. I’m glad I didn’t
have to dig it, the ground was brick hard.
I think that we went into the 4th Division holes because we
relieved them and those holes were already made. So, I got in there that night and he gave me
guard duty for the night and told me what time to get up. I got up at that hour and there was a foot of
snow on the ground and a lot of snow in the trees and I’m standing guard in the
wee hours of the morning. I’m all alone and I got to be careful for Nazi
patrols coming through. There I am all
alone and all my men were down in the hole covered with snow and I said “what
the hell am I doing out here, My God.” I
start thinking of my brothers and sisters I’m thinking of the good times I had
in high school, you know, going to football games. I said, “God what the hell am I doing in this
position out here, doing this all alone in the snow, at night with Nazi patrols
coming through. It was the loneliest day
of my life. You know, that’s how I
felt. Well things got better, I guess. You got to know the guys and they told you
the ropes and what to do and all that sorts of stuff. So, we were there for a few weeks and then we
went back into Belgium. So, that was
my indoctrination into the war.
Triesler: Did any patrols ever come along while you were
there?
McAuliffe: No, they were supposed to but, there were no
patrols. The other squad from my section
met patrols down by the river, the Sauer River. They could
see the Germans across the river but, maybe they were making patrols at us too
but, I was never aware of it. When we
got back into Belgium, that’s when we boarded trucks and we got up on the
truck convoy. I wanted to sit on the end
of the truck. It was a 2 and a half ton
with a cover over it. I wanted to sit on
the end because I said to myself “I want to see some of the countryside.” It was a stupid idea. So, I’m sitting on the end of the truck and
the trip may have only been 40 miles, but it took 14 hours to get back into Belgium where we were going.
The truck only stopped for piss call and I saw one town and in about 2
and a half hours I said, “This place looks familiar to me.” Our truck got lost. We came back into the same town again and we
saw the same place again and by the time we got to our destination it was late
and dark at night and the mess hall was closed.
We didn’t have any supper and we had to wait till the next morning to
eat. One strange thing happened when I
was getting on the truck. This young
fellow says to me, “Mac,” he had what he called a dope kit. It contained your shaving kit and your
personal things. He said “Mac, will you
mind this for me?” I don’t know why he
wanted me to mind it I mean, I was in the same situation as him. I said okay and I put it under the seat and
when I got off the truck, after 15 hours, I forgot all about it. He said “Mac where’s my” [kit?] Oh, I said I forgot it and the truck had
gone. He was so mad at me. He had all his personal items in it the
little kit, but I never saw him again.
You know, it was a funny incident.
So we got up into Belgium.
Triesler: What ever happened to your coat and your helmet that
they took? Did you ever find out?
McAuliffe: I never found out what happened to them. They were just gone, but I got all
replacements at the depot where they supplied us with weapons or anything we
needed.
Triesler: If you have the time, I have a few more questions
for you.
McAuliffe: I’d like to contact you by email, because I wrote a
story of my friend Adam Marini and myself and I’ll
send you that booklet and I also wrote a book of poems that I’d like to send
you sometime.
Triesler: I would like to see that. Did he survive the war
okay?
McAuliffe: Yes he did, but he died last year.
Triesler: Oh I’m sorry to hear that. When is your birthday?
McAuliffe: October 6th I just had my birthday. 1923.
Triesler: How did they decide, when you were at Camp Wheeler, if you were going to be in the infantry or going to
be in mortars? Did you have any say in
that decision, or was that totally up to them?
McAuliffe: No, I think it was just what they needed. We all went through the same basic 17 weeks
infantry training. It was just basic, we
didn’t really have a lot of training. In
17 weeks they couldn’t do much, just a sample of this and a sample of
that. The troops that went in during the
early years, ‘41 and ’42, had training and then they were sent to camps where
they acted as actual divisions and they had more training. Like the 87th Division was at Camp McCaine, Mississippi (my Division) and they went on the Louisiana maneuvers.
They had the red army and the blue army and they went all through
basic. They had a regular war with each
other.
Triesler: In some of the letters I have read, they talk about
that. One guy said, “I’m a prisoner of
war” and he mentioned the blue and red armies.
McAuliffe: Yeah they did things and they had referees who knew
who was winning. They didn’t have the
tanks, they had a truck and on it that had a sign “Tank,” so that was a
tank. In the early days they didn’t have
enough weapons, like M1’s. They had
broomsticks to train with and stuff like that.
My friend George Watson, who I came to this reunion with, was in M
Company, 346th Division and I was in the 347th. He lives in New York. We go to all
these things together, we drive. He went
to the maneuvers in Mississippi and he can tell you just what it was like. He said it rained like hell, it rained and
rained and rained. They were soaking
wet, everything was wet.
