WORLD WAR II SERVICE - CLIFFORD HARLAN HULLINGER

I served the entire war with the 109th Combat Engineers of the

34th "Red Bull" Division. It was the first American unit sent to

the European Theater and, after service in North Africa and Italy,

had more combat time - over 500 days- than any other US division.

The Division, which numbered under 14,000 men at full strength, had

over 21,000 casualties which included 3737 killed, 14,165 wounded,

and 3460 missing. Most of the latter were captured when cut off

during the Kasserine Pass battle in Tunisia. Since about 80% of

casualties are borne by the infantry and there are about 9000

infantrymen per division, their casualty rates were in the 2-300 %

range. Men from the 34th earned 11 Medals of Honor, 98

Distinguished Service Crosses, 1052 Silver Stars, 1713 bronze

stars, over 15,000 Purple Hearts, as well as citations and awards.

We had about 4.5 years of active duty with about 3.5 years

overseas.

I have a whole shelf of books on the African and Italian

campaign and some comments may be of interest. Eisenhower in his

book, CRUSADE IN EUROPE, p 454 in commenting on the value of

experience in battle adds "But when kept too long in the fight they

not only become subject to physical and mental weariness; the most

venturesome and aggressive among them -the natural leaders -begin

to suffer an abnormally high percentage of casualties.

Consequently the periodic relief of units from the front lines is

mandatory to the preservation of efficiency. In Italy and in

northwest Europe we were frequently unable to do this and sometimes

regiments and battalions had to remain in line for excessive

periods. Some divisions bore far more than their share of combat;

the 34th, 45th, 3rd, and 1st Divisions led in number of days in

battle....,they also suffered relatively high casualties."

The Tunisian campaign blooded the Division and gave us needed

experience. The Italian campaign started well but losses mounted

after three crossing of the Volturno river and driving the Germans

off the mountain massif between Venafro and Cassino. After 79 days

without a break we had about 10 days off. The Infantry had almost

50 percent losses by then. It was now December with almost constant

rain in the valleys and snow and sleet on the mountains.

We went back into the line in January to attack the German

Gustav Line anchored on the mountain above the town of Cassino.

The 34th penetrated that line and forced a salient behind the

famous Abbey of Cassino but were almost destroyed in the process.

The reserve American Divisions had been sent to the Anzio

beachead in an attempt to flank the Gustav Line so American

historians followed that battle and largely ignored the battle of

Cassino. Since we were eventually relieved by New Zealand and

Indian Divisions from the 8th Army, one must read British authors

to get an understanding of the Cassino battle.

Fred Majdalany, an English author, in his book, THE

BATTLE OF CASSINO, p. 85 writes "The performance of the 34th

Division at Cassino must rank with the finest feats of arms carried

out by any soldiers during the war. When at last they were

relieved by the 4th Indian Division fifty of those few who had held

on to the last were too numbed with cold and exhaustion to move.

They could still man their positions but they could not move out of

them unaided. They were carried out on stretchers..... They had

earned the praise which for soldiers is the best to receive- that

of other soldiers who have moved in to relieve them and who alone

can see at first hand what they have done, what they have endured.

It was the British and Indian soldiers of the 4th Indian Division,

moving in to relieve them, who proclaimed the achievement of the

Americans the loudest."

Eric Morris, also an English author, on page 270, of his book

CIRCLES OF HELL, says that when the Royal Sussex Regiment relieved

the 135th and 168th Regiments of the 34th Division, "There were

just 840 left of the 3200 Americans who had begun the battle."

Since two Infantry regiments would have about 6000 men at full

strength, their losses exceeded 80%. The battalion of the 133rd

Regiment we were working with in the town of Cassino had 45 men who

walked out.

On page 272 he quotes an eye-witness, "Our troops were living

in almost inconceivable misery. The fertile black valleys were

knee deep in mud. Thousands of the men had not been dry for weeks.

Other thousands lay at night in the high mountains with the

temperature below freezing and the thin snow sifting over them.

