Loneliness
#1

Loneliness,

 

My wife and I have been married for 60 years and we had a boy friend-girl friend relationship for 10 years before that. In the 58 years since I returned from overseas service in WWII, we have rarely been apart for more than a day or two. But I remember well those years when we were apart and they were the loneliest times of my life.

 

My first Army assignment after OCS was to an Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. We married and rented a room on a cotton and tobacco farm owned by a caring elderly couple, the Elliots. Those were among the happiest days of my life. But after only eight weeks, it all came crashing down around me. Because of staggering battle losses in Italy, Infantry replacement officers were in desperate need. As junior officer in my company, I received orders, along with several others, to report to a Port of Embarkation. In record time, I was on my way to the Anzio Beachhead in Italy. There were 5,000 Infantry replacements aboard our troop transport. I didn’t come home for 2 years! Five hundred of the others never came home at all!

 

In Infantry combat, life takes on an intensity unmatched by any other form of activity. There is fear, and there is valor in overriding the fear to do what has to be done. There is awesome responsibility. Responsibility not only for the mission but for the lives of the 35 enlisted men under your command. There is enormous satisfaction in doing the job well. A whole gamut of emotions sweeps over you with an intensity that cannot be imagined. And one of the most powerful of these is loneliness. Men fall around you and you can’t help but wonder when your turn will come. The statistics your brain takes aboard tell you that you can’t possibly survive. You will never see home and your loved ones again. But there is no satisfactory alternative to going on and doing what you have been trained to do. There is no end to the War in sight. You have no doubt that you will go on until you are killed or so badly wounded that you can’t be patched up and sent back to your unit.

 

You write often and treasure the letters from home. Your wife at home is in your thoughts at every quiet moment. A hopelessness comes over you because you know that no one in this Regiment is going to make it to War’s end, an event which is not even on the horizon. Common sense tells you that. And yet there is that thread of hope that you reach out for. Maybe it won’t happen to me. You know it will, but maybe, just maybe . . . And you go on, and on, and on.

 

You are surrounded by hundreds, maybe thousands of men, yet you feel alone. The only ones you see are the men in your own platoon and even they are spread out so you see only a few at a time. Your training tells you that you are responsible for these men, for their well-being, for their very lives. They’re not friends, not buddies, there is no familiarity. You call them by their last names. They call you “Lootenant,†pronounced with two o’s and the accent on the first syllable.. They are your charges. The Army has arranged things so that you exist on two different levels, officer and enlisted man, even though you share the same foxhole, rations, clothing and blanket. The Army tells them that they must respect you and follow your orders without question. The Army tells you that you must earn their respect by looking after them, keeping them fed, clothed, and as safe as is reasonably possible consistent with performing the mission. You both take that charge very seriously. Your lives depend upon it.

 

What about the other officers in your company? Can’t you make friends there? Somehow or other it doesn’t seem to work out, primarily because you are physically separated most of the time. It’s not like an Army post in the States. There you see each other at reveille formation, three times a day in the mess hall, at the officer’s club after duty hours and perhaps in the BOQ. In Infantry combat, there are no formations, and meals are eaten alone right out of the C ration cans you carry on your back. There is no officers’ club, no BOQ.

 

I have heard it said that officers and men alike avoid making friends because it only hurts that much more when your friend “gets hit.†In my experience, that line, and others like it, come only out of a movie script. Aside from physical separation, the reason Infantrymen don’t make friends is because of the high rate of turnover. People come and go constantly and they all remain strangers. In my regiment, wartime battle casualties came to 500% of average strength and non-battle casualties (evacuation for malaria, trench foot, pneumonia, accidents, etc.) took another 500%. The Division goes on because of a continuous flow of replacements coming up from the rear as the casualties are evacuated. On average, every spot in the Regiment is filled at one time or another by ten different men. The average length of stay is measured in weeks and the overlap between individuals is even less. It’s not uncommon for a man to be evacuated before others even know his name. How could he possibly have made friends?

 

During his time in combat, he is constantly lonely because he knows no one. He has never been so lonely. Nor afraid. If he is wounded, evacuated and later returned to his unit, he will find few familiar faces. Those few that he may have known will have been hit and replaced. And this applies to junior officers as well as enlisted men. After replacements are assigned to units, they never see each other again.

 

It’s a terrifying, miserable, and above all, lonely life in an Infantry Company. The only personal objective, the only hope, the only prayer is for survival. Because survival means return to your loved ones and an end to the terrible loneliness.

 

Russell W. Cloer, 10/19/97 Rev. 11/14/97 Rev. 5/5/98

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#2

That sure got to me and to the pit of my stomach. Made me lonely just reading it. Trying to imagine a week or two or maybe a month. Imagining two years in those same conditions is well, undefinable for me.

 

For the married man is must be 10 times as hard. As you said, moving to that house, being estactically happy and then being torn away from it so soon after and thrust into the Anzio Invasion. Hard for any of us civilians to comprehend all the emotions that ran through your body and soul.

 

So very difficult to see so many die around you and then trying to tell yourself, it won't happen to me. It would appear that it was just a matter of time before the grim reaper was grinning down on you and telling you, hey buddy, it's YOUR time.

