Butch Shares One Veteran’s Story

Like many of you baby boomers, I knew several men (and a few women) who had served in WWII…my Dad included. Most of them belonged to the local American Legion Post here in Darlington. As a small fry, I accompanied Dad when he visited the Legion Hall, which was located right above Hiatt’s appliances on Main Street. That building is now the Fountain Trust bank.

The WWII veterans, along with a few who had served in WWI, seemed to be a happy bunch of fellows. Most of them played cards, drank beer, told jokes, and occasionally took their chances with the slot machines and punch cards. They discussed the weather, local sports, and the latest news around town. Some of these fellows had suffered permanent life-long injuries during combat, but I never heard them complain. I think these men just felt very fortunate to have come back alive from that terrible war…Ten Darlington men did not make it home from WWII.

One thing that I noticed is that these veterans seldom talked about the war. I didn’t realize what they had gone through…the injuries, the trauma, the battles, etc….until later in my life. One of the veterans was Robert “Bob” Anderson, owner of a local trucking company. He often came to our farm to pick up livestock to take to market. Bob married Betty Binford after the war, and they had five children, Jane (Switzer), who was a classmate of mine, Chuck, Peggy (Whitacre), Jack, and Andra (Storms). Bob had graduated from Bowers in 1943, and entered service in December of that same year. He was sent overseas on Christmas Day, 1944, as a member of the 259th Infantry Regiment. A few years ago at the library I discovered the following account in a 1945 Darlington Herald newspaper:

“PFC. ROBERT ANDERSON LOSES 30 POUNDS IN 40 DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT”…Pfc. Anderson, along with 27 other men in his outfit, were captured March 18, 1945, during the fighting near the Siegfried line. He had been in action only thirty hours when captured. Harbored first in German pillboxes, the men were soon started on a long march to Stalag 7 prison camp, which required almost constant marching for 14 days and nights. Arriving in the camp, where 2800 American soldiers were imprisoned, Pfc. Anderson found it wasn’t really a camp at all, but a large farming community where the prisoners were herded in the fields and along the roads like cattle and horses. During their imprisonment a number of prisoners were shot and killed for going contrary to the rules their captors laid down for them…

“During the 40 days their food consisted mainly of dandelions and raw potatoes and small parcels of stale bread which the Germans tossed out to them. Pfc. Anderson weighed 178 pounds when captured and only 148 pounds when liberated April 27 by the men of the 63rd tank division…Pfc. Anderson and some of his buddies personally accompanied the German officers back to the battlefield where they removed and cared for all of the wounded American soldiers.”

I had no idea that Bob had gone through such a terrible ordeal during the famous Battle of the Bulge, the largest battle of the war in which there were 89,000 American casualties, including 19,000 killed, until I read that article. I had no idea that my own father had been in the same battle. Other Darlington men had also been in fierce battles, several of them in the Pacific islands as members of the Darlington National Guard, fighting the Japanese. They just never talked about it. They did not want to relive those experiences. But those sights and sounds and images were still floating around in their mind…and remained in their memories to their dying day.

The same is true for those who served in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and other wars. One of my sons, Clark Dale, saw heavy fighting as a sergeant in the U.S. Army during the Iraq War. The veterans may not talk about their wartime experiences, but these men and women who served our country in the military are a proud bunch, and they deserve our respect…not just on Veteran’s Day, but EVERY day…Thank you to all of them!

John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 32 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.