They dug into the stones and slept in little chasms and behind

rocks and in half caves. They lived like men of prehistoric times

and a club would have become them more than a machine gun. How

they survived that dreadful winter at all was beyond us who had the

opportunity of dryer beds in the warmer valley."

David Hapgood on page 153 in his book, Monte Cassino, writes

"The soldiers of the Indian Division began climbing up the

murderous hillsides where so many French and American soldiers had

struggled and died. When they got to the part of the ridge where

the American of the 34th Division had been in combat for two weeks,

the newcomers were appalled by what they found. Corpses lay all

around and the living were not much better off than the dead. The

Americans had fought up to and beyond the limits of human

endurance. Fifty men still defending their positions were found to

be too cramped and too weak even to walk. The men of the Indian

Divsion had to lift them bodily from their stone shelters and carry

them out on stretchers. Not all of them made it. Some of the

stretcher bearers, and the exhausted men they were carrying, were

killed by German shellfire on the long, difficult journey down the

mountain side.

Majdalany, page 85, writes "Three years after the end of the

war a party of British officers were walking over these same

mountains, studying the battle of Cassino as a military exercise,

under the direction of officers who had fought there. As they

clambered over the rocks, incredulous that anything resembling

organized warfare had been waged there, they came at one point upon

a grim sight. Crouched against some rocks, in the position in

which an infantryman would take guard with his rifle, they found a

human skeleton. At its side were the rusted remains of a rifle and

steel helmet, both identifiable as American. It seemed a final

comment on the endurance of the 34th U.S. Division and the men of

the 36th who shared their ordeal in the later stages of the

battle."

Morris again, on page 267 says "The 34th (US) Infantry, the

Red Bulls, was known as the hard luck outfit. It was the first

American division to reach Europe, fought with distinction in

Tunisia and showed dogged courage at the Volturno. It fought in

every battle but never made the news, hence the nickname. Cassino

tore the heart out of the Bulls, from which it took a year to

recover"

Farley Mowat, the Canadian author who also served in Italy, in

his books, THE REGIMENT, and NO BIRDS SANG, best captures the

feeling of hopelessness and resignation that troops experience

under such conditions. Only the extremely strong bonding formed

between experienced soldiers who have gone through so much together

enables them to continue to function.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:

I enlisted in the SD National Guard in the spring of 1939

while a freshman at SDSU. The unit was Company B of the 109th

Engineers of the 34th (Red Bull) Division. The Engineers came from

SD while the Infantry and most of the other units were from

Minnesota and Iowa. It was a square division then with 4 regiments

of Infantry and 6 companies of Engineers but was reorganized to a

triangle Division in late 1941 with three regiments of Infantry.

and three companies of Engineers. About 40 men, including me, from

Company B from Brookings was combined with Company A from Madison

to make a new company A.

I joined up to get the $1.00 per weekly drill for "mad"

money since I didn't feel right squandering the support from the

folks on riotous living! However I should point out that even

then one couldn't get into serious sin on $1.00. The folks were

concerned even then- I suppose they remembered 1917 and knew that

war was likely but that never occurred to an 18 year old.

We went to spring camp for two weeks at Rapid City for my

first glimpse of the Hills. I don't think any of the family had

been there before since that was a major trip on those roads in

those cars. I spent most of my time on KP on WW I equipment-

Metal stove tops set on the ground and dirt banked up around the

sides to keep the heat in. The food and water were heated in

what we used to call boilers -oval or square sheet metal pots

that held about 10-15 gallons. Shorty, the mess sgt. (whose only

qualifications seemed to be that he had been a machine gunner in

WW I) would get a pot of water boiling and throw in a few pounds

of ground coffee in what we suspected was his laundry bag and let

it cook all day. Only the veterans could handle that boiling

liquor in an aluminum canteen cup which promptly turned black

inside and I suspect we did too!

