Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
5:16 | Their companion infantry unit had been in Southern France for two months when the 392nd Field Artillery arrived in Marseille. Gunner Hilbert Margol describes the unit makeup and how he mistook his first combat for maneuvers. Behind him were more artillery units with weapons increasing in size with distance from the front.
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Hilbert Margol and his twin brother Howard were both in ROTC and training on the 105mm howitzer. They were called up and both declined an invitation to Officer Candidate School because it would have split them up. They were on a track to become engineers but the European Theater needed men and they were sent to different units. At that point, Mom appealed to a higher authority to keep them together.
Hilbert Margol's twin brother Howard was finally transferred back into his brother's artillery unit. In fact, when he reported, they thought he was Hilbert. They shipped out for France, and like most on the ship, had a bout with seasickness. At Marseille, when they encountered hardened veterans, they found out that their flouting of regulations on what to bring just might might have saved their lives.
The 392nd Field Artillery had Forward Observers on the ground with the infantry and in the sky in a small plane. Gunner Hilbert Margol describes the operation of the unit and recalls the time he saw his first jet aircraft. It was at a most inopportune time.
Hilbert Margol's unit finally pushed into Germany just before Passover and the Chaplain convinced the commander to let him organize a Seder, the traditional meal and ceremony that marks the beginning of the holiday. That had not been done in Germany for quite some time. Later, when his outfit had a break, Margol heard that there was a shower unit in the rear. That was great news but it only worked out so-so.
In the Bavarian town of Wurzburg, truck drivers in Hilbert Margol's unit found some cases of champagne and fruit brandy. He says for a while they were drinking champagne instead of water, and even cleaning the gun bores on their howitzers with it. Later he encountered the vast anti-aircraft batteries around Schweinfurt.
The artillery unit was pushing toward Munich when they were ordered to pull off the road and prepare to fire. There was a peculiar odor in the air as they set up the howitzers. Hilbert Margol and his twin brother Howard walked around to investigate and they stumbled upon the Dachau Concentration Camp.
Hilbert Margol remembers the ride into Munich, with hitchhiking infantry swarming everything with wheels. After a bit of post surrender guard duty, he was back home in America with the only thing he kept from the war, a piece of World War I trench art.
