Aaron Elson's Blog, page 2
June 25, 2021
Don and Evelyn Knapp Part 2
Part 2 of my 1994 interview with Don and Evelyn Knapp was quite a surprise, as it includes a discussion of my first book, Tanks for the Memories. Don passed away recently at 102 years of age. I found it interesting to hear me talking 27 years ago about my plans for the future. It would be three years before I launched my first web site. Audiobooks were on tape and not CD, and podcasting was not yet a thing. I'm Aaron Elson. Thank you for listening.
The usual suspects
Mentioned in the interview:
June 15, 2021
R.I.P. Don Knapp, 102, Part 1
Don Knapp passed away last week. He was 102 years old. "I was no hero," Don said when I interviewed him in 1994 at the Cincinnati reunion of the 712th Tank Battalion. More than a thousand people who posted reactions and comments in the Battle of the Bulge Facebook group on the notice of his passing would beg to differ. Incidentally, it was the second time Don went viral. The first was eight years earlier when he posted a picture of himself holding a sign that said "I went golfing on my 94th birthday and shot a hole in one. How many likes can I get for that?" Don is survived by his wife of more than 75 years, Evelyn, and a large and loving family.
That 1994 interview touches on several of the major events in the history of C Company: the battles for Hill 122, which encompasses nine previous episodes of the podcast; and Pfaffenheck, which is told in three earlier episodes. In between he was involved in the Sept. 8, 1944 battle with the 106th Panzer Brigade at Mairy, France; the monthlong standoff in Maizieres les Metz, and the crossing of the Saar River at Dillingen, where my father was wounded.
Along the way he gives insight into the character and personality of several of the men of C Company who appear from time to time in other episodes.
If you'd like to know a bit more about your host -- moi -- I recently was interviewed by a pair of podcasts, The Journalism Salute, about my dual career in newspapers and oral history; and the Truckers Network Radio Show with host Shelley Johnson.
May 26, 2021
"So long kids, and if I never see you again, goodbye"
While crossing the Atlantic on his way to join my father's 712th Tank Battalion as a replacement, Billy Wolfe wrote in a letter to his mother and sisters, "The ocean is so blue it looks like I could dip my pen and write with it." Those words have always stuck with me. Billy burned to death in a tank just two weeks after joining the battalion. He was 18 years old.
Karnig Thomasian, a gunner on a B29 in the China-Burma-India theater, became a prisoner of the Japanese after his plane exploded on his third mission. In this episode, he remembers a promise he and a buddy made to the friend's father that they would take care of each other.
My father, Lieutenant Maurice Elson, always said he replaced the first lieutenant in the battalion to be killed. That lieutenant was George Tarr. His company commander, Cliff Merrill, reminisces about the train ride from Fort Jackson to Camp Myles Standish and an assignment he gave to Lieutenant Tarr to keep him from worrying about his wife and newborn son as they prepared to go into combat.
Erlyn Jensen's brother, Major Don McCoy, perished on the ill-fated Kassel Mission of Sept. 27, 1944. In this episode, Erlyn talks about how she and her sister got her mother to join a group of Golf Star mothers, and about a trip her mother took to see her son's grave at St. Avold.
Malcolm McGregor, a survivor of the Kassel Mission and former prisoner of war, talks about a young bombardier who was full of confidence.
George Collar, a bombardier and co-founder of the Kassel Mission Memorial Association, now the Kassel Mission Historical Society, talks about meeting the parents of a flier whose remains George recovered after the battle.
Tim Dyas talks about visiting the father of a soldier who died in prison camp.
Russell Loop, a gunner in C Company of the 712th Tank Battalion, remembers Jack Mantell, a buddy who was killed in the battle at Pfaffenheck, in the same battle where Billy Wolfe lost his life.
Lou Putnoky, a Coast Guard veteran of the USS Bayfield, the flagship of the Utah Beach invasion fleet, recalls a sailor from his hometown who was washed overboard from the battleship Nevada.
