BY MSGT.- retired, HOWARD A. (DOC) ELLIS
MORENO VALLEY, CA., USA:
JULY, JULY, JULY. there are so many days in this month that are sentimental to so many of all our generations, from Fourth of July and everything in between from birthdays, anniversaries, or just hey, today I had a great day. You name it, its of interest to someone. Just a few of the special July events in my life span: Of course, The Glorious Fourth in the U.S.A.; landing in France on July 1944 which was their first independence day - Bastille Day - without Nazis everywhere; my two wedding anniversaries (met a girl in Berlin in 1949 while serving in our occupation mode during the Berlin Airlift era and we got married July 25, 1952 at the Standesammts (sort of Justice of the Peace) and celebrated the religious rites at our wedding the next day, July 26, 1952, in the chapel at Tempelhof Air Base in Berlin. MARRIED TWICE IN TWO DAYS? 53 years times 2 makes it our 106th anniversary this July.
A special series of events involving JULY occurred in my life and are held as very very unique memories, treasures... let’s see if I can tell you about them.
There once was an Army Air Force Cpl., Gerard R. Lorenz from Passaic, New Jersey. As a St. Louis, MO teenager in uniform, I met Jerry, then 24, when I transferred into the 877th Signal Service Company, 16th Air Depot Group, 9th Air Force support command at an air base at Swindon, England, in October 43. I was an 18 year old staff sergeant (still wet behind the military ears?) and Jerry sort of took me under his wing, although I was two NCO grades ahead of him.
It’s a good thing he did, cause as I’ve done throughout my military and civilian careers - and now in retirement as well - I’ve pulled some dumb stunts, made stupid errors and generally impeded my smooth advance to some maturity and modicum of wisdom.
Thing about Jerry, any guy in the old outfit could tell you, he had wisdom, foresight and eyesight which opened the world to him in its humanities despite its cruelties, and in its arts and cultures which he enjoyed so much. He was a guy who, like me, went looking for museums and art galleries of old Europe when we had passes to London and Paris and other historic places during our tours of duty.
In England from 1943 to 1944 and then France and Germany in 44 and 45, he and I were in the Message Center where I thrived as Sgt. in charge of the section and the Code Room, and he Jack of All trades it in teletype communications and code room backup.
Like all of us, he was an ordinary guy doing what he could for his country with hope and prayer to make it home (if and) when the war ended. We were not heroes, us 877th guys, we were support troops not combat troops. But to me, Jerry was to become a special kind of hero when he eventually disclosed a secret he carried in his heart throughout our service...well, almost.
Jerry explained the importance of the non-combat G.I. to me one day so simply it was kinda beautiful. You see, Howie, he said, it takes 11 to 14 guys like us in the support units to make it possible for the guys with the aircraft, tanks, carbines and boots to do their thing, THE REAL FIGHTING, to win this war. He looked me straight in the eye and summed it up, just think, from way back in the States, to right here in the message center, you and me, we figure in the 1-to-14 support lineup as maybe tenth or 11th from Mr. 15 doing our fighting...but he couldn’t do it without us, we couldn’t do it without him.
That’s where we fit in from the homefront to the battlefront. Insight, sweet and simple. So as the war advanced into April 44, the 877th and Jerry and me, we moved out of Rheims-Courcy Airfield in France to a field at Monchengladbach in the now liberated western area of Germany.
It was there that 877th guys like Sgt. Mike Stanzione of Union City, Cpl. Johnny Stoddard of Staten Island, New York, Cpl. George C. Rausch of Long Island, N.Y., and I, all his closest buddies, were to finally learn our chum nurtured a secret so important to him he couldn’t divulge it until whatever the right moment would be.
And so came the day in May (8th) of 45 that the enemies surrendered and the Allied Forces became the winners...and the 877th celebrated as heartily and happily as any guy in combat who suddenly realized no one was shootin at him or bombing him anymore.
Jerry and the buds and I were in a makeshift lounge after duty on May 9 (I know were talking JULY here, but you gotta get to it) when Jerry strolled to a liberated piano and struck a few highly resonant bars, then gathered us around and casually raised his right hand to his left eye AND PLUCKED IT OUT OF ITS SOCKET!!
The guy who had somehow conned his way through an army physical back in Jersey to get into his country’s uniform and fight for the U.S.A., did it with one eye when others were being rejected for poor vision, flat feet, adenoids and punctured ear drums - all legitimate reasons with no fault found. But Jerry somehow overruled his chance to escape putting his life on the line in wartime. He bit the bullet. Like he said, he wanted to be a real soldier as did most of us, but like me, he was assigned to what the army felt he could best do.
