Bøger af Aaron Elson

In 1987, Aaron Elson went to a reunion of the tank battalion with which his father served in World War II. He was so moved by the stories the veterans shared among themselves but often didn't tell their families that he returned with a tape recorder. The rest is history. Oral history.Inspired by Studs Terkel and Stephen Ambrose, Elson has recorded more than 600 hours of interviews with veterans of World War II. His work has been used as source material in more than two dozen books and a dozen documentaries, some of which have appeared on the History Channel.In this collection of a baker's dozen interviews you'll meet, among others, five combat engineers talking "Saving Private Ryan"; two veterans of the fabled 1st Infantry Division, including one who may have been the first member of the division to set foot on Omaha Beach; a dental surgeon in the 4th Infantry Division who landed on Utah Beach and was wounded at St. Lo; a battalion surgeon who ran the 10th Armored Division aid station during the siege of Bastogne; a Tin Can Sailor from the crew of the USS Butler; the Ranger who almost singlehandedly sabotaged four large coastal guns during the battle for Pointe du Hoc; a paratrooper who landed in the water and joined the Rangers in scaling the Pointe; two members of the 294th Combat Engineer Battalion who were aboard the troop ship Susan B. Anthony, which struck a mine and sank in the English Channel; and an 82nd Airborne Division sergeant who who went into Normandy on a glider that crashed.

Gene Crandall was a propeller specialist and all-around mechanical troubleshooter in the 445th Bomb Group in World War II. Floyd Ogilvy was a waist gunner who flew 30 missions on a B-24. In 1999, while researching the ill-fated Kassel Mission of Sept. 27, 1944, author Aaron Elson met Crandall and Ogilvy at a Cracker Barrel in Battle Creek, Mich., and the three talked well into the night. Although Crandall was on the ground and Ogilvy completed his missions before the ill-fated Kassel Mission, on which 35 Liberators of the 445th flew off course and were ambushed by approximately 120 German fighter planes, Elson found the conversation so interesting that he thought it would make an informative book for anyone interested in the day to day life of the Army Air Corps in World War II. From colorful stories about Jimmy Stewart, who was an original squadron commander in the 445th, to dramatic accounts of crashes at the base and an explosion at a bomb dump, "Two Guys Talkin' B-24s" presents a side of life in World War II that is often left on the cutting room floor of documentaries, the stories there's no room for in a one-page newspaper article or a three-minute television segment.

1st Lieutenant Ira Weinstein, a navigator/bombardier, was not supposed to fly on Sept. 27, 1944. But he wanted to get in his last mission so could be home by Christmas, and he was home by Christmas - a year later. The 445th Bomb Group, flying B-24 Liberators out of Tibenham, England, suffered the highest one-day loss of any group in 8th Air Force History that day. Thirty-five bombers flew off course and 25 were shot down when the group was ambushed by more than 100 German fighter planes. Ira was one of only three survivors on his crew, and became a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft I. A retired advertising executive, he has dedicated his time and effort to preserving the memory of the Kassel Mission, and is a member of the board of directors of the Kassel Mission Historical Society. For decades, people have been urging him to write down the many stories, some colorful, others poignant, he has told about his experiences over the years. These are his stories.

The Kassel Mission bombing raid of Sept. 27, 1944, was one of World War II's most spectacular air battles. Thirty-five B-24s of the 445th Bomb Group flew off course, lost their fighter protection, and were ambushed by as many as 150 German fighter planes. Jim Baynham was a 19-year-old pilot from Texarkana, Texas. John Ray Lemons of Dallas was a waist gunner in his crew. Their Liberator was among the first ones hit. The two men bailed out, Baynham becoming a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft I and Lemons in Stalag Luft IV. The 445th Bomb Group lost 25 planes in the furious battle. Many German fighter planes were shot down as well. More than 40 years later a monument was built in Germany with the names of all the Americans and all the Germans who died in the battle. Oral historian Aaron Elson took an interest in the battle when he visited a nearby village and learned of the monument. He since has interviewed many survivors of the battle, and is a member of the board of the Kassel Mission Historical Society. He interviewed Baynham and Lemons during a visit to Dallas in 2010.

Dale Albee enlisted in the horse cavalry in 1938. Three years later, as a sergeant, he helped turn a trainload of 500 raw recruits, some of whom only saw a horse in the front of a milk wagon as they stumbled home from a bar, into skilled horsemen who could roll a Bull Durham cigarette at a gallop, or at least could come close. A year later the 11th Cavalry was sent to Fort Benning and mechanized as part of the 10th Armored Division. In 1943, the independent 712th Tank Battalion was broken out of the 10th Armored. The 712th landed in Normandy three weeks after D-Day and spent the next 311 days fighting alongside the 90th Infantry Division through Northern France, the Battle of the Bulge, the Siegfried Line, and into Czechoslovakia, along the way earning a reputation as the armored fist of the 90th. Albee, in a "light" 17-ton M5 Stuart tank, was with the battalion all the way, starting out as a platoon sergeant and earning a battlefield commission, along with two Purple Hearts. This blow-by-blow account of his combat across Europe was recorded by oral historian Aaron Elson, whose father, 2nd Lt. Maurice Elson, served in a different company of the 712th. Aaron attended a reunion of the battalion in 1987 and spent the next 20 years recording the stories of its veterans.