A death in combat reverberates throughout the lives of the living, often for generations. Some of the stories are told at greater length in other episodes of War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It, a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general.
Speaking of World War II, I'll be exhibiting the podcast, my books and audio CDs at the Mid Atlantic Air Museum's World War II Weekend in Reading, Pennsylvania June 4-6. If you're among the thousands in attendance, I hope you'll stop by the hangar and say hello!
The usual suspects:
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It
May 21, 2021
Episode 90: In the Hospital
Distinguished Service Cross recipient Jim Flowers lost parts of both legs in Normandy. Pfc. Bob Levine, who was following one of Flowers' tanks when he was wounded and captured, had a leg amputated by a German surgeon. Lieutenant Jim Gifford was struck by a bullet which protruded from his head near his right eye. Corporal Jim Rothschadl, Lieutenant Flowers' gunner, was badly burned after his tank burst into flames. These accounts portray a vivid picture of medical treatment during the war, and the often unsung heroism of the doctors and nurses who treated the injured.
On Friday-Sunday June 4-6, I'll be exhibiting in the hangar at the Mid Atlantic Museum World War II Weekend in Reading, Pennsylvania. This is one of the great WW2 events, and usually draws ten to twenty thousand visitors. If you attend, be sure to stop by in the hangar and say hello.
Thank you for listening to War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It, a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. I'm Aaron Elson. For more of the individual stories of the veterans in this episode, check out some of the earlier episodes, especially those on Hill 122 and the Battle of the Bulge.
The usual suspects:
World War II Oral History Audiobooks
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It
Semper Fi, Padre: The Mathew Caruso Story
May 8, 2021
Omaha Beach Armageddon
Combat engineer Chuck Hurlbut landed on Omaha Beach in the early morning hours of D-Day. His compelling interview is included in my Oral History Audiobook "The D-Day Tapes," along with six other interviews, available in my eBay store and at oralhistoryaudiobooks.com.
Speaking of D-Day, I'll be exhibiting my work at the Mid Atlantic Air Museum World War II Weekend Friday through Sunday, June 4-6 in Reading, Pennsylvania. This is a premier event and draws hundreds of re-enactors, thousands of attendees, and several World War II veterans available to tell their stories and sign autographs. If you should go, be sure to look for me in the Hangar.
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It is a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. Thank you for listening. I'm Aaron Elson.
For more information:
Five D-Day Veterans Talkin' Saving Private Ryan
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It
April 26, 2021
Exercise Tiger: Angelo Crapanzano Part 2
Faced with a choice of joining the Army, the Marines or the Navy, Angelo Crapanzano asked his father, who served aboard a submarine tender in World War I, for advice. Join the Navy, his dad said. You'll eat well, and have a place to sleep. So Angelo joined the Navy and became a motor machinist's mate first class aboard LST 507. His father didn't tell him about torpedoes, Angelo said when I interviewed him in 1994.
The usual suspects:
https://myfatherstankbattalion.com
https://oralhistoryaudiobooks.com
April 17, 2021
Exercise Tiger: Angelo Crapanzano, Part 1
In 1994 I read "The Forgotten Dead," by Ken Small, about Exercise Tiger, the ill-fated practice landing for D-Day sometimes known as Slapton Sands, a stretch of beach on the English coast that resembled Utah Beach. In the middle of the night German e-boats, torpedo carrying surface boats. infiltrated the convoy and sank two fully loaded LSTs and badly damaged a third. Angelo Crapanzano was at his battle station in the auxiliary engine room of LST 507 when the torpedo struck.
The photo shows Angelo's memorabilia book. The page on the left contains his watch, which was smashed at 2:03 a.m. on April 28, 1944; and the number of his LST made from a set of feeler gauges he had on him when he jumped into the English Channel. The page on the right has a picture of the 507 with the saying "Thank god we're on a flat bottomed amphibious LST and will not have to worry about torpedoes."
Angelo's interview is included in my oral history audiobook "The D-Day Tapes" available in my eBay store, and a transcript is in my book "A Mile in Their Shoes: Conversations With Veterans of World War II."