We went to Camp Ripley near Brainard, Minn. in the summer

of 1940. I was a pfc. then and remember swimming in the

Mississippi River (we could wade across there). Sgt. Siep of A

Co. shot a deer out of season with govt ammo and only the

ubiquitous Shorty dared to cook it. He simply cut it up into

pieces and boiled it in one of his pots. It was fat and greasy

and probably dirty and we all got diarrhea and since we left for

Brookings the next day, there were bare bottoms hanging out the

back of the army trucks all the way across Minnesota.

They were starting to mobilize the Guard units across the

country in the fall of 1940 and we heard we would go about the

first of the year. I got in the fall quarter of my Junior

year and started my second quarter when they called us up. Over

half of the company were from the college. We had a good share

of the football team, a good sprinkling of juniors and seniors and

a few graduate students so we were not a typical

company. We left Brookings by troop train at 2:00AM in zero

degree weather so not many saw us off! Most of us were not

Brookings natives anyway. I was promoted to Corporal about then.

We went to Camp Claiborne, La., about 20 miles south of

Alexandria. This was a new camp carved out of red clay and brush

but they had built mess halls and latrines and set up wooden

frames and floors with tents over the top. They had even piped

in natural gas heaters in each tent so we considered ourselves in

luxury. We did build the rifle ranges which was good experience,

learned to drill, shoot, and some bridging and demolition. We

had no real training in mines and booby traps and nothing under

live fire, either rifle or artillery. However we were far from

home and there were four camps near Alexandria so we had few

distractions and so we graded well in the maneuvers in the fall.

The guard units were supposedly in for one year but congress

extended our time to 18 months in the fall by one vote! We

started to get some draftees to build us up to strength in the

summer. Since they were called inductees, we called ourselves

seductees. I passed a test to go to Ft. Belvoir, Va. to a school

on surveying by splitting my toe with an axe while cutting trees to

build a log bridge. Spent a month in the hospital and missed the

school.

Most of us had a week furlough in the fall and drove home

in borrowed (or begged) cars. I had made Sgt. in December and

was sewing on my Sgt. stripes on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 when

we heard about Pearl Harbor. We started loading out within the

week and were in Camp Dix, NJ., by early January. They put us in

tents with small coal burning stoves. The soft coal sent up a

lot of sparks and we burned several tents but no one was hurt

since it don't take long to crawl under a tent wall when fire is

right behind. They were giving shots and taking passport

pictures on a 24 hour basis. They woke us up in the middle of

the night and had us line up in snow and cold for our pictures.

You can imagine what we looked like- dirty, cold, unshaven, mad,

sore arms, sleepy, and wearing all the clothes we had.

At that time you could take a train to New York in the late

PM, spend the evening there, and come back at about midnight. I

went twice, saw the Glenn Miller and Gene Krupa bands at the

Paramount, got an autograph of Jack Dempsey, and saw the lights

of 42nd St. Big time for a small town guy!

The first contingent (Co. A, from Madison and the rest of

the 133rd Inf. Combat team) left in mid-January for what we

learned later was North Ireland. They reorganized the Division

at that time and about 40 of us Co. B men were transferred to Co.

A who we would join later in Ireland. Since we considered

ourselves the elite of Co. B, there was a lot of griping in the

next year as they sent most of those who didn't go overseas to

officers school. We shipped out in February '42 on the USS

American Legion and about a day out our ship broke down. This was

at the height of the submarine activity and the north Atlantic is

a cold dark sight at that time of year. The convoy went on and

left one small warship running around us and dropping depth charges

every so often. More was going on then we knew. (see page 21) We

got back to Halifax, N. S. where we sat in the harbor for two weeks

while they made some temporary repairs. We had sent most of our

money home or blew it in Camp Dix or on an evening pass to New

York. The only thing to do was sit in the ship or go to the NAAFI

canteen on top of the hill but we couldn't buy anything. Almost

every day a ship would come or be towed in with a big hole in the

side and one time only half a ship. Gave us a real feeling of

confidence.

