Spring, 1987 - 70th Infantry Division Association
Spring, 1987 - 70th Infantry Division Association
Spring, 1987 - 70th Infantry Division Association
- No tags were found...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
The<br />
•<br />
memorl{<br />
... across<br />
four decades<br />
Trailblazers<br />
recall<br />
personal<br />
history<br />
It's a good thing that the song "Let's Take<br />
the Long Way Home" is not an olden golden.<br />
For it gives Oscar Schrage a HQ/275, a pain in<br />
the rear. You see-"Coming back from the<br />
ETO, our Victory Ship took the northern route.<br />
About three-quarters of the men got very, very<br />
seasick. So the captain changed his course to<br />
the south and that took six days longer to get<br />
home. And they played that doggone song over<br />
and over on the PA."<br />
Oscar, a retired printer, was in the cadre of<br />
the 91 st that formed the Trailblazers. In Philippsbourg<br />
he was in a 3-man crew that operated<br />
a radio in a house 400 yards to the rear of the<br />
company CP. The Germans launched a 2-company<br />
attack aginst the American rear. But they<br />
kept communications open all night and the<br />
next morning 48 of the enemy surrendered.<br />
With his wife Irene he has a son and four<br />
grandsons .<br />
A cherished possession * of James Vaught,<br />
HQ/70 Divarty, is a citation from the President<br />
of the United States and the Postmaster General.<br />
It's for saving the life of a choking infant<br />
by administering artificial respiration until a<br />
rescue squad arrived. He was delivering mail in<br />
Evansville, Indiana, a job he did for II years<br />
until promoted to supervisor of customer service,<br />
where he served for 21 years.<br />
After the war he played with the Trailblazer<br />
baseball team and did a lot of pleasurable<br />
travelling around Europe.<br />
Less enjoyable was taking shelter in a church<br />
near Saarbrucken only to find out that German<br />
88s were zeroed in on it. Exit was precipitous.<br />
While on furlough from Leonard Wood he<br />
married Jean Taylor. They have two daughters<br />
and five grandchildren.<br />
ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE ...<br />
... including this abandoned school<br />
building on the Camp Adair reservation.<br />
For a jam-packed audience of Gls<br />
out on exercises near the Valley View<br />
School, in July 1944, Pat Krewson is<br />
backed by what looks like an impromptu<br />
band. (Photo by Chester Garstki<br />
who took all the other pictures in this<br />
issue unless otherwise noted.)<br />
While SOP was to put a new man under the<br />
wing of an experienced one, the heavy losses<br />
that A/275 sustained in January of 1945 made it<br />
necessary for two replacements to share a foxhole.<br />
Carroll Scott says he still remembers<br />
how scared both of them were that first night<br />
under fire. That he had an infant daughter back<br />
in Baltimore added nothing to his ease of mind.<br />
But he survived and went to the 3rd <strong>Division</strong><br />
after combat, returning in May, '46. He's a<br />
project manager in heavy construction and active<br />
in his Lutheran Church and Masonic<br />
Lodge. With his wife Virginia, he has a son and<br />
a daughter and six grandchildren.<br />
Hearing the news about * the death of President<br />
Roosevelt is the saddest memory of Jack<br />
M. McCormick, B/884 FA. Jack joined the<br />
<strong>70th</strong> in August of '43 and left service in April,<br />
'46 after also serving with the 78th Signal<br />
Corps. He has retired after 35 years as a trans-<br />
portation driver during which time he won<br />
many safe-driving awards.<br />
He and his wife are great grandparents, once;<br />
grand-parents, 10 times, and parents, six. He<br />
lives in Bluffs, Illinois.<br />
Another great-grandfather * is Calvin<br />
Coulter, D/275. He and his wife Hattie also<br />
have three children and six grandchildren.<br />
They already had two children when he joined<br />
the <strong>70th</strong> at Adair in July, 1944. They joined<br />
him at Rolla, Missouri when we moved to<br />
Leonard Wood. For 34 years he was in charge<br />
of maintenance at the Hollywood Candy Co. in<br />
Sarasota, Florida.<br />
A combination career * is that of Robert Cantrell,<br />
l/275. He is an ordained minister of the<br />
Southern Baptist conference and has served for<br />
35 years. He's also a master mechanic. With<br />
his wife, the former Anneata Jones, he lives in<br />
Seymore, Missouri. Their only son is deceased.<br />
The big hoopla over the Statue of<br />
Liberty's 200 years reminded him again of his<br />
greatest thrill while in uniform . . . seeing The<br />
Lady as he came home in 1946. He joined the<br />
<strong>70th</strong> at Adair in August, '43, and served with<br />
the 3rd <strong>Division</strong> after the Trailblazers came<br />
home.<br />
There were only nine * other men in the unit<br />
when Henry Dickinson joined D/275. He was<br />
Axe-head Archives<br />
8<br />
<strong>70th</strong> <strong>Division</strong> Assn. TRAILBLAZER