Triesler: You mentioned Metz and that you had to spend the night there that first
night. What were the conditions
like? Would you camp outside when you
first headed over to Europe at Metz?
McAuliffe: When I got into Metz, it was already in American hands. There was something like a big cavalry school
there, but whatever it was, it was empty.
It was just a place where they put us up for the night on various floors
until they gave us our equipment and sent us off to the various divisions as
replacements. Metz was a big fort and the 26th Division
fought there and they had heavy casualties.
When our division came, the 87th, we replaced the 26th
at Metz. There were
several forts there and it was never really taken, the Germans eventually gave
up. It was [a group of] very, very
fortified, old forts. A friend of mine
back home was in the 26th Division and he says you know I got
wounded at Metz and there were German foxholes there and
American. He said when we went in there,
the 26th Division, they wouldn’t let us use the German foxholes
because they knew where they were and they could bomb them and everything. He says I always blame you guys, the 87th,
for my wounds because they told us you were coming and I didn’t dig a
foxhole. He says, I didn’t dig a foxhole
and that’s how I got wounded because you guys were supposed to replace us.
Triesler: I wanted to ask about M company. What does M company
mean? Didn’t different companies have
different designations or duties?
McAuliffe: Yeah, well the structure of a division is division,
regiment, battalion, company. Now you
had three regiments, in our case it was 345th 6th and 7th. Now each regiment had three battalions,
first, second, and third battalions. And
you had the letter companies A through M so A, B, C, D was first battalion and
E, F, G, H was second battalion. There was no J Company. It went I, K, L, and M, but no J. Why? I
don’t know. Maybe it looked too much like
the letter I or something like that. So
it was I, K, L, and M company in the third battalion. Now the fourth one of each battalion was
heavy weapons. D was heavy weapons, H
was heavy weapons, and M was heavy weapons.
Heavy weapons was the 81 mm mortar and the 30-caliber machine gun. We supported the other three companies, which
were rifle companies. That’s the
structure.
Triesler: Thank you.
What does the acorn on your shirt stand for?
McAuliffe: The acorn is the logo of the 87th
Division. It was made up from many
states it wasn’t a particular National Guard, like the 26th division
in Massachusetts was the National Guard and it became activated as the
26th division. During the war you had a lot of other people, many of
the members of the 26th division went into other divisions like the
90th division and other divisions, they broke it up. Then they had
the Americal division, which was broken up in that
way into the Pacific. The acorn I think originated out in the Midwest, but most of our members came from all over the country. The acorn
division the 87th participated in WWI and only one regiment
participated my 347 the other two were not active. Then after the War WWI they
became inactive until WWI (I think he means WWII) when they became activated
again. They started down at camp McCain, Mississippi where they trained.
Triesler: So for you, you were in Luxembourg and then you had to move back into Belgium. Is the battle of the Bulge still going on when you
moved back into Belgium?
McAuliffe: Yes it was
Triesler: So what was that like for you?
McAuliffe: Well that was really my indoctrination into it. We
came back into Belgium and we went up to a town called Mandafeld.
It was in Belgium and I remember we got off the trucks and we were living
here and there. Finally we came to the edge of the woods. The Aden forest was made up of clumps of woods, trees huge
clumps of trees divided by streams, meandering streams and hills and valleys
and swamps and in between these huge clumps were open areas of snow. We were
coming up to the edge of the woods and there was a lieutenant and I came up to
him. I was carrying six rounds of HE light mortar rounds each one weighed about
6.7 pounds. I had 42 pounds of ammunition on my shoulder besides my pack my
helmet my carbine my belt my gasmask my goulashes and I had two layers of OD’s
on two layers of shirts I had two pairs of wool stockings my combat boots and
overshoes. We walked through a foot of snow. I weighed about 150 pounds. I came
up to him and he looked at me and said that’s too much. He said okay now go, we
were sending them out 25 yards apart into the field cause we were crossing over
to another clump of trees. Well we got out about a hundred yards and some ADH
started coming in and I fell flat on my face. They were going off around us and
pretty soon I feel a tap on my shoulder “Okay Mac get moving get moving” it was
Sergeant Kelly “Get moving”. So I got up and started moving. We reached the
other clump of woods and then the tree bursts started coming in. The ADH
started hitting the trees. The tree burst is worse than anything because it
hits and it scatters the shrapnel down. The safest way to do is to stand up
along side the tree cause it’s going to come down. If you’re laying this way it
might hit you. So my buddy and I we hid under a log it was a big tree that was
fallen, we hid underneath it because bursts were coming down on us. When it was
over we get out and the guy next to me had his knee blown open, he didn’t seek
shelter he just stood up. His knee was wide open and we saw him and we started
calling for the medics and they came or whatever. Finally I looked around and I
said where is everybody I didn’t see anybody around, and the guy says their
down in the bunker. I says what bunker? We were up in the Zigfried
line it’s where the Germans had their bunkers, and this bunker was not an
active gunnery it was a bunker where they slept. So I went back around to this
camouflaged area, sure enough there were stairs going down into the bunker, and
there were cots down there and air conditioning whatever. So we slept in the
bunker that night it was better than being outside. So this was the first time
I took my boots and shoes off in a couple of weeks cause we never took them off
cause we never knew when we were going to move out. Well we were safe we slept
in a cot. So the next morning we get up and the sergeant says okay Mac your
going on a detail so I want you to get out okay. So I started to put my boots
and overshoes back on and my hands were all numb and cold. I couldn’t use my
fingers I was like a little kid in Kindergarten trying to buckle my goulashes.