Two weeks later we dashed back to Boston in a big storm

which was supposed to keep the subs down. Went to Camp Edwards

on Cape Cod with our rifles and one barracks bag and still no

money. We finally got enough that I had an afternoon in Boston

and saw Ted Williams and the Red Sox. In April, we took a train

to NY and tried again on another convoy. Had no trouble this

time although a depth charge or torpedo went off close enough one

night to put out the lights on the ship. No panic but when the

lights came on we were lined up with life preservers except

Snuffy Smith at the head of the line with his pillow in his arms.

He gave a squawk, jumped off the ladder and made the switch in

record time.

We reached North Ireland in early May and joined Co. A at

Camp Killadeas near Enniskillen on Lough (lake) Erne in the south

west corner of the country. I made staff Sgt. at this time and was

the non-com in charge of a platoon of four squads of about 12

each. If we strayed over the border we would have been interned.

We weren't that smart! Spent the summer and fall getting

organized, learned bailey bridging, lots of marching, and one

maneuver which didn't do much except wreck the local roads and

fields. We engineers spent most of the fall patching them.

Since they were usually a layer of stone and blacktop over peat,

we hauled rock for weeks from the quarries. Learned a little

about rock blasting but an old Irishman came up one day and

watched us for awhile. Finally he said "Yanks, we've been

quarryin' rock here for 30 year and this is the first time we

iver had stones bouncing about the village."

Co C and the 168th Inf. went to Scotland in the fall and

they surfaced again in North Africa at Algiers on Nov. 8, 1942.

We went to England and spent Christmas on the HMS Orontes in

Liverpool harbor. Had to sleep in hammocks which we strung up in

the holds at taps. The rest of the time we sat at picnic type

tables and ate English rations. Oatmeal porridge and tea in the

AM; fish, scalloped potatoes, and bread for lunch; dinner wasn't

much better. We went by Gibralter in blackout except the ships

were silhouetted against the bright lights of Tangiers across the

Strait. Landed in Oran and got our trucks and drove about 200

miles south to Tlemcen and camped in a race track. The rest of

the Division were all in the same area training and getting gear

together and we started to move by truck some 900 miles to

Tunisia along a road about 1-200 miles from the coast. Most of

the towns had Arab or French names but one was called McDonald.

Always thought there was a story there somewhere.

Some British troops and Commandos (a mixed group which some

of our guys had volunteered into- Kenny Scissions for one) had

tried to take Bizerte but the Germans had stopped them. The

lines were extended rapidly south along a ridge of small

mountains and we got plugged into some passes east and north of

Kasserine. We were all spread out and still only had 37 mm

antitank guns and no bazookas so the German armor had little

trouble breaking through south of us at Faid Pass and capturing

most of the 168th Combat Team including one platoon of Co. C of

the 109th Engrs. They were eventually stopped (or ran out of

gas!) as they started to move up the valley about 30 miles behind

us. We got a commendation for building and finding about 30

miles of road to pull our Combat Team back and established a line

to keep them to the south and prevent them from widening the

salient to the north of Faid and Kasserine.

The US Army got a lot of criticism over the defeat but at

least they finally started getting tanks with more than 37mm guns

and gave the antitank companies some British 57mm. We didn't get

Sherman tanks until Italy but the Grants had 75's even if they

didn't traverse! The Engrs. finally got a chance to work with

mines and booby traps- more then we wanted. We dug up and

disarmed the German and Italian mines and booby traps that were

used to train the rest of the Army. Had a few casualties but the

big loss was when a whole truckload of British mines blew up and

wiped out Wayne Satree's squad of 12 men from the third platoon.

Many of them had been mobilized with me.

The Germans had air superiority at this time and we got strafed

a few times and had to run for the ditches a time or two. Had one

bad shelling from some 88's while we were dug in a cactus patch but

only had one or two killed. The shrapnell would cut of some of the

cactus and the joke afterwards was the guy who yelled "I'm hit! No,

only a cactus!"

