By JOE BORGIA
Ever since Pearl Harbor young male high schoolers for
the most part were counting the months until they became 17 and a half so that they could enlist in the various
branches of the service. Most, however, waited until Uncle Sam served them with a draft notice.
In
1942 at East High School where I attended, the mood was the same. Some members of my class of
1944 left school before graduation and received their diplomas while on active duty. Some left because they
wanted to enlist in the Navy where you were assured a bed and clean quarters aboard ship, or so they
thought. The U.S. Army, especially the infantry, didn't appeal to many. During the early part of the
war, the Marines and the Army were fighting a brutal war in the jungles of the South Pacific, the
sands of North Africa, and mountains of Sicily and Italy.
Most of my class had yet to be
called up. That day finally arrived March 6, 1943. A number of us were called in, as were the
classes of 1942 and 1943, and we were on our way to various military installations. A number of us from
East High ended up in the same division. Some of my friends that attended other high schools
throughout the city also ended up in that same division – the 8th Armored Division.
Training with the 8th began in
earnest the day we arrived at Camp Polk, Louisiana where the 8th was assigned a the time. As the months passed, our
division honed its fighting skills, getting ready for the big day we all anticipated, not knowing that June
6, 1944, would be a key date in our destiny.
Training was intense and not without incident. Our division
lost 32 men in accidents during maneuvers. One of them was Corporal Joseph W. Keller of Erie.
Finally, in April of 1944, we all thought we were going overseas.
The Allies had not invaded Western Europe
as yet. But we had been training for 13 months and we were certainly ready. However, orders came down
from the War Department to recruit as many volunteers – all trained personnel – to fill in and beef up other
divisions or form new ones. This came prior to D-Day, which none of us knew anything about. Our daily news
bulletins usually told us about the war in the Pacific and a D-Day was not on our minds.
Many volunteers signed up for the 82nd and 10lst Airborne Divisions to become paratroopers. I was one of
them. But the Army took less than half of those who volunteered. Some of our Erie group left
the division for other reasons. Anthony Alo was sent to ASTP school (Army Specialized Training Program). Joe
Flamio, Bob Shea, and others left for separate tank battalions, antiaircraft battalions, and other units. Anthony Alo
(class of 1942) ended up with the 78th Infantry Division and was later killed in the Battle of the
Bulge. The rest of us waited another four months after D-Day arrived to prepare for overseas.
After reading about the invasion, we were all thankful that the Army delayed our participation. We had learned
that many of our friends who had left for the 82nd and 10lst Airborne were among the many casualties
on that first day of the invasion. We finally arrived overseas in October 1944 for further training in
England and France, then we dashed to the vicinity of Metz, France, then to the Belgium border to take part in the
Battle of the Bulge.
Our division was held in reserve and finally was committed in combat
around the latter part of Christmas 1944. The 8th Armored moved back and forth through France, Holland, Germany,
and Belgium for the next couple of months. As we moved deeper into Germany on our way to the
Rhine River, we assembled near a town called Linfort. The weather throughout the months of January, February, and
March was mostly cold and at times was subzero.
As we prepared for an assault on
the Rhine, some of my classmates and I were able to get together the night of March 4, 1945. I saw
Tony Gool who had asked me to hold on to some "combat loot" that he claimed he "liberated."
He had been chosen to lead a tank unit to a specific enemy outpost that was keeping our units
from moving up. Tony's mission was to blow up the impasse, which he did.
We got together with
Sgt. Jim Volski. Cpl. "Nobbie" Mack and Cpl. Johnny Potocka who were preparing their tanks for the battle
yet to come. Our destination was Rheinberg, which was a short distance from Wesel, a town on the Rhine River,
our later crossover point to other side of the Rhine. We, of course, did not anticipate what was to
happen that night in the early hours of March 5th.
