Interview of James G. Paterson (Part 2 of 2) Transcript Number 365 ZARBOCK: Tape number 2, World War II veterans reminiscence. July the 9th, we're on the campus of UNCW. I'm Paul Zarbock, the interviewee is James Patterson. Sir, would you take it away? PATERSON: Thank you. Just as a footnote to the previous tape, the Zandam was the name of the vessel I was trying to think of that was the Commodore's vessel in the convoy that brought us from the States to Egypt. Now the Zandam was a Dutch merchant vessel and had a largely Indonesian crew with Dutch officers and it was a fast enough ship to return to the States by itself. It felt it didn't need an escorting destroyer; however on its return trip solo the Zandam was torpedoed in the South Atlantic and five members of the crew together with an armed guard officer and seaman, a total of five were cast adrift in a raft. Ninety-eight days after the sinking three of those persons were rescued from the raft. The details and story of all of this are written up in the Readers' Digest several years ago in case anybody really wants to research it. Alright. When we left each other, Fred Stanford and I were reporting to the 34th Infantry Division based at that time on the Mediterranean shore at a place called _____ Turk. He went to the 185th Field Artillery Battalion and I went to the Division Artillery Headquarters as the S14, the personnel and supply officer for the Division Artillery. We had an opportunity to swim in the ocean and rest and relax a little bit while we were getting ready to invade Italy. On one of my excursions to the beach, I ran into an old friend from New Jersey named Felix Jenkins. He was surrounded by very nice looking ladies in swimsuits who turned out to be nurses from the 95th hospital who were also going to accompany us in Italy. He was an ambulance driver for...what was the name of the group who assisted us, they were not military... ZARBOCK: Conscientious objectors? PATERSON: Conscientious objectors who were in this ambulance service. In an event, it was not the last time I was to see Felix, but every time I saw him he was always surrounded by good looking girls as any ambulance driver would be. We loaded the vessels from the beach at _____ Turk being ferried out to the vessels that were going to carry us to Salerno. Our division went in about day number four after the initial landing. We didn't run into any infantry opposition but there was a great deal of German air activity over the area as we landed. We got about five deep wet off the vessels. We went down rope ladders to get into the landing craft which came on to the beach and then dropped the bow section and you waded ashore from there. The most uncomfortable thing about that was when you walked off the beach you still had wet shoes, wet pants and it took a while to dry out although September was still pretty warm in that part of Italy. We turned north and several small towns which were shall we say more than villages but less than cities and we didn't run into any opposition there, but what we did do was run into a distillery which made cognac and gin which promptly shall we say manned by the 34th Infantry Division. ZARBOCK: Now the year and the month is what? PATERSON: September of 1943, the opening days of the Italian campaign. One of the things that the British had taught me was when you're in a foreign land make sure you're surrounded by people who speak the language. What we did on the beach there was to find out the background of all the replacements that had joined the division since the end of the North African campaign. The 34th Division was a National Guard division made up mainly of residents of Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota. These men had been federalized and they went overseas in January of 1942 to Ireland where they were sent ostensibly to assist the Irish in the event the Germans did a U-turn and got around in back of the British Isles and invaded Ireland. They also had a great number of German immigrant parents and many of them were fluent in German. So while they were in North Africa, they had plenty of people to assist in interrogating prisoners. Anytime there was a question about what the Germans might or might not do the people who spoke the language could get the information required. Now Italy, our replacements were the ones that really gave us the Italian background. You know how many Italians there are in New York City, we just had people who could speak Italian coming out of our eyeballs and this was wonderful because we needed them to talk to the civilians. Also we made sure that the mess sergeant, the cooks and the guys that ran the kitchen had at least two or three Italian speaking people to help them trade. We'd sell or trade cigarettes or tobacco or in this case if we had cognac and gin, we'd trade this for _____ available to the country. It was amazing how rapidly the British were able to indoctrinate themselves in Egypt. They would employ Egyptians as soldiers or as laborers in order that they would have the ability to live off the country if you will. So this was done within our division largely from the replacements. Now if you look at the map, you begin to wonder why anybody would invade Italy from the boot. The ____ Mountains run up the middle, up the spine and all the rivers run to the seas on either side. So an invading force going up the boot has to do so under the observation of the soldiers occupying the peaks and they have to be able to cross all the rivers, a very substantial task which we soon realized as we approached the Valterno River. Now the first of November of 1943 we were approaching the first crossing of the Valtaro and highway 6 ran down from an escarpment to the south of the river to a broad plain running to the river bank itself and beyond the river bank the