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The most recent episode of War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It was about Bob Levine, who recently passed away at the age of 97. It was Bob who said to me, "If you want stories, you've got to interview prisoners of war," and that's what got me started doing just that. Today I'd like you to meet Hal Mapes, one of those POWs.
If you like what you hear, I have a modest request. Since I launched my first web site, tankbooks.com, 25 years ago, I've posted hundreds of pages of stories, interviews, whole books and audio clips available for free. Lately the costs of hosting and producing and maintaining content have risen sharply. A small donation, if you can afford it, will help this podcast grow and the audio and print on my web sites expand.
Donate via Paypal
More links
tankbooks.com (Your donation will help improve my original site, which is in desperate need of a redesign)
Aaronelson.com
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It
Another way to donate: Buy me a coffee (click on the pic)
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Bob Levine was among the first replacements in the 90th Infantry Division in Normandy. He was wounded and captured in the battle for Hill 122, and had a leg amputated by a German doctor. Decades later, with the help of historian Henri Levaufre of Perier, Bob was able to meet the family of the German physician.
Bob's interview is included in my collection of prisoner of war interviews, and his story is in my book They Were All Young Kids, about Lieutenant Jim Flowers and Hill 122, which also is the subject of several earlier episodes of the podcast.
Thank you for listening to War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It. I hope you will consider supporting the podcast by purchasing one of my books or audiobooks at amazon, eBay or aaronelson.com. Or you could buy me a cuppa coffee at buymeacoffee.com. Thanks a latte for your support.
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George Noorigian is one of the fliers featured in my new book, "Up Above the Clouds to Die," about the most spectacular air battle you've probably never heard of.
Read an excerpt from the book at aaronelson.com or check out the "Look Inside the Book" feature at amazon.
This episode is my full interview with Noorigian, which is excerpted in the book.
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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. In 2005 I recorded this interview with Dr. Jack Prior, a battalion surgeon in the 10th Armored Division. If you've seen Band of Brothers, and who hasn't, you'll likely remember the young Belgian nurse who has a romance with an American soldier, and is killed in the shelling. The real-life nurse on whom the character is based was Renee Lemaire, the "Angel of Bastogne," who was killed on Christmas Eve when Dr. Prior's makeshift hospital was bombed, and was buried in a parachute she had hoped to use to make her wedding dress.
If you'd like to support this podcast, please visit my author web site, aaronelson.com, and order a print or audiobook; or check out my ebay store. And leave a review on whichever site you listen to.
The usual suspects:
aaronelson.com
myfatherstankbattalion.com
Aaron's eBay store
The Mathew Caruso story
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Thank you for sticking with War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It for the past three months while I was rewriting and expanding my first book, Tanks for the Memories, now available at aaronelson.com, ebay and amazon. War As My Father's Tank Battalion is about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in particular. Bob Hamant was a Marine who spent a year on the island of Tinian.
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First off, I want to thank all of the listeners who stuck with Myfatherstankbattalion through a three month hiatus while I worked on the greatly expanded third edition of Tanks for the Memories, which is now available at Amazon in paperback, hardcover and for Kindle and will soon be available on my web site. As War As My Father’s Tank Battalion approaches its 100th episode, there will be some changes in the format, where I will be interviewing historians and authors about their work, in addition to adding great audio clips from my conversations with veterans.
The usual suspects:
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It
Aaron Elson's flagship author site
https://oralhistoryaudiobooks.com
Semper Fi, Padre: The Mathew Caruso story
Tankbooks.com: Aaron's first web site, launched in 1997
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In this episode, we meet Ed Hays, a B17 tail gunner who in 1998 traveled to Germany to meet the German fighter pilot who shot his plane down and who, in turn, was shot down by Ed's crew. But first a couple of announcements. I'll be exhibiting at the Greenwood Lake 2021 Air Show August 13 to 15, which is always a spectacular event. If you attend, be sure to stop by and say hello. And over the Labor Day Weekend, September 3 thru 6, I'll be exhibiting at the Naval Air Station Wildwood Museum Air Fest in Wildwood, New Jersey. Also, please check out the new Myfatherstankbattalion page on Facebook and give it a like. Now, back to Ed Hays and his amazing story.
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War has a way a producing iconic sayings, from "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" at Bunker Hill in the American Revolution, to "I've not yet begun to fight" in the War of 1812, to "Retreat Hell! We just got here" at Belleau Wood in World War I, to "By the grace of god and a few Marines MacArthur returned to the Philippines" in World War II. Part 2 of my 2000 interview with Karnig Thomasian features another iconic phrase from World War II: Extract Digit, the meaning of which I'll let Karnig explain during the interview.