Further resources:
The usual suspects
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It (the podcast)
April 8, 2021
Tank driver Charles Vorhees: Part 2
Occasionally when doing an interview, I'm treated to a bit of ancillary history. Once, when I was listening to the tape of an interview with a D-Day, I was annoyed by a radio playing in an adjacent room. Then I realized the veteran's wife was listening to a basketball game, and that it was a Knicks playoff game. That was kind of cool, I thought, as it brought back memories of my years working in the sports department of the New York Post, where I began a five decade career, as a newspaper copy editor.
Charles Vorhees was a tank driver who was involved in two important episodes in lmy father's tank battalion's history. He was there when Quentin "Pine Valley" Bynum was killed at Bras, Luxembourg, during the Battle of the Bulge, and he was wounded in the explosion that killed Lieutenant Ed Forrest. As the interview was winding down, he was talking about his family, and I asked if he had any siblings. He had a sister, he said. And then he said she disappeared.
She disappeared?
Yes, he said.
Sandwiched between the kidnaping of the Lindbergh baby and the trial of O.J. Simpson, a strong candidate for the Crime of the Century was the 1977 murder of the Brach candy heiress: Helen Vorhees Brach.
Charles' sister was a coat check girl who married the founder of the Brach candy company, makers of candy corn for Halloween, jelly beans for Easter, chocolate covered raisins and a slew of other treats.
Her disappearance has never been solved, although a man she took up with following her husband's death was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, sentenced to life in prison, and was released in 2019 at age 87. There have been several books and TV specials, as well as a number of true crime podcasts about the case.
But now, back to World War II and my interview with Charles Vorhees who talks about his sister near the end of the tape. I'm Aaron Elson. Thank you for listening, and please, consider supporting War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It by checking out my books at amazon and the interview CDs in my eBay store.
April 4, 2021
Charles Vorhees Part 1: The explosion at Heimboldshausen
April 3, 1945 was a tragic day in the history of the 712th Tank Battalion. A Company had just occupied the village of Heimboldshausen, Germany, and established its command post in the basement of a house facing a small railroad siding. Several rail cars were parked at the siding, on the other side of which was a wide open field. Unkbeknownst to the tankers, one rail car was filled with bags of black powder for propelling artillery; two others were empty, but fume-filled, gasoline tanker cars.
At about 6 p.m. a German fighter plane, a Messerschmitt 109, flew in low over the open field, firing at the rail cars, while numerous soldiers in the village fired back at the plane. Suddenly there was a huge explosion. Veterans of A Company recalled the blast as being caused by a lone bomb dropped by the fighter plane on the carload of black powder. In actuality, bullets, either from the plane or the village, struck one of the gasoline tanker cars causing an explosion similar to the blast that destroyed TWA Flight 800, which was determined to be caused by a spark that ignited an empty center fuel tank.
Charles Vorhees, of Hopedale, Ohio, was wounded in the explosion, which claimed the lives of five members of A Company. In this interview, he gives a vivid description of the events leading up to the blast.
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It is a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. I'm Aaron Elson. Thank you for listening.
Check out the great deals in my eBay store:
The usual suspects:
https://myfatherstankbattalion.com
March 27, 2021
Interview With a Loader: Bob Rossi Part 2
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It is a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. Excerpts from this interview with Bob Rossi appear in other episodes, especially the ones about the battle of Pfaffenheck, "Once Upon a Tank in the Battle of the Bulge," and "The Iron Cross and a Three Day Pass."
This interview is included in my oral history audiobook "Once Upon a Tank in the Battle of the Bulge." Thank you for listening.
In case you missed it:
The usual suspects:
https://myfatherstankbattalion.com
https://oralhistoryaudiobooks.com
Save the date: Jun 4-6 2021 I'll be in the hangar at the Mid Atlantic Air Museum World War II Weekend in Reading, Pa. It's always a great event. If you go, be sure to stop by and say hello, and tell me you've heard the podcast!