 

I still am amazed that SO many did survive. I'm amazed that my dad survived from spring of 1943 through May of 1945 and lived to tell his tales when he arrived home in November of that same year. Think of the odds. I'm sure he did and I know you ran that scenario over and over in your head. What are the odds? Is it going to be me?

Marion J Chard
Proud Daughter of Walter (Monday) Poniedzialek
540th Engineer Combat Regiment, 2833rd Bn, H&S Co, 4th Platoon
There's "No Bridge Too Far"
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#3

Thanks Marion,

 

You show remarkable understanding and care. Thank you!

 

If I remember the numbers correctly, the 3rd Infantry Division (average strength) was 10 to 12 thousand men, suffered about 35,000 battle casualties in WWII and an equal number of non-battle casualties. (Malaria, Trench Foot, Jaundice , etc.) Ref: "History of the 3rd Inf Div in WWII." Compiled by author and friend, Lt. Nathan White from my company. Now deceased.

 

Russ

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#4

Russ, what is this about some of the troops suffering from malaria? I know it was common in the Pacific but this is the first time I've heard it was a problem in Europe.

 

Marilyn

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#5

I know Russ will definitely add to this, but the Malarial mosquito can be found in other parts of the world, where it is hot, swampy etc. This includes southern Europe and the continent of Africa. Troops took atabrine to combat malaria.

 

You can read about the use of medicine during the war to combat and prevent all kinds of illnesses.

 

http://www.xpsn.com/search/powersearch.asp...20Europe%20WWII

Marion J Chard
Proud Daughter of Walter (Monday) Poniedzialek
540th Engineer Combat Regiment, 2833rd Bn, H&S Co, 4th Platoon
There's "No Bridge Too Far"
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#6

The Third Division's greatest problems with malaria occurred either on the Anzio Beachhead or of being infected on the Anzio Beachhead and coming to life later. Parts of the Beachhead were known as the "Pontine Marshes" and were ideal breeding grounds for malaria carrying mosquitoes. Mussolini had tried to convert it to good farmland by building canals to drain it, but it was only partially effective.

 

Attempted solutions by the American army included having the men wear gloves and mosquito netting to cover the face and area below the helmet. It didn't work. The men wouldn't wear them! The army also distributed liquid insect repellant to the troops which became known as "bug juice". The mosquito netting was hard to get the men to accept, because the weather was hot and the netting around the head made the heat unbearable.

 

The solution which was finally partially effective was the atabrine pill. Every man was required to swallow one a day His officer was held responsible to see that he took it. On the rare occasions when there was a "chow line", there was an officer at the head of the line who would let no one get fed until he swallowed his Atabrine pill. I particularly remember this being used while we were training in the Pontine Marshes for the invasion of Southern France.

 

I remember spending a week or so in a tent evac hospital shortly after the war ended. They seemed to be feeding me Atabrine all day and the symptoms went away. It recurred once more shortly after I got home. My family doctor treated it with Atabrine and I haven't had it since. C'est la guerre!

 

3_7_I_Recon - Russ Cloer

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#7

Malaria: I was in Philippines ,Island of Panay and we used the mosqito netting and took our pills. I don't know of any one who got malaria but for years after the war the red cross would not take blood from any who were in Pacific

 

papa

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#8

I don't know of any one who got malaria but for years after the war the red cross would not take blood from any who were in Pacific

 

Interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that and was not aware of that fact.

Marion J Chard
Proud Daughter of Walter (Monday) Poniedzialek
540th Engineer Combat Regiment, 2833rd Bn, H&S Co, 4th Platoon
There's "No Bridge Too Far"
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#9

We had a man in co. c that died from malaria while We were in Italy. My first sergeant stood at the head of the chow line and placed the atabrine pill in each soldiers mouth. The Pontine Marshes have been infamous from time beginning for maleria. Mussolini did a great service in cleaning up the marshes when he first went into power. Then he met Hitler!!

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#10

I don't know of any one who got malaria but for years after the war the red cross would not take blood from any who were in Pacific

 

Interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that and was not aware of that fact.

In 1953 my father was in surgery and something happened but he needed blood and fast. He had a rare type of blood and the hospital didn't have enough on hand so they put out an emergency call on the radio. Our neighbor, an ex-marine who had that type of blood, heard the call and was very upset that he couldn't donate; he'd contracted malaria while serving in the Pacific so nobody would touch him. I can remember him coming over to the house afterwards and visiting with Dad and just shaking his head over and over, trying to apologize, and my dad trying to put him at ease. Imagine, after what he must have gone through while in the Pacific and yet feeling the need to apologize to my dad because he had unable to answer the call for help because he had contracted malaria!

 

As for the threat of malaria in Italy, as I've said before, I did not know about that. I've only just begun to read about the war but for you guys who were there and are willing to talk about it and share with us civvies and youngun's, I cannot tell you how much it means to us to hear it first-hand. Not everything is learned between the covers of a book and to me, your personal recollections are priceless. My heartfelt thanks to you all.

 

Marilyn

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