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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. Where I used to live in New Jersey there was a remarkable group of ex-prisoners of war. There was Ed Hays of Ridgewood, who traveled with his family to Berlin to meet the German fighter pilot who shot down his B-17. There was Tim Dyas, also of Ridgewood, who parachuted into the middle of the Herman Goering Panzer Division. There was Hal Mapes, the only survivor of the crew of his B-17. Across the street from me in Hackensack was Bernie Levine, who took part in what likely was the only Jewish prayer service in a Nazi prison camp. There was Bob Levine of River Edge, who would one day meet the family of the German doctor who amputated his leg. Also in River Edge there was Karnig Thomasian, a B-29 veteran of the China-Burma-India theater who became a prisoner of the Japanese.
For more information and episodes:
Myfatherstankbattalion.com
Aaronelson.com
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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'd like to give a shoutout to Naval Air Station Wildwood, which invited me to exhibit at their recent Wings & Things event, and also to the Reading, Pennsylvania World War II Weekend. Which brings me to today's episode. At Wildwood, a visitor to my display asked if any of the episodes were about the Great Depression. I said no, but the next episode will be. So today you'll hear from Dan Diel, the son of a sharecropper who earned a battlefield commission despite having only an eighth grade education; Tim Dyas, a prisoner of war who credited the Great Depression with helping him survive the starvation of prison camp; Dona Schmidt, who traveled with her family from Texas to California at the height of the Dust Bowl; Kay Brainard Hutchins, who was in Florida when the real estate Boom went bust; John Ray Lemons, whose family had to move every 30 days when the rent was due; John Knox, who couldn't afford a Monopoly set so he borrowed a friend's set, got some cardboard and made his own; and Bob Rossi, who flashed back to a tragic fire in Jersey City when he saw a friend at an intersection during the Battle of the Bulge.
Like the podcast on Facebook oralhistoryaudiobooks
Follow Aaron on Twitter @aaronelson1
aaronelson.com
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It
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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
Myfatherstankbattalion.com
aaronelson.com
oralhistoryaudiobooks.com
Mentioned in the interview:
The Magnificent Bastards
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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.
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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 Gold 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:
aaronelson.com
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It
WW2 Oral History Audiobooks
The Mathew Caruso Story
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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:
aaronelson.com
World War II Oral History Audiobooks
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It
Semper Fi, Padre: The Mathew Caruso Story
tankbooks.com
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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
The D-Day Tapes
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It
aaronelson.com
My eBay store
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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.
Tiger Burning
The usual suspects:
https://myfatherstankbattalion.com
https://aaronelson.com
https://oralhistoryaudiobooks.com
http://www.tankbookscom
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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 Forgotten Dead
The Exercise Tiger Memorial
A Mile in Their Shoes
The D-Day Tapes
The usual suspects
aaronelson.com
War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It (the podcast)
tankbooks.com
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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.Richard Bailey released from prison
The usual suspects:
Aaron's eBay store
Myfatherstankbattalion.com
aaronelson.com
oralhistoryaudiobooks.com
The Mathew Caruso story
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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:
World War II Oral History
The usual suspects:
https://myfatherstankbattalion.com
aaronelson.com
oralhistoryaudiobooks.com
mathewcaruso.com
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93-POUND GIRL IS HEROINE OF FIRE
Jersey City, N.J., Dec. 30, 1937 -- (AP) -- Two score men stood by today ready to give blood transfusions to a 93-pound blond heroine of the Plaza hotel fire who stuck to her switchboard yesterday arousing guests as she beat out her blazing clothing with her hands.
Among the last to flee the fire fatal to two other hotel employes, 26-year-old HELEN SULLIVAN had to run through a wall of flame in the lobby, and staggered into the street so badly burned no one at first recognized her.
Part of her dress was burned off, and her, face, chest and hands were burned.
Nearly delirious from pain when she reached the medical center she asked about an aged widow and an aged couple who lived at the hotel. Told all the guests were saved, her flame-blackened face lighted with a smile.
--Jefferson City Post-Tribune Missouri 1937-12-30War 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:
Bob Rossi, Part 1
The usual suspects:
https://aaronelson.com
https://myfatherstankbattalion.com
https://oralhistoryaudiobooks.com
https://mathewcaruso.com
https://tankbooks.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!
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