Aaron Elson's Blog, page 5
November 21, 2020
Episode 62: Cult of Personality
This episode of the War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It podcast is not about my father's 712th Tank Battalion. Rather, it is about Joseph Stalin. Ten years ago I met Ludwik Kowalski, a retired college professor who grew up in Russia and emigrated to the United States. His story is both powerful and timely in light of recent events.
November 14, 2020
Food and War
You've probably heard the phrase "An army travels on its stomach." In this collection of culinary anecdotes from Aaron Elson's archive of oral history interviews, I doubt that you'll find any recipes that would appeal to the Cooking Channel.
November 4, 2020
You could die laughing: Stories of Humor and War
In one of Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe cartoons, a grizzled sergeant says to his squad, "I need a volunteer what don't owe me money." Many combat veterans credited a sense of humor with helping them maintain their sanity. These are their stories.
November 1, 2020
Cannon Fodder: Arnold Brown, Part 2
Arnold Brown enlisted in the Army as a private in 1936 and despite having only an eighth grade education became a rifle company commander in the 90th Infantry Division. My father's 712th Tank Battalion was attached to the 90th for most of the war in Europe. Myfatherstankbattalion.com ; Aaronelson.com
October 25, 2020
Arnold Brown, Part 1
Arnold Brown enlisted in the Army in 1936. Despite having only an eighth grade education, he rose in the ranks to become a rifle company commander in the 90th Infantry Division. He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for the battle of Oberwampach, where his company and tanks from my father's 712th Tank Battalion withstood nine German counterattacks.
October 15, 2020
My Father's Tank Battalion: Booze and War
A few years ago I began experimenting with themed audio CDs, where I would take stories from interviews with different veterans that had the same theme: Stories about jumping out of airplanes, about food on the front, about growing up in the Great Depression, about meeting General Patton, about romance and religion and strange events. In this episode of Myfatherstankbattalion, I present some excerpts from the double audio CD "Booze and War."
October 9, 2020
Lieutenant Dale Albee Part 3: Handlebar Hank
This is the 56th episode of the podcast and it seems like I'm just getting started. I want to thank all of you who have listened to more than one episode. You can find episode titles and supplemental material at myfatherstankbattalion.com and aaronelson.com. An edited transcript of the Dale Albee interview in booklet form and for Kindle is available at amazon under the title "From the Cavalry to Czechoslovakia."
October 2, 2020
Dale Albee, Part 2
Dale Albee enlisted in the Army in 1938, became a sergeant in the horse cavalry, earned a battlefield commission as a tanker, and led a platoon of light tanks through the Battle of the Bulge, the Siegfried Line, across Germany, and into Czechoslovakia.
September 25, 2020
Dale Albee Part 1
Dale Albee enlisted in the horse cavalry in 1938, earned a battlefield commission in my father's tank battalion, and led a platoon of M3 Stuart light tanks from the time he was promoted until the battalion reached Czechoslovakia at the end of the war in Europe.
September 24, 2020
The Kassel Mission Chronicles podcast
This Sunday marks the 76th anniversary of a spectacular air battle, the Sept. 27, 1944 Kassel Mission. It also marks the official launch of a new podcast, The Kassel Mission Chronicles, hosted by myself and Linda Alice Dewey. There are actually two episodes posted, the first being a sort of "test pilot" episode in which we tested our phone connection. But that was so much fun we decided to keep it as an episode.
In the official first episode, Linda and I called Doug Collar to talk about some letters Doug had found that were written to his dad from the wives of members of pilot Jim Schaen's crew. That's George Collar in the photo. He was not a regular member of the Schaen crew but was filling in for the bombardier, who failed to return on time from a three-day pass to London. The Schaen crew was very close-knit with several husbands and wives who had socialized together since training. Doug also had a letter from the mother of Martin Geiszler Jr.
Collar bailed out and was captured. The following morning he and two other POWs from the mission were given a detail -- to accompany a haywagon into the fields where bombers had crashed and pick up the remains of men killed in the battle. In the mess hall the morning of the mission, Collar had found himself staring at a flier from another squadron, he didn't know who he was, but there was just something about him that drew his attention.
After he and the two other men recovered several bodies and parts of bodies, they came across another plane that had crashed. In the co-pilot's seat was a torso from the midsection down. The top half of the body was sheared off and was nowhere to be seen. Then, about a hundred yards from the wreck he saw the upper half of the body butted up against a tree. When he turned it around, it was the flier he had been staring at in the mess hall that morning. He took close notice of the name on the dogtag: Martin Geiszler Jr.
One day after he returned, Collar got a long distance phone call from Bell, California. The caller said he and his wife had been at a Red Cross meeting and met a Lieutenant McMahon, who'd been in Stalag Luft I. The caller said he asked Lieutenant McMahon if he knew anyone who'd been on the Kassel Mission because his son was on it and was missing in action. McMahon said one of the men in his room was on the mission and gave him Collar's name. The man told George his son was Martin Geiszler Junior and asked if he had any knowledge of what happened to him.
"What did you tell him, Dad?" Doug Collar said he asked his father when he told him about finding Geiszler decades after the war. Spoiler alert: He told the father that his son was dead. Did he go into detail? You'll have to listen to the episode to find out.
There are numerous elements that made this a special conversation. Toward the end, Doug asks Linda if her father, who was a pilot on the mission, went to the Glenn Miller concert in a hangar at the air base on Sept. 1, 1944. Linda said her father flew a long mission that day, had a headache from the fumes and missed the concert. "Did your dad go?" she asks Doug. His father flew several missions in a row and was so tired he slept all day. Imagine a few decades later being too tired to go to a free concert of, say, the Beatles!
I hope you'll check out The Kassel Mission Chronicles podcast!