Reminded me of the kids in Kindergarten when the teachers had to buckle their
goulashes. I was just like a little kid my fingers were so frozen, it took me
about a half an hour to buckle them. “What are you doing Mac. Come on get
moving”. So finally I got them on and I went out on the detail. So that’s what
I remember about that. You know you forget a lot of things but you remember
funny things like that. Up in Belgium we were going down a road one day we were heading for
the front. Coming against us were the civilians and they were pushing
wheelbarrows and baby carriages full of their belongings. They were getting out
of harms way they were moving back and we were moving up to the front. I
remember one that came nighttime and we were gonna
move in and take relief. So it happened to be a catholic church a little church
and of course I was brought up strictly in catholic church by the sisters and
the brothers. I was really indoctrinated into rigid Catholicism and things to
do and what not to do. So I got inside the church and, these guys are pushing
the pews away against the wall and talking and throwing their stuff. Then my
mentality is saying gee were desecrating god’s church what are we doing here?
You know what I mean I had this mentality? So pretty soon I said all right we
have to do this this is war this is necessary. So
anyway the guys were bending down on the floor and it was this lonely church cause
the pulpit was right there and the people were there. So I went up to the altar
and being regimented and religious I put my hand on the altar and I said a
prayer for the group. In the middle of the altar they have a relic you know in
the Catholic church I just put my hand on it and said a few prayers and then I
sat down and I lay down on the floor for the rest of the night. The next day we
went out and we were on the road again and we really started to get shelled,
shells were coming in on us. Being religious I was yelling god and all this
stuff, fortunately none of us got hit but I saw five dead soldiers over in the
ditch over there. So those are the things that you remember.
Triesler: Were they American soldiers or German soldiers?
McAuliffe: Yeah American, five Americans. They called it mortar
corner because the troops that were going up there were really getting hit. So
that was my first indoctrination into being shelled and it was very scary you
know? There’s nothing like being under an artillery attack or whatever.
Somebody has asked me if my religion ever played a part in my service. I said
yeah it was. In my pocket I carried a little of the core father’s statements
Sunday missal I picked it up in basic training in one of the chapels and I kept
it and stuck it in my pocket, and I used to read from that, scriptures. I
carried also my knife I had my spoon and fork, a little pack of cigarettes I
learned to smoke in the service like we all did when you get shipped out and
you’re nervous and cold you start smoking, it gave you some feeling of
security. I had also the little packet of toilet tissue and we used all of them
everyday I carried that throughout the war in my little pocket. So that was
some of the things you’ll remember, but anyway I got through it and I got
assimilated into the squad with the regular guys, became part of the unit. We
did what we had to do, fired the mortar now and then dig the hole and find a
place to live in a house or a barn now and then. Some guys wanted to get a bed
the rest of us slept on the floor other times you were out in the hole.
Wherever you went you had to dig a hole for the mortar, which had to be pretty
big and deep, but the ground was hard sometimes we didn’t dig it as it
should’ve been, then you had to dig your own foxhole beside. In the winter the
ground was very, very hard and I heard that some of the infantry men used to
use hand grenades. They dig a little hole then put the grenade in and get away
to dig the hole for them to explode the dirt away. I never did that. So we got
through the war and it had other problems after the Bulge we went through Germany and we crossed the Rhine River which was pretty bad because we were crossing the Rhine River and it was the last natural barrier the Germans had.
They took us out to the woods and they trained us in little metal boats we had
to carry them and learn how to paddle, in the woods. Then when it came time to
cross the river, they actually, not me the rifle troops. They had to paddle
their way across the river and Germans were in the hills with 20mm shooting
down and a lot of them were shot up and floating down the river. The night I
got there, there was a machinegun shooting at us from across the river and my
friend Danny and I were in this hole and we escaped from that. Then it was our
night to cross the river we went a mile down river but when we got there low
and behold they had these landing barges which they used in D-Day. Now years
later I read in General Eisenhower’s book, The Crusade In Europe, that
they raced these barges across France in three days for the troops to cross the Rhine River. Being in the mortars I was not the first we had the
rifle troops that would go first. So they went out and they really got hit
really bad but when I crossed at two o clock in the morning we didn’t have any
opposition. So we went the next day through the night into the early morning
back down the river from where we crossed, we came down, over, and back and I
looked down the hull. The German machineguns were shooting at us and I looked
up and there was a P-51, we had twelve P-51’s supporting us crossing the river
and I saw this P-51 attacking. He made two dives out of it and knocked him out.
