Memories of WWII Veterans - First of the series

20-year old John Trush with his Company A tank buddies in 1945. Note tank and rockets at top of photo.

Chesapeake City veteran, John Trush, remembers his service to our country during World War ll. John has vivid memories of his experience in a tank during the Battle of Herrlisheim.

          I was drafted into the army in late 1942. George Beaston, another Chesapeake City boy, and I caught a train from Elkton to Baltimore for testing. From Fort Meade we traveled by train to Camp Hood, Texas for basic training with the tank units. We were scheduled to go to North Africa, and we were all loaded up on trains ready to go—with our tanks on flatbeds—when some officer came by and yelled, “Company A, 43^rd Tank Battalion: fall out!” So they took us back and told us that we would be training officers. It was good duty but it didn’t last long. We were sent to the Colorado Mountains, where they worked the daylights out of us. Three months later they sent us to Fort Jackson, South Carolina and made officers out of us, so to speak. I was in charge of a company of recruits. Later we took our recruits to Fort Miles Standish in Massachusetts, where we waited for a ship to go overseas. When it came it was huge, about the size of the Queen Mary, which was docked next to it.

          On the trip over we had to stay below deck most of the time. They told us, “If you fall overboard, we’re not stopping for you.” It took five or six days to get to Liverpool, England. We unloaded and went by rail straight to our barracks in Tidworth, just outside of London. We were only there about three days when they took us to the coast of the English Channel. Then we crossed on what appeared to be an old cattle boat, and the English fed us stuff that looked like dark, soggy fat. Well, it turned out to be mutton, terrible looking junk. So somebody said, “Throw it the hail overboard.” So we did—pots and all! And when an English guy asked us where the pots were we said, “Overboard, and if you bring that kind of crap down here again we’ll throw you overboard.”

          Well, we crossed the channel and they dumped us out somewhere north of Normandy, where we slept on the ground. Then trucks came along and took us to an old castle and just left us there. In a couple of days somebody came along and hollered out my service number and took me to Tank Company A. We had a few skirmishes and then came right in on the end of the Maginot Line. I recall coming into that area and seeing a German tank parked next to a bunker, and our whole company started firing on it. I could see the shells hitting it but flying right off it, just slipping right off it. Those tanks had a lot of steel in them.

Five men manned each tank, and I remember the first man who was shot in a tank I drove. He was an army colonel and he stuck his head out of the tank turret and an 88 millimeter round took his head right off. He fell down into the tank and we had to keep his body there for two hours till a jeep came up with a stretcher strapped on the back and took him away.

          As I mentioned, I was in A Company, which consisted of 15 tanks. In the battle of Herrlisheim, all of the tanks in my company were wiped out except for the one I was driving. I had assumed that all the men in the tanks were killed, but after the war was over I was told that some of them became prisoners of war. The reason why my tank wasn’t destroyed was that it was the last one in the group of charging tanks. I had been transferred to that tank although I had had no rocket experience, and it was placed at the end of the company because it had rockets loaded on top of it. There were sixty rockets on a carriage right above us. And that was dangerous because if a shell had hit them they all would have exploded … and that would have been the end of us. When the rockets were fired, all sixty at once—there was no stopping them, one right after the other—it seemed to take the air away from you in there; you could feel the concussion deep in your chest.

          That battle, near the German town of Herrlisheim, was really a trap set by the Germans. It occurred not long before the war ended, right after the Battle of the Bulge. I remember that because my company was sent north to cut the Germans off in that battle, but the Germans pulled out before we got there.

          I remember the scene of the Herrlisheim ambush well. It was early morning and very foggy. At one point our officer, Lieutenant Woods, and I looked out and saw part of the sun trying to break through the fog, and I said, “That sun looks awfully bloody up there.”

And so we advanced, with Steinwald Woods on the left of us and the Zorn River on the right. We were supposed to cross that river to take Herrlisheim, but before we crossed tremendous fire came from that wooded area. One of the tanks was riding on the top of a levee along the river and slipped down and turned completely over into the marsh. As I drove by it I didn’t see anyone jump out of it; the escape hatch was closed.

          The firing kept coming from the woods, and it was lighting up our tanks like match sticks. They were full of gas and would explode and burn for hours; I’ve seen them burn all night long. They were firing 88 millimeter canons. Being under heavy fire, Lieutenant Woods called through the intercom for us to back up. He kept hollering, “Back it up; pour it on her!”

We were able to retreat far enough so that the shells began to fall before they got to us. I could see the shells flying by us, quite a few of them. They were almost three feet long and I could see the waves of heat created by them coming towards us—the shape of the shell shimmering inside. As the fog lifted I could see German soldiers coming from the woods. And right away our air force fire-bombed that whole area with white phosphorous, which destroyed the trees and all the German infantry. Those bodies lay there for quite a while—frozen to the ground.

          We fought battles before and after Herrlisheim, but nothing as disastrous. It was truly a nightmare. You know, for a long time I couldn’t talk about the horror of that terribly bloody battle. For a long, long while the memories kept me awake—all those men slaughtered … and I came out of it, came home, and I … oh well!

Anyhow, right after Germany surrendered, my tank commander and I, because we had rocket experience, were picked to catch a ship to fight in Japan. Well, we got as far as the entrance to the Panama Canal when we heard that Japan had surrendered. So the ship turned and went to New York. But that wasn't the end of my army career; I was sent to Camp Shelburne in New Jersey, given a ten-day pass, and when I returned they sent me to Camp Carson, Colorado. I was discharged from there, rode the train to Washington, DC where somebody picked me up and brought me home.