We had painted names on the side
of the tanks, more or less to give them individual distinction. Sgt. Jim Volski was in A Company of
the 36th Tank Battalion and, therefore, called his tank "Atom Smasher." Cpl. Johnny Potocka was in B Company
of the 36th and called his tank "Berlin or Bust," and so on and so forth. That morning of
the 5th all hell broke loose. The Germans had lined the road to Rheinberg with the dreaded
88mm artillery piece, setting up a turkey shoot and our tanks were the turkeys. They were well into what we eventually
call "88 Alley."
We had not anticipated that much resistance, especially since our recon had cleared the
area the night before. The intensity of that all-night battle was evident the next morning. My
unit, the 49th Battalion, suffered 68 KIA and a hundred or so wounded. The 36th Tank Battalion suffered 131
KIA and hundreds more were wounded. We lost 41 tanks. The Germans suffered even more – 350 KIA
and hundreds wounded and much equipment. Almost 600 military personnel from both sides died that night, not to
mention the many civilians that also lost their lives.
The 58th and 7th Armored Infantry Battalions as
well as other units also suffered casualties. Cpl. Ed Klimow, who was the star of the East High's and
Massillon, Ohio's powerful football teams in 1942, was an ambulance driver. While his ambulance was
clearly marked, he was still fired upon and suffered facial wounds. Ed became an Erie firefighter.
The next
day, March 6th, we saw what had happened. Tanks were all over the place – all disabled, tracks off,
turrets blown off, or huge holes in their sides. Very few were salvageable. I was driving a jeep at
that time, chauffeuring MSgt. Jarvas Hutto from North Carolina, chief of maintenance, as we surveyed the
battle area. We noticed dead civilians, as well as farm animals strewn over the countryside. On the
road to Rheinberg we approached "88 Alley." It was there that I spotted Johnny Potocka's tank halfway into a ditch
with its track blown off. Alongside the tank several members of the crew, one of which was Johnny,
had been gunned down by machine gun fire, apparently after they evacuated their disabled tank.
As
we moved farther along, we saw more slaughter, more tanks disabled. I finally spotted Sgt. Jim Volski's tank
being towed by a tank recovery crew. Others ware following, hauling tanks back to the rear area. A designated
factory building was the collection point for all disabled tanks.
As yet most of the crews,
aside from those that were wounded, were still in the disabled tanks. Since all were dead, the recovery
crews waited until they came to the assembly area to remove them. We followed the recovery vehicles
to the assembly site and it was there that I saw my friend and fellow teammate on the 1942 East track
team. And what I saw as "medic's mechanics" and others removed the bodies from inside the tank, was
the horrible results of the war. It was there that I saw my friend Sgt. Jim Volski, for the last
time. His death had been quick.
I hadn't seen Cpl. Norbert Mack's tank, but I was told later that a sniper
killed him. That same day I was able to catch up with Tony Gool and told him what had happened. Tony
was saddened, as were all of us that had survived. Tony, by the way, earned a Silver Star during that awful
firefight.
We finally crossed the Rhine River a day or two after the 9th Infantry Division had
breached the bridge at Remagen. Our crossing was at Wesel with able assistance of the U.S. Navy who manned
assault.
A short two months later, after more fighting, the war in Europe came to an
end. In the six months our division had been there, it suffered more than 3,000 casualties. The battle deaths were many. The rest of
us counted the weeks and months to once again set foot in the "good ol' U.S.A."
We continue to
remember those East High Warriors who went to war to protect our freedom, as well as others – Sgt.
Jimmy Volski, Cpl. John Potocka, Cpl. Norbert Mack, Dilly Mathers, Tony Alo ... KIA's and all heroes. The rest of
us came back, some to die later, including Sgt. Ted Delinski and Cpl. Ed Klimow. The rest still remain
and remember those that served: Tony Gool, Ted Melnik, Bob Shea. Marty Haltruen, Joe Flamio, my longtime friend and
neighbor Ray Pastewska, and yours truly, Joe Borgia.