So the next day when we went back up the river I looked down the road and that
gunner, I saw him in the road you know dead with the gun busted. So we got to
where we were supposed to go and the order came down and the Lieutenant says
Sergeant Kelly I want three men. He picked me and Jenadin
and Mcapee. Mcapee had the
big radio on his back and we were gonna climb up the
river. He didn’t tell us why I guess we were looking for mortar targets. We
climbed up the vineyards on the Rhine River, a very steep hill and we get up to the top and he
says ok take a break. So I lean against a tree and I had a K ration and I
pulled it out and started eating. I looked down on the centuries old Rhine River and I remember this it was so peaceful there was not
a boat in sight, not a boat. Well we went back there in 96 on a tour and there
were all kinds of boats you never knew, pleasure boats, barges, carrying all
kinds of machinery and equipment, sail boats there were all so many boats it
looked like the expressway. That day I looked down and there was not a boat in
sight because it was the war. So he said okay were going now and we went up
through the woods creeping and crawling for about a half hour. Then he says ok
were going back now. So were on our way back and all of a sudden this
machinegun opens up and boy were we terrified. It was our own, it was another
platoon coming up the same way. What they were doing there I don’t know and we
all dove for cover and we were down behind a ledge and we were yelling at them
and screaming at them we says Mike company cut out the fire and I looked back
and I saw a building the brickwork was picked off with bullets and everything.
So finally we got them to stop he says Mike company cut out that fire, you
know. So we got out and it was like from here across the wall that gun was
setup. Why it didn’t get us I don’t know, we were safe. Those guys behind the
machinegun, if I ever found their leader I’d, I don’t know what. So they
contained it up the hill and we went back down the hill where they had come up.
So we were going out of the woods and I was the last man and we walked across a
dead German who was on his back and being trained as a catholic I hung back. I
looked right over his face and I said this prayer they call it an act of
contrition. The things they taught us to do when we were sick or dieing and I
said it for that dead German you know asking for forgiveness for his sins or
whatever. Then I followed and caught up with them and we got back to the squad
room and we tried to tell them what happened to us. They didn’t pay any
attention to us it’s just a novel thing that happened in the war, all the
troops were moving out. It’s a funny thing we were moving out to the next town
and the town was called Badems and Badems means resort, recreation in German. It’s a health
resort and the order came down for the troops to get haircuts and get shaven
and freshened up cause we looked like hell with our whiskers and long hair. We
cut each others hair and my buddy gave me an awful haircut he was from Baltimore I remember him Yuwa from Baltimore, he just chopped the hell out of me and I said it was
bad cuts and bad M’s. That’s more or less a story I had to tell. So after that
we went into Germany and things started to ease up. We were still fighting
and we went through the town of Plowen, it was a big city, Plowen.
It was a manufacturers city and a week before we went in the American Air Force
bombed it to hell. It was still burning when we went in. There were poor people
in there piling up the bricks you know the civilians and trying to get it
tidied up. That was one of the big cities we went into. Most of the places we
went through were small towns in the country, but we remember that town of Plowen. Other people know more about it than I do there was
a big hospital there the Germans were using for their wounded. A few weeks
later the war ended we were four miles from Czechoslovakia and the day before the war ended a lot of Germans
were surrendering to us. They were retreating from the Germans (I think he
means Americans) and this one my friend Danny Mariney
he went down and he got maybe 20 rolls of film and a camera and he went down
and he was taking all kinds of pictures of everything. He took a picture of our
division commander with his foot up on the jeep posing like that I have it in
my book downstairs. After the war he brought those home and I’ve got copies of
them and fortunately I still have those their souvenirs of the war. Shows us in
our tents, shows us cleaning weapons things like that their in the book
downstairs, no upstairs. Oh yeah so we were in this little house and they said
ok were moving out on a taskforce to support and the word came down that its
over, its over. So we set up our tents on a hill a hillside and we have nothing
to do so a few of us, there was a little pond down in the town. So yeah lets go
down and have a swim, it was a warm day. So I went down I took my clothes off I
cut the legs off my long johns it was May and I was still wearing long johns.