Then, Mike Stanzione grinned like he’d captured a reichmarshall, and spouted a great idea.
Jerry, he said, the (CENSORED) war is over as far as Europe is concerned and we don’t know when the rest of us are going home or if they’ll jazz us over to the Pacific. You gotta wrap that optic opal of yours in a handkerchief, stuff it in your pocket and - tonight - get over to the medics and tell em, hey I just lost my eye, I’m half blind, send me home and you can go back and wait for the rest of us...Gawd only knows when wel’l get out of here…
For once Jerry turned to ME for advice cause he really suffered from the same incurable disease we’d all contacted in the army whether stateside or overseas or anywhere - HOMESICKNESS. Howie, what’ll I do man what’ll I do, I can’t leave you guys now... he said. But I disagreed. DAMMIT, Jer, you git your can over to the medics right now like Mike says. If you don’t Ill pluck out your other eye. He did wrap the glass eye in his kerchief and stuff it in his pocket and we surrounded him and marched him across the compound and turned him in to the medics knowing we’d neer see him again, but he was going with our love, honor and respect.
So time went by after that post V.E. day camaraderie and conspiracy of May 9, 1945 and eventually the 877th, in JULY 45, was alerted for reassignment to duty in the Pacific Theater of Operations to support the final efforts of World War II, the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces.
Luckily, we were also all going home as a unit aboard the troopship U.S.S. Wakefield, given 30 day furloughs with orders to report after that to an airfield at Laredo, Texas, to regroup for the Pacific transfer which we missed anyhow because Japan surrendered when they heard we were on the way.
Well, in early July, we were transported to Camp Twentygrand at La Havre, France, then boarded the Wakefield for the voyage home - and from Boston Harbor we went our separate ways for family reunions and R&/R - rest and rehab. BUT before sailing home, our company was roll-called to climb the gangplank to board ship and as we did so, Mike Stanzione gave a scream - FOR KRYSAKE - LOOK WHO THE HELL IS UP THERE ON DECK
It was our own Jerry Lorenz who, we had believed, was already at his mom’s house in Passaic enjoying the meals, the wines, the family and friends left behind for war duty three years earlier.
As we hit the deck and the greetings calmed, he explained why he was here, not there.
You guys meant well, he conceded, and if things had worked out, I coulda gone home two months ahead of you and as it is, I won’t be with you in the Pacific assignments.
It seems that he’d gone from the clinic in Germany to an army hospital at Fontainbleu, France, where some ardently patriotic eye doctor determined to get this poor guy another eye BEFORE sending him home. That didn’t work out too well cause it took weeks to determine a substitute glass eye that would match his perfectly good right eye. He couldn’t very well confess he HAD a glass eye in his pocket.
Once I was tempted to swallow it in case someone might find it on me, he giggled. Finally though, an eye was created and inserted, but by then fate led him not to an air evac across the Atlantic, but to a bunk with us in the Wakefield’s hold. So we all sailed into Boston Harbor together, made our final goodbyes to Jerry and went on with our duties and eventually our postwar lives.
Years later, after the advent of the internet, I tried only partially successfully about three years ago to locate Jerry...and did contact a family member who told me he had died in 1989 after years as the director of a health services sanitarium in the midwest. The simple heroically casual thing about this guy Jerry Lorenz, was that as much as he loved his family and friends in his hometown and state, he was so determined to hide a legitimate disability to fight for his country… He once said, I set my eye on that achievement but he didn’t clarify the singular reference to my eye until he’d accomplished his own mission, part of Gen. Ike Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe if you will. I guess that’s why JULY is always a sentimental month to me. So many great memories of the only time, I feel, when my life was really worthwhile beyond self-sufficiency and gains because it actually was serving our homeland...and Jerry Lorenz and a bunch of other guys - now veterans here or demised - contributed to me in the same way.
Veterans may well be about benefits, pensions and care these days, but as important, more important, they - we - are about love of our country, service to our country, and prayers and devotions to our country - the U.S.A.
THINK ABOUT IT - THINK ABOUT AND BELIEVE IN OUR COUNTRY ALWAYS, PLEASE.
Copyright July 2005MSGT.- retired, Howard A. Ellis
Published U. S. Legacies July 2005
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