Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
3:53 | A veteran of the European theater, Clayton Byrd tells the story of a friend who escaped from a German POW road gang. He was on the verge of starving when he walked right into a German church to attend Mass.
Keywords : Clayton Byrd Chet Markowski German Prisoner Of War (POW) escape church Priest Mass
When he was drafted, Clayton Byrd was selected for the Army Specialized Training Program, which meant that he could study for an engineering degree after basic training. It didn't last long as the manpower requirements in Europe caused the Army to take all those students and put them in the infantry.
The entire 94th Division crossed on the RMS Queen Elizabeth, trained for a few weeks in England and then landed on Utah Beach. It was well after the invasion but the beach was still littered with the aftermath of the battle. Clayton Byrd describes the first assignment for the unit which was containing a larger German force that was bottled up on the Brittany peninsula.
There had been no activity so the men rigged up a shower and started to get clean. The Germans must have been watching because the 88 shells started exploding, sending naked GI's running for cover. Clayton Byrd recalls that embarrassing incident as well as a couple of stories about trigger happy troops.
It was kind of a cushy assignment. Clayton Byrd's unit was containing a German force on the Brittany peninsula but it was redirected to the Battle of the Bulge. This was in no way cushy. The front line was in flux and he and 25 other men found themselves in an apple orchard two miles on the wrong side of it. The Germans had pushed through, bypassing them. They were cut off. Part 1 of 3.
The lieutenant had gone to bring help but there was no word. Two squads of GI's huddled in the cold and decided together that they would not surrender but rather fight to the end. Behind the lines and with little ammunition or food, they faced the first attack from the Germans, who helped them with poor tactics. Part 2 of 3.
The Germans were helping out. A small group of GI's were cut off from their side and, when the attack came, this time at night, the Germans inexplicably fired their flare too early. Clayton Byrd describes how this illuminated them, making perfect targets. By the time the American line caught up with them, the couple of dozen men had killed 150 of the enemy. Part 3 of 3.
The tree bursts were tremendous. Clayton Byrd was hunkered down in a foxhole with a newly arrived replacement when one exploded close by, seriously injuring the new man. Byrd was carrying him back to the aid station when a green lieutenant told him to stop and return to the line.
The Saar River crossing was difficult. The current was swift and the Germans were amassed on the other side. Clayton Byrd recalls that, during the firefight, one of his buddies suffered an embarrassing wound. He also tells how his platoon easily took four pillboxes.
Clayton Byrd recalls how, during the push to the Rhine, George Patton schooled his boss a little bit at the town of Trier. Byrd himself was at the town of Lampaden, where he was wounded and briefly captured.
While he was recovering from a flesh wound, Clayton Byrd's division was making history in the push to the Rhine. Soon after he rejoined them, they were put in reserve and saw no more combat. The German war effort was spent. After the war, he got an up close look at some Soviet soldiers which disgusted him.
Following post-war duty in Czechoslovakia, Clayton Byrd had a few years of civilian life before returning to the service during the Korean War. He served in Germany with an engineer battalion and when some land was cleared for a baseball field, he got a rude reminder of the last war.
