Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
6:52 | It wasn't long after basic training that Arnold Whittaker joined thousands of other GI's on the RMS Queen Mary and headed for Europe. When he boarded landing craft to go ashore at Normandy, he had to negotiate a tricky drop from the cargo net to the boat. Then he learned how to dig a foxhole.
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Providence is the reason he's here today. Arnold Whittaker had a series of close calls with death, not only during the war, but in childhood and in civilian life. His generation was tough, having come through the Great Depression and the fighting men epitomized this.
The engineers had bulldozed a road up to the top of the cliff. Arnold Whittaker was coming ashore at Omaha Beach but it was well after D-Day. As he came to the top of the road, he saw thousands of white, wooden crosses. Was this his destiny?
His first night in combat, there was an artillery barrage in the rain and he lost his M-1. Not a great start for Arnold Whittaker but he found his weapon and began trying to find acceptance as a replacement. There were a lot of these green troops as they moved into Metz where they had to deal with snipers.
As his company moved from Metz into Germany, they lost 100 out of 144 men in a fierce counter-attack. Arnold Whittaker had been a replacement just a month ago and now he was meeting new replacements. Then, the Battle of the Bulge was on and the 5th Division headed to the fray in the midst of the worst winter in decades.
It was layer upon layer of clothing. Arnold Whittaker details his garb in the fierce winter at the Battle of the Bulge. It kept you warm but sweat in the inner layers was a problem. Socks were a problem. Meanwhile, there was a war on and a tree burst could rain down hot steel on you.
It was Christmas day, 1944. Patton's prayer had worked. The weather had cleared and the 5th Division moved up to a spot that was way too open for Arnold Whittaker. He pushed four feet of snow aside and began to dig his foxhole. He had a hole about as big as his head in the frozen ground when he heard it, the unmistakable sound of Screaming Mimis.
The house had no heat but it was still shelter. Arnold Whittaker was in the German village of Riesdorf during the back and forth of the Battle of the Bulge. One of the guys found a chest full of memorabilia in the attic and one of the items was a picture of an American doughboy from the last war. What was the story behind this?
The GI's took a house in Germany for the night and once it was secure, Arnold Whittaker did what he usually did, look around for some food. He found a couple of hams and went to sleep dreaming of a ham breakfast. He got up the next morning and went to the kitchen. This saved his life.
They were always crossing rivers. Arnold Whittaker's unit made seventeen crossings for Patton and he describes the action at the most significant; the Rhine. When he got to the other side, his squad leader was immediately wounded, which put him in charge.
Most Germans knew it. The end was getting near and, as long as you didn't run into any SS troops, the fighting was minimal. Arnold Whittaker had made it down to Czechoslovakia and, in the last week of the war, a German Tiger tank stood between him and some refreshing beverages.
When Arnold Whittaker got to the front at the Battle of the Bulge, he saw mounds in a field heaped with snow. As he got closer, he realized that each mound was a dead GI. Someone's buddies were now just a chore for the support troops.
Patton had promised that the 5th Division would be there in 24 hours. There weren't enough trucks so Arnold Whittaker and the rest of the infantry had to ride 100 miles on top of Sherman tanks to get to the Ruhr Valley. On the way, the news spread. There's a giant flask of cognac that's been liberated by an enterprising GI on a certain tank.
Arnold Whittaker was awarded a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for his actions at the Battle of the Bulge and subsequent actions. The Bronze was for carrying a wounded man to safety under fire. The Silver came later when he became agitated at the hesitance of his squad leader and stormed a German stronghold by himself.
Arnold Whittaker got to tour Paris before he shipped back home. He was preparing to tour Japan, not in a good way, when the surprise announcement came. The war in the Pacific was over. He wrote of his experiences in the European campaign in his book, "Foxhole Promises."