"I had two kills and one probable. ... The second one, we always flew in different boxes. You'd have a high box, a middle box and a lower box. The lower box was kind of a Purple Heart box. The second one, we were in the low box, and the [fighter] kind of circled. I lost track of it, and it came up from underneath and made a 90-degree turn and started firing. Of course my rapid fire I think got him, but he just, just a flash of light, that's all, I couldn't tell, I blew it up. But ... after that happened, I said a little prayer, God bless the guy, he was in the war just like I was, fighting for his country, and I felt sorry for what happened. It was either him or me. Or us." John Sweren, tail gunner, flew 58 missions in a B-26 before his plane was shot down. The tail section broke apart from the rest of the plane, with him in it. Three of the six crew members were killed. John became a prisoner of war and endured the harsh conditions at Stalag Luft IV, and the even harsher conditions of the long march west across Germany near the end of the war. Oral historian Aaron Elson interviewed John over the course of two days in 2010, after the French historian Christian Levaufre brought artifacts from the remains of John's plane to the United States to present to family members of its crew. During the Great Depression, John grew up on a farm with 3,000 chickens. He felt so guilty about taking a hearty meal to school that he would go off in a corner to eat while many of the other children ate hardtack. One day he gave half of his sandwich to a friend, and the friend asked if it would be all right for him to take it home to share with his family. John's story will at times bring a tear to your eye, and at other times a smile to your face. Sometimes it will do both simultaneously. John Sweren passed away on Oct. 28, 2011. He was 89 years old. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Bob "Big Andy" Anderson, a farmboy from Prophetstown, Illinois, was drafted into the horse cavalry in 1941. In 1943 the 11th Cavalry was mechanized as part of the fledgling 10th Armored Division. The independent 712th Tank Battalion was broken out of the 10th and spent most of the war in Europe attached to the 90th "Texas-Oklahoma" Division. A tank driver, Big Andy spent 11 months in combat from Normandy, through the Battle of the Bulge, the Siegfried Line, across Germany and into Czechoslovakia. He earned three Bronze Stars and had 162 points, and thought it was a joke when an officer asked him if he wanted to go home. He said sure and was told to be ready in 15 minutes. This oral history interview, conducted at Big Andy's home in 1992, paints a portrait of combat rarely seen in documentaries and gives a glimpse into the day to day life of a tank driver, on whose skill not only the lives of his crew but the lives of the infantry to which they were attached depended.

On 10 July 1944, Lt. Jim Flowers led a platoon of four Sherman tanks to the aid of a battalion of infantry that was surrounded by elite German paratroopers on the summit of Hill 122 in one of the fiercest battles of the Normandy campaign. His tanks succeeded in breaking the Nazi defenses and leading a company off the hill, with the rest of the battalion to follow. Soon, however, all four tanks were knocked out, with three of them going up in flames. For Flowers, the ordeal was just beginning. Nine of the 20 crew members were killed, several wounded and two were both wounded and captured. For Flowers, the ordeal was just beginning. This is the story of that battle as told in the words of several survivors of his platoon.

In 2003, the Army Field Support Command (AFSC) and the Joint Munitions Command (JMC), collocated at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, began a comprehensive oral history project aimed at chronicling a full-spectrum slice of the commands' role in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) broadly defined. Because the command was over 90 percent Department of the Army (DA) civilians and heavily augmented by contractors, the command realized by 2003 that they were managing the largest ever deployment of DA civilians and contractors into a combat area, and so, over 150 interviews were conducted focusing on the GWOT-related experiences of DA civilian members of the two commands during 2003 and 2004. Starting at the same time, Mr. George Eaton, currently command historian at US Army Sustainment Command (ASC), has conducted to date almost 200 more interviews with DA civilians, contractors and uniformed military personnel. This oral history project aims at delivering an overall picture of the activities and duties of the various components of AFSC and JMC and their combined efforts to support the Army's worldwide operations. The interviews look at growing trends in areas of both success and concern, while also accounting for how logistics support commands have completely transformed operational- and strategic-level logistics since 2003. ASC personnel are forward deployed at every forward operating base in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar and Djibouti, among others. Indeed, what began as a small operation in 2003 has become a robust organization, globally deployed, and is now a key player in all four of the Army's materiel imperatives: to sustain, transform, reset and prepare. The following interview with Mr. Kevin Rohm, supply management specialist/logistics assistance representatives, covers such topics as being deployed to Iraq, CRC, LAR during Desert Shield/Desert Storm, LAR during Iraqi Freedom, working conditions in Iraq, living conditions in Iraq, wounded during mortar attack, DA civilian wounded and the medical treatment of wounded DA civilians.

During the epic breakout from the Chosin Reservoir, Marine Sgt. Mathew Caruso, assigned as a chaplain's assistant, heroically saved the life of Chaplain Cornelius "Connie" Griffin at the cost of his own life. on December 6, 1950. Six days later, in New England, Mathew's son was born. Fourteen months after that, his father's Silver Star was presented to little Danny Caruso in a ceremony that made national headlines. In 1953 the Caruso Memorial Chapel was dedicated at Camp Pendleton. Two years after that, Mathew's remains were repatriated and his brother John, himself a Marine, served as his burial escort by train from San Francisco to Hartford, Connecticut. "Semper Fi, Padre" is a story of sacrifice and heroism, but it is also about the effect a death in combat, any death in combat, can have on the lives of many people.