So we went in for a swim and we get down there, it’s a little pond about half
the size of a hockey rink you might say and the Germans were on that side and
they were washing up and they were singing Lilly Molly that great song of the
war. They were happy as clams the war was over just like us we didn’t bother
them and they didn’t pay attention to us. It was a nice warm day we had a nice
swim and we went back to camp and that night somebody had a bottle of cognac,
and they opened it up that’s how we celebrated May 8th. In Paris and New York City and Chicago and London everybody was celebrating they were going wild all
the lights were on again people in those squares celebrating, and we just took
it back to our camp, got back and had a drink because it was over.
Triesler: Now you were worried about going to Japan at that point then?
McAuliffe: Oh yeah. We went to Camp Lucky Strike, these were
camps where they assembled troops to send them back. We went to Camp Oklahoma and then Lucky Strike. Lucky Strike was a cigarette
so it was a lucky strike we were going home and then they put us on the boat at
Leharv to Westpoint, on
July 4th we got into New York on July 11th. We had a steak dinner at midnight at Camp Mead and I went back to Fort Devans. We had a thirty day furlough and then the camp the
boys were supposed to report back at, the famous airborne camp I cant remember,
and then they were gonna be sent to Japan for one of
the divisions. We were gonna prepare for the invasion
of Japan, and I think they had it all figured out that the 87th was
going to invade in March of 46 unfortunately I had a problem with my hearing I
couldn’t hear, because in basic training I was a coach on the rifle range. It
was all day long on the rifle range and when I got back to the barracks I
couldn’t hear. They didn’t give us earplugs or protection in those days we were
right up next to the guy and it was very bad but I stayed in the service
anyway. Then firing the mortar was even worse because I mean the mouth of a
mortar is about the height of your camera there and the explosion, when you
fired thirty rounds it was painful. So I had a hearing defect and during my
stay, my furlough I went back to the hospital up in Fort Devans,
Worth Global Hospital and the doctor sent me down to Deshawn
Hospital Pennsylvania and down there they had boys coming in from the Navy, the
big battleships, the airforce, the infantry and they
all had hearing defects in varying degrees. So we were there for four months
and they gave you lip reading courses, they gave you hearing tests and they’d
discharge you with hearing aids if your problem was serious. I was one of them
and in those days the hearing aids were bigger than this and you wore it here
and you had a battery here with pink flashlight batteries and you were wired up
like a switchboard but that’s what happened.
Triesler: Did they work fairly well?
McAuliffe: So it worked well it helps I’ve been wearing them
ever since but then I went to the behind the ear type and now this small type
but now every guy my age today who comes to these reunions, their all wearing
hearing aids.
Triesler: Now what did you end up doing for your career after
the war? Did you go back to school?
McAuliffe: Yeah I graduated Holy Cross in three years I had a
B.S. in biology and since I couldn’t hear I knew I wasn’t going to get accepted
into med school because you had to use a stethoscope and all that. So I applied
to dental school and I went to Georgetown University dental school and I graduated in 1950 and all my
class were veterans. 99 percent of them we had guys from the Air Force, the
Navy, and Marines, and the Army. I have one story I probably don’t have enough
time for it but I’ll tell you later.
Triesler: So were you a dentist for your career though
McAuliffe: Yes I was for thirty-six years I served in my home
town.
Triesler: Yeah, wow I had know idea. I just read the book Company
Commander and I don’t know if you’ve ever read that or not.
McAuliffe: McDonald?
Triesler: Yeah, yeah.
McAuliffe: I didn’t read it but I read his Time for Trumpets.
Triesler: Did you? I haven’t seen that one.
McAuliffe: That is the book on The Bulge he was a great writer
he had more information on it and John Tolim his
story and wrote The Battle that was about the Battle of the Bulge and General Eisenhower’s son John
Eisenhower he wrote…
Triesler: I can picture the book.
McAuliffe: I can’t remember his book. Anyway.
Triesler: I know what you mean I have that book at home.
McAuliffe: I had the book I sent it to him and he autographed
it for me.
Triesler: Really? That’s fantastic.
McAuliffe: His was a good book too.
Triesler: What I was curious about in McDonald’s book he
describes that the Army would approach a town, it seemed like certain towns
were your objective for the day.
McAuliffe: What?
Triesler: That certain towns would be the objective everyday
or at least that’s how his booked seemed that they were constantly moving to a
new town as they worked their way into Germany and then through Germany and
depending on the town or the situation, you know you might need artillery or mortars
to hit the town and then the infantry might try and go in. I just wondered if
the way that you were used if there was a pattern like when you approached a
town how were you as a soldier used was it pretty much the same every town you
went into or was it different or what was one example?
