Greatest Generation? Well, yes and no.

Discussion in 'Veteran Accounts' started by Danny Creasy, Sep 18, 2015.

  1. Danny Creasy

    Danny Creasy Member

    I just finished a three and a half year writing project and self-published my work of creative non-fiction aka historical fiction entitled Jim & Nancy: Two Paths Merged by War. It is a compilation of the stories of my preceding generation from the Great Depression and World War II. The process lead me to some revelations and conclusions about the folks that survived this cataclysmic period.

    Let's take two subjects from my work. First, the yes. Then, the no.

    YES

    My father, James Eulis Creasy, from Cloverdale, Alabama joined the U. S. Army in 1939 mainly to escape the abject poverty of his youth. He found a grand life in the peacetime army and was assigned to the the 29th Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning. They were the "demonstration regiment' for the Army. One of the first to be mechanized and one of the first to be issued M1 Garand rifles. They were very good at what they did. Thus, they were kept at Benning until mid-1943 serving in an invaluable training role. Having earned one of the early GEDs and made Staff Sergeant, Dad was a squad leader by the time the 29th was finally sent overseas. They were kept unattached from any division and sent to Iceland to relieve a Marine division as it was needed in the Pacific. In January of 1944 the 29th Infantry Regiment was sent to England and they became specialists in guarding lines of communication and marshaling yards.

    Here is the "yes." On June 4, 1944 Dad and a handful of his fellow "We Lead the Way" buddies were pulled from their regular outfits and sent to guard a detention center (wire and wood) hastily constructed in the New Forrest of Hampshire. Their regimental commander told them their mission was to receive and hold American military personnel that simply "refused to go." The wayward troops would be dealt with through normal channels after the invasion was well under way. As it turned out, the big day was not the 5th but it was the 6th.

    When I was a boy, I asked my Pop what he did on D-Day. He said, "Well, Dan, me and some other guys from my outfit were sent out in the middle of nowhere to guard deserters and soldiers that just "refused to go" when their units crossed the English Channel. Yep, they had built this big stockade to hold hundreds of guys in an area the British called the New Forrest."

    I asked, "How many men were sent to you, Daddy?"

    He replied, "None, Dan. Not a single one."

    "None?"

    "That's right, Son." Then he chuckled and continued, "We got kinda bored. They had two Indian motorcycles with side cars just sitting there by the stockade. We rode those around all day – just tearing up and down the English countryside. We took turns. Man, that was fun. The phone in the little guard hut rang once in the night to tell us that the invasion was on, but it never rang again, the whole day."

    That's right ....... no guests!!

    NO

    After the marshaling yards shrank in post D-Day England, the 29th got a new mission. It was late August and the rapidly advancing Allies were running long precarious supply lines to their fronts. This area was called the Communication Zone. The 29th, still unattached, were sent to guard the truck convoys of the Red Ball Express and later, the trains of the rebuilt French railway system. From who, you may ask? German saboteurs, right? Wrong! An army of more than ten thousand AWOL GIs were robbing the Army blind while getting rich selling on the black market to the French.

    Pretty sorry lot, huh?

    The job was so big, the Army had to assign the 118th Infantry Regiment to help them out.

    Both regiments functioned in this role until they were pulled from the Communication Zone on a moments notice in December of 1944 to guard the river crossings of the Meuse in Northern France and Belgium. The Ardennes Counteroffensive was stopped just miles short of the Meuse.
     
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  2. 17thDYRCH

    17thDYRCH Senior Member

    Americans have always enjoyed the sense of entrepreneurship that would inevitably come with the emergence of a black market.
    Pray tell, what is your source verifying the number of AWOL soldiers.
     
  3. toki2

    toki2 Junior Member

    I do not go with the Greatest Generation label for the second world war. It was no doubt penned by a journalist. It debases the worth of others e.g. those who fought in other wars and sacrificed their lives for their country or who battled famine or oppression .
     
  4. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    toki2

    you are right - it was Tom Brokow a US TV author who penned that _ BUT- what he meant was that those Americans who survived the great depression of the 30s

    and managed to fight and win a war- same could be said for the British of course

    Cheers
     
  5. Danny Creasy

    Danny Creasy Member

    I apologize for taking Mr. Parker's work at face value, some deeper research may have been warranted. Please note, I used "thousands" to quantify the thieves in my book.


    Battle of the Bulge : Hitler's Ardennes offensive, 1944-1945 Author: Danny S Parker Publisher: Cambridge, MA : Da Capo, 2004. Edition/Format:
    [​IMG] Print book : English : 1st Da Capo Press ed
    Page 254-255

    Excerpts:
    "These pirates were some 20,000 AWOL American soldiers engaged in a lucrative black market business selling rations, cigarettes, gasoline and vehicles! Just before the German attack, an average of 70 Allied vehicles were being reported stolen each day! One apprehended soldier had recently shipped home some $36,000 from his criminal exploits. ...........................

    Two U.S. separate infantry regiments - the 29th and the 118th - had orders in the fall of 1944 to nab this band of entrepreneurial moochers."
     
  6. Danny Creasy

    Danny Creasy Member

    Well, here are some of my great members of that generation. My father and his four brothers. In this circa 1955 photograph, the bookends are my Uncles Les and Arvel (l and r). They were too young for World War II. The three men in the middle, left to right, are: Herschel (6th Armored Division - Silver and Bronze Star Medals), Vernon (4th Combat Engineer Battalion - Utah Beach, Hürtgen Forrest, Luxembourg during the Bulge), and my father, Jim (29th Infantry Regiment - Iceland, England, France, Belgium during the Bulge, Luxembourg, and Germany guarding SHAEF at Frankfurt).

    [​IMG]

    And, the Hemington family of Eastleigh, England. The civilian members survived The Blitz of the Southampton area, the rationing, the shortages, the buzz bombs, and the loss of friends and family. In this 1939 photograph, my two English uncles stand at each end of the back row. Arthur on the left served in the Fleet Air Arm aboard the HMS Indefatigable. He was killed on 24 JAN 1945 when his Grumman Avenger was shot down during Operation Meridian. Raymond on the right survived the war. He served in the Royal Arillery in Normandy, Belgium, Holland, and Germany.

    [​IMG]

    Raymond Hemington also served as Jim's best man in his wedding to my mother, Nancy Hemington Creasy:

    [​IMG]

    PS The 29th were issued jump boots at Frankfurt and ordered to wear them bloused – an honor usually reserved for American airborne units.
     
  7. 17thDYRCH

    17thDYRCH Senior Member

    Danny,

    Thanks for the follow through. Interesting story
     
  8. Danny Creasy

    Danny Creasy Member

    Sure. Thanks.
     
  9. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Danny

    Thank you the family update very interesting

    Regards
    Clive
     
  10. Danny Creasy

    Danny Creasy Member

    Your welcome. Thank you.
     

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