escarpment rose again. At the head of the escarpment the road ran down from was a substantial, I won't call it a castle but a very substantial mass with outbuildings and barns and the Division Artillery Headquarters, General Stanford, elected this for his headquarters and called a meeting of all of the battalion commanders and the cannon company commanders to lay out where the various positions would be for the first crossing of the Valterno. Amongst these persons was a classmate of mine called Howard A. Smith, Howard Ambrose Smith, who was captain of Cannon Company of the 168th Infantry. This was going on about 8:00 in the morning when to our utter amazement and dismay eight Fock Wolf came out from behind the escarpment and straffed and bombed right down Route 6. ZARBOCK: A Fock-Wolf is a single engine fighter bomber used by the Germans. PATERSON: Exactly, a very, very good airplane. We took a tremendous number of casualties. My classmate Howard Smith was killed. I think they totaled something like 80 killed along the highway and maybe three times that number wounded. It was probably the last really successful straffing of our troops until we got to Anzio. Nonetheless, it was tough. I was with a Colonel Debose of the 151st Field Artillery and his S3 whose name was Captain Roberts and he and Roberts and myself made a break for one of the out buildings. The bomb that probably killed Howard Smith blew us into the building which was at that point had a couple of trucks in it. The building collapsed but collapsed under the trucks so that the Debose, Roberts and myself basically weren't killed. We were however, all three of us, shall we say qualified for a Purple Heart at the time. Well we had a wonderful medic, Dr. Charlie Lyon, and his team with us so they took care of the seriously wounded and we all helped. Those that were killed we couldn't do too much about that at that time. The grave registration people came up later. That was the first actual combat that I had been in since I'd been in the military and I must say it was one sided. ZARBOCK: You were the recipient. PATERSON: I was the recipient, not the guy who was doling it out. The progress went ahead. We crossed the river successfully that night and moved on further into the mountains to a place called San Pietro with the 36th Infantry Division. We got into a very difficult fight and then we went into the valley leading to Casino. Got there about the first of December. Now it was turning mighty cold at that time of year. We were not equipped. We did not have the boots, we did not have the uniforms, we did not have the gray coats and we were beginning to suffer significant losses just due to Mother Nature and the cold. Lots of flu, lots of frostbite and the ever present your feet just begin to go and if you can't walk, you can't do too much. There was an observation post called Mount Cairo which we set up where we could observe the monastery without them seeing us. We had an unexpected visitor, Claire Booth Luce, the wife of the owner of Time came to see what was going on at the monastery. She was escorted by General Mark Clark and this observation post was where they wanted to go. Well you don't say no to a three star general which he was in those days. We all had a lot of second guessing and what could happen if so and so and so. In any event up they came and I happened to be manning the observation post at the time. She turned to General Clark and said, "Where's all the action? How come nothing is going on." There was nothing going on in the middle of the day because we didn't want anything going on in the middle of the day. We had Spider planes up which kept the German weaponry quiet and if we fired any of ours, they were able to spot the smoke and flame and pinpoint us for the nighttime bombardment. So we didn't like to do that during the day. That didn't phase Mrs. Luce. She wanted some action. So the general turned and asked couldn't we give them some action. I said, "Sir, if we fire at this stage of the day, it's a dead give away. We cannot hide the smoke and we'll take a pounding during the evening." This was not satisfactory to him, but I said we could get some mortar rounds going for him... ZARBOCK: They wanted a show. PATERSON: They wanted a show is correct. So we had a little show with some mortar rounds which we requested the infantry supply us with. I had to do that by telephone. I didn't do that by radio. That wasn't really what they wanted. That was the beginning of the battle for Casino and our division was really unequipped to attack Casino. We had not had the fresh uniforms that we needed. We had not been out of the line since we got there and we got there in September and this is October, November, December. So finally they relented and we were relieved by guess what, the 2nd New Zealand Armor Division. Well it turned out that my previous contact with the 2nd showed up on my record so I was to stay behind as the division was relieved for at least three days to help these guys get settled in. Well it actually turned out to be wonderful fun because there were several of them that I had known when they were with us learning how to use the equipment. So we got along famously and we gave them all the firing data that we had, a lot of the suspected enemy artillery positions. They were very reassuring. We'll have Casino in short order. Well it didn't happen and they ran into the same thing that we had run into. Everybody knows it took the Polish division and they sacrificed a lot of men to ultimately in March/April to win the victory at Casino. We were taken out and brought back to Rome vicinity and then back to Naples. Little did we know what was in store for us but we got replacements. We got new clothing. I'll never forget the showers. There was hot water but it was outside. You were outside. There