McAuliffe: It was different. You know when I got there we were
on the offensive they were not coming at us we were going at them but we were
still getting fire. So our mortars were not used so much if the infantry was
going well. They got support from machineguns, but in my division, in my unit
particularly third battalion we. There were two other mortar groups and maybe
they were supporting but I don’t remember firing it so much. We did go on one
night detail I remember in the middle of the night we took the Jeep out and
laid out some place and we laid down a fire pattern. It must have been a night
attack by one of the companies you know, but we didn’t fire our mortars so
much.
Triesler: So you were used as an infantry soldier more?
McAuliffe: I was an infantry soldier yes.
Triesler: So when you would approach a town you know what
would you wait for I mean had the probably already pulled out or did you have
to go in house by house and sort of search?
McAuliffe: Well the infantry, the rifleman went house by house
in the early part of the war but near the end you know from February on I don’t
think they saw much house to house fighting cause they were retreating they
were getting out before they were getting hit but there were still small
skirmishes now and then between the troops. Yeah we had to get them out house
by house but I don’t think so much as early in the war you know. I mean just in
the big cities maybe in Italy and places like that, Rome or places like that. Big cities in Saint Lowe early
and right after D-Day there was Saint Lowe and places like that but that was
before I got there, they had the 110th fighting in there, but the
Bulge was intense because they’d come right back at you, you know.
Triesler: Right trying to get those supplies I guess. Do you
think the Germans were just spread out too thin? I’ve heard of Europe,
wasn’t it called fortress Europe and the Germans had sort of fortified everything. I
was wondering if they were just, you know, in too many countries. You think
that was one of the problems?
McAuliffe: Yeah they were spread out. We thought the Battle of the Bulge was bad but Leningrad, Stalingrad that must have been horrible up in 1940. The Germans
were outside the gates of Stalingrad and those Russians put up a terrific fight. They were
starving they had no food and they pushed the Germans back. That was terrible
up there they lost more than we did in the Bulge, I think. You read that
sometimes, the battle of Stalingrad, and that’s how they were thinned out. If it weren’t
for them we might have had a hell of a lot tougher time in the Bulge, you know
because they would have had more people, more resources, more tanks, and
younger men fighting. Of course when we were fighting them they had older men
and young boys 14, 15 in defense of Berlin. In defense of Berlin they were young boys fighting against the Russians
near the end of the war.
Triesler: Did you ever see General Patton?
McAuliffe: No, but my battalion commander, 3rd battalion,
was a friend of his in stateside before the war. They lived together in the
same fort or base wherever they were. At one of the reunions I went to, I saw
this Lieutenant I think it was L company and he knew General Patton, he knew
this Colonel and he gave me his name and I used to write a few poems. He lived
in Arkansas and he was 91 years old at the time after the war and
I wrote him a letter and I wrote him some poems and I just wanted to thank him
for his service and all that, and he wrote back to me in longhand. He said I’m
91 and my wife is 87 and we were friends of General Patton and my wife used to
go horseback riding with B, her name was Beatrice Patton, Patton’s wife and he
said you know when we were over there in the war General Patton visited me at
my battalion headquarters and I took him out up to the line and he crept up to
these two soldiers in foxholes. He said to them you know boys you have to stay
here you gotta to hold here but its gonna be your ass, that’s what he said to those two
soldiers. I guess that let them know.
Triesler: Yeah that’s great, he was quite a soldier wasn’t he.
McAuliffe: Yeah he was quite a soldier.
Triesler: We were lucky to have him.
McAuliffe: Some of the guys met him; they talk about it. This
battalion commander he didn’t get wounded but he was out of action, I guess he
came down with some kind of a sickness or something.
Triesler: Well when you were telling me you didn’t take your
boots off until you got into that bunker. I was wondering if you found that
your, you know, like the skin on your feet was it peeling away or caliced?
McAuliffe: No, no.
Triesler: You weren’t having any problems?
McAuliffe: No I was fortunate when I got there they gave me
goulashes and I kept them on. I had two pairs of wool socks the boots and the
goulashes. I didn’t have to stand much in the foxholes as long as some of the
others did. Like up in the Horken Forest those soldiers, they were in those foxholes and it
was rainy season in November and those holes were full of water and they got
their feet wet and that’s when gang-green set in, you know and their feet got
blue and swelled up. Some of them had them amputated but fortunately I kept my
feet dry and I never had that problem but if we went in a room or a house at
night I didn’t dare take them off because sometimes you had to move out in a
hurry and you wanted to keep your boots on. So your feet were numb, my feet
were really numb all through January and February, I had no feeling in here but
I never got really frozen.
Triesler: And they recovered fully after?
McAuliffe: They recovered, and the gloves I had, you wore holes
in them cause you were always doing something with your hands setting up the
equipment or carrying and you wore holes in your gloves and your fingertips
were numb, you know, numb it was hard, I couldn’t buckle the shoes. Things like
that.
