Post by Registrar on Dec 12, 2012 11:06:11 GMT 8
The following are some vignettes sent to me by Nancy L. Bert, concerning her husband Gene, which had been lost in 2008 and are now found:
When WWII started Gene tried seven times to get into the army. He finally was accepted in spite of a heart murmur. His company commander was Van Heflin, the movie star. When Gene saw the poster about signing up for the first parachute training he was eager to go. Van Heflin tried to dissuade him because Gene wasn't very strong. He went anyway. He was always the man at the end of the line for marches, etc. He made it! Then he got pneumonia and had to ship out with the 503rd instead of the 501st.
His doctor of today, who put him on Hospice in August of 2006, is amazed at his health and said of all her patients he is a survivor. He has congestive heart failure, only about 1/3 of his lungs (he had pneumonia 12 times in his life - once in Korea), has malignant hypertension, and had renal failure, but I think I reversed that with careful diet. I know that I am prejudiced in his favor but I think he is a most remarkable person. When I asked him, "Was John Eisenhower your card playing partner?", he said that yes he was. I gasped and Gene said, "Don't worry, Dear. He was really smart at cards but Pierre Salinger wasn't as good." Isn't that funny?
Another memory: One time Gene was jumping (not combat) and he and a major (probably Maj. Arlis Kline) landed in a rice paddy and before they could collapse their chutes the wind took them across the paddy; the major yelled to Gene "I'll beat you across!" They were later reprimanded for clowning around.
Once in Jump School (Gene trained with the 501st, became ill, and subsequently shipped out with the 503rd) Gene did a night jump and landed in a tree. He felt the branches. They were very small so he thought, "I must be way high in this tree. If I get out of my chute and get down as far as I can and let go, I'll probably break my legs in the fall. But, if I hang here I am going to freeze to death." So, he got out of his chute, hung down, let go and dropped about four inches.
On another jump he had to use a borrowed chute. When he jumped and counted the prescribed amount his chute didn't open. He waited a bit longer and then pulled his reserve chute. He felt the opening shock and then he landed. He had his kit bag in his hand. The shock he felt had been a delayed opening of his main chute. Had both chutes opened he would have had a big problem.
Did this man lead a charmed life, or what?
Did I relate the circumstances of Gene's having landed in a ravine and that the sides to the top were of shale? He climbed up with the help of some pipes coming from a nearby pump house. The other man with him ran and hid in the pump house. Gene yelled at him to get out of there because it was a stationery target. The man wouldn't listen to Gene and the pump house took a direct hit. He thinks that man may have been Husky but he is not sure. The pump house was blown all to bits.
(Harvey R. HUSKEY, Pfc Cannoneer, Battery “A”, 462d P.F.A. Bn., was killed on Corregidor on 16 February, the day of the jump. Bennett M. Guthrie wrote of him:
One bizarre incident of the Corregidor campaign remains as a unique and eerie mystery. Whereas all those missing in action from the 503d Infantry are accounted for and their deaths confirmed by witnesses, the single missing in action report of the 462d Parachute Field Artillery Battalion indicates that Cannoneer Harvey R. Huskey of Battery A was never seen again after he parachuted from his plane onto Corregidor. The assaulting paratroopers turned every rock and pebble on the Rock at least twice in their relentless search for the enemy. Yet the remains of this artillery man were never discovered.
His remains were found after the 503d/462d departed Corregidor, , and Harvey Huskey was buried in the Highland Cemetery in Allen County, Kansas in October 1949.)
If someone would seek his death file, the answer would likely be found. – Registrar )
When Gene had to hide under a manhole cover, one of the Epsom (Impson) brothers was with him. He doesn't remember which one. That was a hair raising experience (maybe that's when Gene went bald - just joking).
Wasn't Larson one of those killed on Monkey Point when a rock fell on him? Wasn't it his daughter who asked about him several years ago at a time when Gene still had a good memory? That's how I found this site, by entering Gene's name in a search under the 503rd and it mentioned Gene's having seen his body under the boulder.
Gene says it's difficult for him to remember because it was so long ago.
In Australia, some of the men went AWOL to Gimpy (Gympie, the first rail stop of any size north of Brisbane.) Don't bother looking for they were never charged. Captain Pope and Gene went to Gimpy and when they walked into the bar/pub where the men were having a drink they looked up, saw the captain, and said, "You too, Captain?".
Gene had often told me that when his stick was ready to jump, Capt. Pope said they were to jump when he said and not when the pilot indicated they should. As a result not one man went into the water. The (Impson) brothers were a part of his stick. Gene was very proud of Captain Pope (who later became a Conn. legislature); when he died my husband grieved.
Nancy L. Bert
(Of the conflicting stories, I prefer the comment of this author that “not one man (from Gene’s stick) went into the water” to the stories told postwar that both Impson brothers actually landed in the water. Having spoken with a number of paratroopers, I believe that there is no evidence that any paratrooper landed in the water during the jump. - Registrar)