was no tent, no nothing, and it was cold, hot water or no hot water. What they did was they turned the hot water on for a minute. You had a minute to soak. Then they turn it off and you'd soap. You would soap for three minutes. Then they'd turn the water back on and you'd rinse. Then you step out and let somebody else do it. You step out and go over and get your towel and your new underwear and your new pants and shirt. The most important thing was the boots. You want to make sure that the boots are a good fit. It turned out that we were getting ready for Anzio. We were not the first division into Anzio. We didn't get there until early March. That was an interesting campaign. We'd get on these LST's and LSVP's, landing ship vehicle personnel, and I came up with 5,000 replacements. I told these replacements before they got on board, they should turn to the person behind them. They were double ranks. I told them to introduce themselves and make sure that they were buddies, that they knew each other, that they should take care of each other and try to get into the same unit because they were going to need somebody that they knew rather than go into the unit by themselves where they don't know anyone. They had to know somebody and they were going to be their best friend. As they got off these boats, the sergeants would be waiting for them, I'll take this 12, I'll take this 10, whatever and they grabbed them as they came. Well of course all the landings had to be at night at Anzio because you couldn't possibly do it during the day with the Germans occupying high ground and had a perfect place to bomb you. At night it was random shelling. For the old hands it was routine. For the replacements it was a nasty introduction. I was then relieved of my duties at the Division Artillery Headquarters and sent to the 151st Field Artillery Battalion, turn the boys to men, and assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the 133rd Infantry as the liaison officer. In other words I was in charge of all the four observers from the battalion to the regiment for that particular battalion. The reason for that was that Colonel Markey who was in charge of the battalion had been guarding the 5th Army Headquarters in Algeria while the division was fighting in Italy. Up to this point he'd been guarding the 5th Army Headquarters. Then the 5th decided to move to Italy and the 100th Battalion which had been filling in for the 2nd Battalion went to the 442 Regimental Combat Team and the 2nd Battalion came back to its own regiment. It was assumed that I knew Colonel Markey because I'd been at 5th Army Headquarters plus the fact that we tried to rotate officers from staff jobs to field jobs to give everybody a chance. Well there were numerous experiences at the Anzio beachhead before the breakout one of which I will tell you about. It has its funny spots but it also has its oogy-googy spots. The headquarters at the beachhead in Anzio was a deserted farm house. Farm houses are wonderful places for enemy artillery to zero in at if there's any motion around it. If there's no motion, they won't waste anything on it. Consequently all of our motion was pretty much at night. In this particular instance in order to go about the bodily functions, we had a slit trench which was on the other side of the house and it was used only at night. Colonel Markey found himself the victim of a case of the runs and said he had to go. I told him to just find a bucket or something in the headquarters, not to go outside. Well he said he had to go. So he went outside and the next thing you know we get a bunch of fire coming in. I said to the Colonel not to come back in because he didn't have time, to go in the slit trench. He dove in the slit trench (laughter). He had to spend the rest of the day there. There was no way we were going to let him in and no way the Germans were going to let him in. He had a terrible time but we were just on the edge of the Mussolini Canal they call it which is a body of water about 15 feet wide and about 3 feet deep. He got himself back that night. You think of daily living, it becomes a chore when you're held up like that. It becomes difficult unless you take very good care of yourself as best you can. Well we got the orders that we were going to break out in May and we were to follow these Special Service Forces, the SSF, which was made up of Norwegians, Canadians, some Americans. They were a first class fighting outfit. We went through them. They had taken a lot of casualties and we went through them headed toward the railroad that ran up the boot before you got to the mountain range and then beyond that the valley. Our mission was to capture the ridge line and to look down on the valley and hopefully to cut off the retreating Germans, Germans retreating from the attack on Casino. We successful got to the railroad and were about to cross it to go up the ridge line when Colonel Markey got orders to turn north and proceed north on the railroad tracks. He was very reluctant to make that decision and asked for the order to be put in writing and delivered to him before he did it. He was supported by General Boley but General Boley or General Ryder whichever one was in command, was under the direct orders of General Clark of the 34th Division to proceed towards Rome. Looking back on it had we been able to capture the high ground at that time it may have well shortened the war in Italy but we didn't and it didn't so there's no use crying over spilled milk. I never did get to Rome from that direction. I did get to Rome later but I never got to Rome from that direction because as we started up the railroad tracks, I don't know if you've tried to walk on railroad tracks before. It's extremely difficult. European railroads are no different than American railroads. It turned out that