Triesler: When you were in that bunker that first time you got
to spend the night in there with everybody, you know, were there signs of the
Germans having been in there?
McAuliffe: No I don’t remember…
Triesler: Did you see German things or graffiti or signs or
paintings?
McAuliffe: I don’t remember seeing anything in there, it was in
the Zigfried Line, but later on when we moved from Mandefeld across the Belgium-German line we went into a
town called Almont and there was a hill there. It had a number, they all had
numbers, but we called it Goldbrick hill. Now our 347th regiment was
supposed to take the hill but they switched over 346 took it. 347 took Almont,
and I was in a farmyard which the Germans had been pushed out of and I saw the
hill. It had a big hill and a slow slope and before I even knew what it was I
heard the artillery going off in the back. It came right over our heads “shoom” you could hear the “burr burr”
and I could see it exploding on the face of this bald hill with rounds and
rounds and rounds. It was only years later when I read the history… I wrote a
letter home to my uncle telling about that experience. It was only years later
that I read from my history book that it was Goldbrick hill and the 346th
took the hill and there were bunkers up there ten or twelve bunkers and at one
of the reunions in West Virginia we visited the statehouse and I met my Captain
Ketler up there. Captain Ketler
was wounded in Omar and this kid McAbee who had the
radio used to go with him all the time, and Captain Ketler
was wounded at Omar and at the statehouse in West Virginia I met him and said
hey Captain what happened to you how’d you get wounded. He pulled back his
shirt and showed me where he caught a piece of shell through his clavicle and
he got a bullet in his leg. He was the guy that was six foot three and the
football player you know. So he was wounded there at Omar, and at that reunion
I sat down on the bus and this man sat next to me and I was asking his
experience. He said he was in M 346 and he was wounded on Goldbrick hill. I
said where’d you get wounded and he said right through the gut here. We became
very good friends with him he lived in Graham,
North Carolina, and I got his picture downstairs in my book. He was
from Baltimore, before the war he worked in a B-26 bomber plant, I
don’t know what he did, and he finally got inducted into the infantry and he
lived with his wife May Bavia, and I visited his
house several times even though I’m from Massachusetts. He’s a great man and his wife knows more about the
war than I do she has a great interest in the history and she’s talked to many
veterans she knows so much of what went on and through Joe Bavia
too. The biggest thing Joe doesn’t remember, the guy next to him who got blown
to pieces, that’s what he claims, and no one seems to know who the other fella was and ever since the war he’s been trying to find
out who that fella was, no one seems to know he keeps
questioning people and talking to people. Anyway Joe died about two years ago
he’s buried in Arlington, Virginia in the cemetery and we still visit May I
still talk to her on the telephone, we still write letters to each other and he
had upstairs in his room in his house what he called the war room. He had more
tapes and more books on the war and history, you know, and his friends would
visit there, they would go up in that room and they’d talk about the war and
different things that happened and everything like that, so he was quite an
interesting fellow. One of his great friends was Les Atwell he was in G company
345 he lived to be 91 years old. He was born in Brooklyn near me. I didn’t know him then, but we found out we lived near each
other. He was older than the rest of us and he was a writer, and he wrote a
book about his family growing up in Brooklyn. He wrote
another book, which became the basis for the musical Flora in which Liza Minelli, the actress Judy
Garland’s daughter, played in, he wrote that play, great writer. He was
thirty-five years old and in a rifle company and they said this guy is doing
more harm than good, he can’t keep up with us. So they put him in the medics.
He was in the medical unit and he began to take notes and wrote a book called Private.
It was published in 1959 by Simon and Schuschler
Books, and it was the best book ever written on the life of an infantry man up
until that time. The book was Private by Lester Atwell and it tells a
lot about the war and experiences, first hand experiences of soldiers you know.
This guy is the most descriptive writer he almost wrote it from memory you know
everything is in detail when you get the book. So a few years ago we had a
reunion down in Alabama and his nephew republished the book, so he got so
many books. My friend George Watson, who is here with me, he and I left from
his home and we met Lester’s nephew at route 95, a specific place, and we
picked up all these books the new edition of private and we brought them down
to the reunion down in Alabama,
Burmingham. Lester came and he sat at a desk and he
sold his book, now the people who were running the reunion didn’t like that
they wanted to control everything, but we said no were going to sell Lester’s
book. You know how it is a little friction sometimes, jealousy between groups,
but anyway we sold copies of his book and Lester was very pleased about that.
Joe Bavia was a great friend of his because Lester
moved from Virginia to his nephew’s in North Carolina near where Joe lived in Grayham.
He lived there with his nephew he was going blind he couldn’t see, so he was a
guest and Joe Bavia’s house many many
times. When George and I went there we had a nice supper. He recalled
everything what a memory he had if you asked for something he could almost
describe it almost perfectly, but he died a few years ago.
