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BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (Nov. 7, 2012) -- "It was 1942 the last time I
was there," Leon Tarter remembered about Camp Atterbury, Ind. "They
asked if anyone wanted to be a truck driver. Well, I was only
eighteen years old, and I said yes, I wanted to be a truck driver.
So they asked me if I could drive a big truck, and I said, 'yes I
can.' The next day they had me pushing a wheel barrow while we were
picking up trash."
Sylvia James, the widow of Lt. Col. Leon
James, a former battalion commander for the 2/314th Field Artillery
Battalion who was killed in Iraq in 2005, and Leon Tartar, the last
known World War II survivor of the 79th Reconnaissance Troop,
present a World War II helmet signed by the members and family
members of the 79th Reconnaissance Troop and the 314th Infantry
Regiment to noncommissioned officers representing 157th Infantry
Brigade, First Army Division East. Photo by Army Capt. Jane Wilson |
The year was 1942 and Tarter, a new Soldier, had just
begun his military service at Camp Atterbury. Over the next
several months, Tarter would go to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
and Southhampton, England and several other places on his
way to Utah Beach in 1944 with the 79th Reconnaissance
Troop. Today, he is the last known surviving member of the
original unit.
Recently, the 157th Inf. Bde.
Commander Col. Brandt Deck, his senior enlisted advisor,
Command Sgt. Maj. Everett Clark, and seven noncommissioned
officers met Tarter and other members of the 79th
Reconnaissance Troop's World War II veteran's association.
The Association presented Deck and his Soldiers with a World
War II helmet signed by members of the original unit and
members of the Association.
"I am personally honored
to have been a part of this ceremony," Deck said. "I am glad
that our Soldiers had the opportunity to meet someone who
served in combat during World War II and hear his stories."
The 157th Infantry Brigade, stationed at Camp Atterbury
Ind., traces its lineage to the 79th Reconnaissance Troop,
and their Brigade guidon is decorated with five campaign
streamers from the 79th Reconnaissance Troop's service
during World War II. Today, the 157th Inf. Bde., part of
First Army Division East, mobilizes, trains, validates,
deploys and demobilizes Reserve Component Soldiers for
missions around the world.
While the 314th Infantry
Regiment Association started as a way to remember members of
the original unit, it expanded significantly to now include
the roughly 150 members of the 79th Reconnaissance Troop.
Both units served under the 79th Infantry Division during
World War II and the 157th Infantry Brigade during World War
I. The current association includes members of the original
units as well as current units that trace their lineage back
to either the 314th Infantry Regiment or the 79th
Reconnaissance Troop.
As everyone began to arrive in
the event hall Eric Gill, whose father served with Tarter in
World War II as a medic, introduced everyone.
"This
ceremony is really about you," Gill said to the 157th
Infantry Brigade Soldiers as the ceremony began. "Members
and family members of the World War II 79th Recon Troop have
signed this helmet, and we are going to pass it on to you,
our unit by lineage."
Gill handed the helmet to
Tarter, along with a gold paint pen and Tarter slowly added
his own name to the helmet before giving it back.
After the helmet was signed, Tarter and Sylvia James, the
widow of Lt. Col. Leon James, a battalion commander of the
314th Field Artillery Brigade and an honorary member of the
World War II Association who was killed in Iraq in 2005,
then passed the helmet to each of the Soldiers present for
the ceremony. Each took a moment to hold the helmet and
thank Tarter and James for their service to our nation and
for the helmet. Gill presented the helmet on behalf of the
association to Deck to keep at the unit headquarters at Camp
Atterbury, Ind.
"This is a very important moment,"
Deck said. "These streamers were paid for in blood by those
World War II veterans, and we are extremely grateful for
your sacrifice and service."
"It was an honor to be
in the presence of a World War II Veteran," said Sgt. 1st
Class Thomas Satterfield. "There aren't many people left who
can tell us what happened there. It was very interesting and
I feel honored to have been chosen to attend and be able to
meet everyone here."
The ceremony concluded with an
exchange of certificates, coins, and small tokens of
appreciation. After the ceremony, Gill and Tarter continued
to share stories about what happened during World War II.
Gill's father Valentin "Harry" Gill was a medic and
significantly older than most of the men in the unit.
Although Soldiers were not supposed to have cameras in
combat, Gill said his father carried one anyway.
"As
a 36 year old corporal he felt there were a lot of orders
that didn't apply to him," Gill explained. "He took pictures
of the recon troop as they would have looked prior to
Stattmatten."
Stattmatten was a city near the border
of Germany and France, in the Alsace region, the 79th
Reconnaissance Troop went into to rescue 44 men from another
unit who were cut off and surrounded by the Germans.
"There were 12 of us acting as an armored infantry foot
patrol, a 50-caliber jeep, an M-8 armored car and a light
tank borrowed from another unit," Tarter recalled. "We were
five miles behind enemy lines and there were a lot of
Germans."
During the battle the 50 caliber jeep
gunner was killed, the tank was destroyed by an anti-tank
weapon killing it's entire crew and killed or wounded five
from the 79th Reconnaissance Troop's foot patrol.
"[Gill] started going down the street with a white flag
hollering in German," Tarter remembered. "We thought that he
was going to surrender us, and we just sat there like kids.
He disappeared for five or ten minutes inside the building
from which the anti-tank weapon was fired and came back with
two German officers with waving white flags. Sixty-eight
Germans and two officers surrendered to us."
Gill's
father spoke fluent German from when he lived in Russia as a
child. His father had convinced the Germans that there were
reinforcements very close and that if they didn't surrender
to the small group outside, the next unit would create a
great deal more destruction. He promised them they wouldn't
be harmed if they did. The Germans surrendered and the 79th
Reconnaissance Troop rescued the prisoners they were sent to
take back.
"Boy, they were pretty mad when they
found out that those other men were about 10 miles back,"
Tarter said with a smile. "He saved our life that day. If
[the Germans] would have taken us, we would have been killed
for sure."
"Were you at D-Day?" someone in the group
asked Tarter. "No, we landed at D plus three," Tarter
responded quietly. "I wouldn't be here if we landed on
D-Day."
Commenting on the coincidence that nearly 70
years later the last known surviving member of the World War
II 79th Reconnaissance Troop and it's successor the 157th
Infantry Brigade would just happen to be so close together
geographically, while Gill, a Florida resident, was in
Bowling Green on business Gill said, "Sometimes when you
drop a pebble in a pond and the concentric rings go out, and
then someone else drops a pebble, it's sometimes amazing how
those rings can intersect much later on."
By Army Capt. Jane Wilson, 157th Infantry Brigade
Army News Service
Copyright 2012
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