I had a bad case of scabies of both legs and I had monumental sores on my feet. It got to the point where I couldn't walk. The war by that time was shall we say something I could do without anyway. ZARBOCK: How long had you been overseas at this point? PATERSON: Well I'd gone over in July of '42 and this was May '44, a couple years. ZARBOCK: And you fought in Africa. PATERSON: Well put in quotes "fought," I participated. ZARBOCK: You were in the African campaign. PATERSON: Yeah. ZARBOCK: And then shifted to the mid-Mediterranean islands. PATERSON: I never went to Sicily. Egypt, Libya, Tripoli and Italy were the combat areas. ZARBOCK: That's a plateful. That is a plateful. PATERSON: In any event, I got evacuated. I guess I was out for about two weeks and then I rejoined the division that's ______ and proceeded up to Pisa over to Florence and then I got maybe 50 miles above Florence when I got invalided out and sent back to Rome in December of 1944, late December of 1944 to the 33rd General Hospital and they decided I'd had enough and I got on the hospital ship Hope. We sailed just after midnight on New Year's Day. I was in a room with three other veterans, a black 2nd lieutenant from the black division that had joined us, a 1st lieutenant bombardier and I can't remember the other one. I do remember that the bombardier and the black 2nd lieutenant, they were at each other's throats the entire time (laughter). ZARBOCK: On what issue? PATERSON: What are you doing in my cabin according to the bombardier. He said "I assume I'm doing the same thing you are, trying to recover from my wounds." I told them both to shut up, that life was too short. ZARBOCK: But the Army was officially segregated in those days. PATERSON: Yes indeed, we had an all black division except for the officers. Nobody's proud of it, but that's the way it was. Well when we got back, we landed at Charleston, South Carolina. One little notation there, a great number of us were walking invalids, we weren't stretcher cases, and the Red Cross had stands on the dock, Coca Cola, root beer, ice cream and milk. The biggest crowd was in front of the milk. Americans drink milk to the amazement of most of the rest of the world. They missed their milk and boy the rest of it, forget it, I want some of that milk. I was sent by hospital train from there, from Charleston, up to Winterlosen Hospital in Staunton, Virginia. I spent a couple of weeks there and then I got a month's leave to go visit my parents. Then my parents had moved to New Hampshire so I asked around to find transportation. The postmaster had a car on some sort of stilts in his bar. It was just sitting there. He said he'd be glad to have me use it. I said I wanted to buy it. He said $400. So I bought this car for 400 bucks, had it fixed up. My orders read to go back to Fort Sill to an advanced artillery course. I drove this heap from New Hampshire to Fort Sill, Oklahoma again, got out there in April and I spent two months at that time his course. What they were teaching us in this advanced course was rocketry. Rockets had come in. The German ____ workers screaming mimis had taught our ordinance people that this was the route to go. We were immersed in rockets. At our final demonstration, the 4th Army Headquarters staff from the Artillery Headquarters came up to witness our demonstration. General Patch was in command of the 4th Army at the time. In the delegations was Colonel Fritz Peterson who had been the Chief of Staff of the 34th Infantry Division Artillery when I was with the 34th in Italy. He spotted me in the group. Captain was a low rank in the group. These were majors, lieutenant colonels and a smattering of captains. He came down out of the stands and said, "Paterson, what are you doing in this suicide squad." I told him I was doing what I was told to do. I told him I was trying to keep my nose clean like he taught me. He asked if I would like to come down to 4th Army Headquarters. I said would I ever. So he said I should let him see what he could do. The next morning we line up for assignments. Most assignments are in the small islands in the Pacific where they were grouping for the invasion of Japan. We were alphabetically, not be rank, getting our orders to proceed. It got to me and they said, "Paterson, you are to go to..." He put his glasses on said I can't believe it. I'm going to call personnel. So he dials the number and said I had an order on Paterson 0403100 to go to 4th Army Headquarters, can that be correct. I heard the guy on the other end say that was correct. He hangs up and asked me who I knew (laughter). I said well it was just the breaks of the game. That's where I wound up in 4th Army Headquarters. ZARBOCK: I mentioned off camera that the last question was going to be in all your military experience and all of the experiences you've had in life since then, and you're now really talking to your grandchildren, maybe beyond that, what have you learned from all of that. PATERSON: It's difficult to say you've learned it. Experience, you cannot teach experience. You can live experience, you can gain experience, but you cannot teach it. You get to the point where you don't want to infringe on anybody's personal privileges or personal thoughts, but you feel that you've got to because you've experienced it yourself. You've got to pass our experience along as best you can. One of the things that we learned in the military is that the newest comer needs to be looked after. I certainly learned that when you join a new company you hope that somebody in that company will take a similar interest in you, that will help you to ease into the job. You cannot turn your back on a newcomer. You have to embrace them as part of the family as best you can. ZARBOCK: Thank you sir. I enjoyed being with you. PATERSON: Thank you sir, I enjoyed it also.