Triesler: The fella that was wounded
on the hill…
McAuliffe: Joe Bavia
Triesler: Do you think that it was friendly fired that wounded
him?
McAuliffe: No, no it was artillery from German artillery,
shouldn’t have brought that up. There were twelve pill boxes up there, but
there was not much confrontation because Mike Petrick
who was a lieutenant in the mortars who was Joe Bavia’s
lieutenant and George’s, George is here with me, he was a surveyor, an
instrument surveyor he told them where to set up the guns and stuff. He’s here
he was in M company 346. The German lieutenant, I don’t know the full story, he
came out of the bunker and they were waving the flags to surrender and Mike
went in that bunker. They had more equipment in there, brand new unused
machineguns and everything, and why they didn’t use them against us I don’t
know, he doesn’t know he says they could have shot us up to pieces but they
decided to surrender rather than have a confrontation. I think George Watson
will tell you more about that than I know because he was his company commander.
They gave up they had all the equipment all the munitions but they just gave
up.
Triesler: Do you think they stopped believing in whatever
cause it was that they were fighting for?
McAuliffe: Yeah it was a losing cause they didn’t want to
fight. You know a funny thing, the next
town after the Almont was static hill…
Triesler: (pause) Okay.
McAuliffe: I went back to Europe
in Belgium in 1994 with a group called The Galaxy Tour. I was
put together Stan Wautosik and a bunch from Philadelphia. Bil Tayman
who was in our division was the president of the Battle of the Bulge group that
year, and he ran the tour and my friend Danny Mariny
was on the tour, from Newtonville Mass one of my best
friends who died last year. Well we had a day off and they had men from Belgium
who volunteered to drive the veterans to wherever they wanted to go, and I met
up with a man named Stanley Bellins, he was from
Liege and he volunteered to drive me wherever I wanted to go, so I said lets go
back to Mandefeld, where I told you about. We went to
Mandefeld and we went to the other town nearby,
that’s the one where I told you where I went into the bunker, and he drove back
to Omatt Gold Brick Hill. So were coming up the rode
and it said Omatt and I started to get a chill. So I
said stop here I said that’s Gold Brick Hill isn’t it he says yes, but he said
only part of its there because the German government was taking the hill down
to use that gravel to make roads, build roads. There was a lot of good gravel
you could break up the granite. So I said okay take me up there anyway so he
took me up and I said stop here I want to go up. There was no reminiscence of
anything, I was looking for bunkers and things but there was nothing up there
that resembled that there was a war going on. Now a couple of years before that
Joe Bavia went back with his wife May and they went
up on Goldbrick Hill and they met a farmer and they told him who they were and
he says yes come up, come with me I’ll show you the top of the hill where the
war was. They saw something they remembered but when Joe Bavia
was wounded they had a couple of German soldiers who were captured and who was
put on a stretcher between two tanks and the tanks started up and he got awful
scared because he thought he was going to get ground to pieces, the tanks were gonna move, they didn’t see him. So he got moved and they
had two Germans take him. They were starting to take him down the hill and they
were opposite the opening of one bunker and some more artillery came in and
blew them into the bunker, so he was wounded twice. So finally they got him
part way down the hill and they met a farmer with an ox cart and they placed
him on the cart and they eventually got him down to the bottom of the hill
where at eleven o clock at night he was able to get in an ambulance to take him
to the aid station where he was operated on. We were talking to some Vietnam veterans and they had helicopters ready to take them
out, well that’s alright but poor Joe it took him all day long he could have
been bleeding to death. Some farmer with an ox cart put him on it like a
stretcher and later on in the very late hours of the night he was able to get
to an ambulance and take him to the aid station, and Joe sent me a diagram of
that whole situation. A nice elaborate drawing, where he was hit, where the
bunker was, where he was blown in, where he met the ox cart, he wrote up that whole
story and sent it to his friends.
Triesler: Did you take that with you when you went over, did
you have his map?
McAuliffe: No, I didn’t have it when I went over there, I got
that later on.
Triesler: Yeah, huh.
McAuliffe: But when I got there, there was not much left of the
hill because I was looking for blockhouses and bunkers but I didn’t find any.
Triesler: Wow that’s great that you went over and got to see
it though, and the people treated you well didn’t they?
McAuliffe: You never get treated so much as you do when you go
back to Belgium and Luxembourg. I’ve been back five times and they had wine
receptions and we went back on the 60th anniversary. Everything was
setup beautifully with the different towns, the turnout with the little
children and they sing to you, and they take you into the churches where they
have a religious ceremony, they take you into school auditoriums where they
have bands and orchestras and they have wine receptions and they really do it
up great its marvelous. They never forget their liberators; you know they still
remember they never forget.