Aaron Elson's Blog, page 6
September 13, 2020
The Kissless Bride, a "Late Date," and The Richest Man in Town
Lillian Feiler tells how she met her husband, Samuel Charles Feiler, a dentist in the 101st Airborne Division; Red Cross girl Kay Brainard Hutchins describes her romance with her second husband; and Nancy Mapes, wife of ex-prisoner of war Hal Mapes, tells how her young postwar family came to be featured in a photo spread in the Ladies Home Journal. For more about these and other stories please visit www.oralhistoryaudiobooks.com.
September 9, 2020
Forrest Dixon Part 2
In this episode of Myfatherstankbattalion, maintenance officer Forrest Dixon talks about battlefield commissions, guns, cameras, Hitler Youth, the Bridge at Remagen, Mein Kampf, a broken beer mug, the salt mine that would later be depicted in The Monuments Men, the Flossenburg concentration camp, and spark plugs. For information about previous episodes, please visit myfatherstankbattalion.com.
September 5, 2020
Forrest Dixon, Part 1
An onion farmer from Munith, Michigan, battalion maintenance officer Forrest Dixon was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for climbing into a tank whose engine was removed and singlehandedly knocking out a German tank. For more about this and other episodes, please visit myfatherstankbattalion.com.
August 30, 2020
"Those 88s Are Breaking Up That Old Squad of Mine"
Jim Cary and his ukelele led the annual Saturday night singalong in the hospitality room at reunions of my father's 712th Tank Battalion. He also a company commander with two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a story you'll want to hear. For more about this podcast, please visit myfatherstankbattalion.com
August 8, 2020
Ed Stuever Part 2: "Watch My Smoke"
In Part 2 of this 2005 interview, maintenance Sgt. Ed "Smoky" Stuever describes with remarkable clarity events from 60 years before. These include his experiences in the veterinary detachment of the horse cavalry, chaperoning Spanky McFarland, towing trucks onto Utah Beach after their engines sputtered out, getting drunk on mirabeille (white lightning) and making his captain pull guard duty, repairing tanks at night by the light from gun flashes, and helping a German woman and her three children escape from Russians near the end of the war. The episode is long and I've dispensed with the usual narrative, so I'll say it now: Thank you for listening to Myfatherstankbattalion. I'm Aaron Elson, your host.
July 31, 2020
Ed "Smoky" Stuever Part 1
Ed "Smoky" Stuever was a fixture at reunions of my father's 712th Tank Battalion. I would sit down with him and record a couple of stories every year. In this episode, he describes growing up on a farm, trapping muskrats and catching bullfrogs, winning a 4H competition, telling time by the sun, how his hearing-impaired father called square dances, how he met his wife, and being drafted into the horse cavalry. Check out my new web site, oralhistoryaudiobooks.com
July 11, 2020
Tail Gunner Sam Part 2
Tail gunner Sam Mastrogiacomo shares the escapades and adventures of his months as an internee in Sweden, his youth in the tough neighborhood of South Philadelphia, and his return to Tibenham two days after the disastrous Kassel Mission. For more great interviews with World War II veterans, visit myfatherstankbattalion.com
July 5, 2020
Tail Gunner Sam Part 1
My father's 712th Tank Battalion didn't win the war all by themselves. They had help from above. In today's episode, we meet Sam Mastrogiacomo, a tail gunner on a B-24 who, when bullets from a German fighter plane shattered the glass of his turret, thought about his mother getting a telegram that he had been killed. For a full list of episodes and extra background, please visit myfatherstankbattalion.com. For my books and audiobooks, visit aaronelson.com. Thank you. PS: This interview was recorded at a reunion. There are occasional brief interruptions, and a pesky air conditioner keeps kicking in.
June 21, 2020
Big Andy
Exciting news! My web site, https://www.myfatherstankbattalion.com, is now live with extra information about the episodes and a unit history of the battalion. Today, we meet Bob "Big Andy" Anderson, a tank driver who was awarded three Bronze Stars in 11 months of combat. The drivers in the 712th Tank Battalion were a close-knit community with a special set of skills.
June 14, 2020
The Company Commander
Clifford Merrill was the first of four A Company commanders. After recovering from wounds suffered in Normandy, he sat on a tribunal at the Dachau War Crimes trials, helped run a prison compound in the Korean War, and was wounded leading a convoy in Vietnam. To quote A Company veteran Sam Cropanese, "He wasn't afraid of nothin'!"
