The Siegfried Line which spread from the Netherlands to Switzerland was Nazi Germany’s 400 mile westernwall, a heavily fortified defensive line that took the Allies six months to pierce. David Saltman remembered the Siegfried Line as a formidable opponent in itself. Robert Maxwell regained consciousness after throwing himself on a grenade to save his buddies only to find himself alone in an abandoned house. Maxwell found a lieutenant who helped him walk to a medic station. Along the way, his heal was blown off by another grenade. After having been pulled off the front line and sent back to the regimental headquarters, Edward Rychnovsky regularly checked the piles of corpses brought in on trucks for men from his company. When Nicholas Oresko’s platoon was ordered to make a third assault on a German position near the Siegfried Line, Oresko gave the order to attack, but no one in his platoon moved. Oresko decided to go by himself, and took out two machine gun emplacements that were pinning his men down. Stan Davis’s armored division took Trier, which had previously been thought impregnable. A seemingly peaceful apple orchard near the Sieg River proved deadly for Ralph Keller’s company, which took devastating losses. Byron Whitmarsh’s squad was engaged in a fierce firefight in and around a German cathedral. Furious that the Allies could use the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen as a bridgehead across the Rhine River, The German forces waged an intense ten day battle to destroy the bridage with everything they had. Lloyd Huggins, Rex Whitehead, Byron Whitmarsh, Clarence Taylor, and Barney Zylka rememembered the fighting at Remagen as some of the fiercest of the war. Those stories in more in this the 14th episode of Always Remember – World War II Through Veterans Eyes.

David Saltman

Robert D. Maxwell, Medal of Honor Recipient

Henry Heller

Nicholas Oresko, Medal of Honor Recipient

Stan Davis

Ralph Keller

Byron Whitmarsh

Lloyd Huggins

Rex Whitehead

Clarence Taylor

Barney Zylka

The final battle before the anticipated invasion of mainland Japan, Okinawa became the deadliest battle for US forces in the Pacific with savage fighting on land, air, and especially sea. Nicknamed the Typhoon of Steel because of its intense artillery fire and bombardments on land, air and sea, the battle for Okinawa cost 49,000 US casualties including more than 12,000 deaths. For the Japanese soldiers, the battle for Okinawa was far worse with 90,000 deaths. As always, civilians suffered the most with an estimated 150,000 dead. William Agen recalled the terror of kamikaze attacks that occurred three or four times during the day and even more often at night. Raymond Goron and Phil Klenman both lost their best friends in kamikaze attacks. 23 servicemen received the Medal of Honor for their heroism at Okinawa. This podcast features the stories of six Medal of Honor recipients. Kamikazes set the LCS that Richard M. McCool commanded ablaze and resulted in 50% casualties amongst his crew, yet McCool still managed to rescue some 98 men from a sinking destroyer. Richard E. Bush threw himself on a grenade to save the wounded men in his squad. Elsewhere, a wounded Robert E. Bush gave his lieutenant a life saving transfusion of plasma with his one hand, while he used his other to fire his pistol at the advancing Japanese who were less than 30 feet away. Angry that the Japanese had his riflemen pinned down for too long on Hen Hill, Clarence Craft led a heroic attack against the Japanese defensive line killing an estimated 25 Japanese soldiers. Atop the 400 foot Maeda Escarpment, conscientious objector Desmond T. Doss rescued an estimated 75 soldiers lowering them 35 feet below the escarpment in a rope supported litter tied to a tree stump, all the while under enemy fire as he did so. While the bloody battle for Okinawa raged on, Staff Sergeant Henry E. "Red" Erwin was flying bombing runs over the Japanese mainland. On a mission to bomb a chemical plant near Koriyama, Japan, the phosphoresce smoke bomb Erwin was supposed to drop to signal to B-29s that they had reached their target exploded prematurely in the launching chute, shooting its 1300 degree Fahrenheit flames into the aircraft and, more precisely, into Erwin's face blinding him and destroying his nose. "Open the window! Open the window!," Erwin yelled as he attempted to throw the burning bomb out the window to save his aircraft. Those stories and more in this 13th episode of Always Remember - World War II Through Veterans' Eyes.

William Agen

Raymond Goron

Richard M. McCool

Richard E. Bush

Robert E. Bush

Clarence Craft

Desmond Doss

Henry "Red" Erwin

Henry "Red" Erwin receiving the Medal of Honor

Millions of Allied and Axis soldiers became POWs in WW II. His weight down to 90 pounds, sick with malaria, Edgar Kuhlow overheard two German guards talking about his condition – “He is going to stay laying here in Germany.” Forced to work in railyards 2 – 3 times a week in Munich, William Ledeker knew he was better off than the concentration camp prisoners he would occasionally see from nearby Dachau. Recovering from being shot in the back and the shoulder, Jim Lingg was still loaded onto boxcars along with other POWs by the SS. While trying to liberate the Belgium town of Viller-La-Bonne-Eau, Michael Cannella and six others were separated from their company. Badly outnumbered with an intense fire fight taking place outside, Cannella’s makeshift squad took refuge in a cellar. Unbeknownst to them, it was already occupied by nearly a dozen German soldiers. Together they all made a pact, they would lay down their guns and surrender to whoever took over the town. When the Russian forces liberated his camp, Paul MacElwee found he went from being imprisoned by the Germans to now being imprisoned by the Russians. Seldom reported in the official records of the war, opposing forces in WW 2 sometimes did not abide by the Geneva Accords and took no prisoners. American GIs like James Spaulding couldn’t forget the senseless killing of soldiers who should have been taken prisoners of war.

Edgar Kuhlow and John Ulferts

William Ledeker

James Lingg (standing far right)

Michael Cannella

Paul MacElwee

Murray Shapiro

Robert Erhardt

James and Eva Mae Spaulding