We went over onto the offensive and moved back through the

passes but Montgomery's Eighth squeezed us out so pulled back and

moved north to a road leading south and west of Tunis. The big

battle there was when the 34th took Hill 609 and broke through to

the west of Tunis. The whole thing collapsed then and we took

many prisoners and spent the next few weeks cleaning up minefields

and hauling truckloads of bombed and partially destroyed

ammunition dumps out of the Arab towns. Had some hairy times.

We would take it up into a ravine somewhere, put about 10

minutes of fuse on some of the mines and get out of there! Some

of the stuff would fly for hundreds of yards and explode when it

landed. Set an Arab wheatfield on fire from a bunch of 20mm HE

antiaircraft banana clips and I had to sign a release to the Arabs

to keep from getting lynched! Maybe not that bad but they were

definitely unhappy. I doubt if it had any value to them but it

calmed them down at the time.

The 34th skipped Sicily and moved back to Oran to train for

Italy. We weren't in the assault team but when the 36th Texas

Division couldn't get off the beach, we loaded in a hurry. But

by the time we got there the beachhead was secure and we moved

inland and started up the Italian boot. Little did we know that

we would be doing that for the next two years!

We leapfrogged infantry battalions against rearguard action.

The Germans would blow a culvert or bridge and hold us up for a

few hours with an SP gun and then drop back to the next spot.

Our platoon was leapfrogged up one night and told to bypass a

culvert where the 133rd Inf. had taken some casualties in the

afternoon. Lt. Belensky who had taken over my platoon in Ireland

pulled out his 45 and said "OK Sarge, lets go look at it" but

thought better. The next morning before daylight, we went through

the outpost line, swept for mines and took the bulldozer and

platoon to the bridge. We were back in a valley on the hillside

and the SP gun couldn't reach us but the 100th Hawaiian Battalion

moved past us and drew fire at the next corner. This was their

first action. After a few more of these, we came up to the

Volturno river and had to make an assault crossing with boats and

build pontoon bridges later. The resistance was stiffening and the

Infantry were taking casualties but not so many for us. That river

wound back and forth across the valley and we had to cross it twice

more. At least it was getting smaller as we moved up into the

mountains. An Engr. platoon had three line squads and a heavy

weapons squad in a half track for protection against planes. We had

air superiority now but they would still send in sneak attacks in

the mountain valleys. Most of my weapons squad was killed or

wounded in one of these attacks. We had been together about 3

years by then.

In December the cold and snow made the roads a big problem

and we did a lot of pick and shovel work. We were trying to

cross the large mountain in front of Cassino and the resistance

got stiff. The Infantry lost a lot of people and we lost a few

to plane attacks and mines. My platoon and company commanders

were lost to a bouncing betty mine. They were both top-notch and

had come to us in Ireland. I was in charge of the platoon after

that although one or two green 2nd Lt's went with me for

experience on a few missions. One night we were ordered to

repair a blown bridge. Our Infantry held one ridge and the

Germans the next along the side of the mountain. The bridge was

back in the valley between the two. I took the platoon through

the outpost and we scouted and swept the road for mines up to the

gap in the road. Since I needed to know how much water was in

the stream, I crawled through the dirt and rubble to the waters

edge feeling for mines in the dark. I waded the small stream to

get an idea of how big a culvert we needed. We went back and

built it and the next night we took the bulldozer and the culvert

back in following the Infantry. We got the bypass in by noon but

we knew we were under observation and they gave us the most

concentrated artillery workup I had in the war. We eventually

moved up the stream and got on the reverse side of a hill that

was apparently the same slope as the incoming shells. They just

seemed to shave us and explode about 50 yards past. Had two guys

wounded and my jeep driver, Ole Davis, had to be carried out.

That was his third wound but the only serious one.

The Division was relieved after 75 days on the line for Xmas

and I had my first 3-day pass since going overseas. Had 3 days in

Naples and got to see Pompeii but not much else to do. We went

back into action by New Years and walked over the mountain from

Venafro toward Cassino. We were up on the rocks and snow for about

two weeks with one blanket and a shelter half building mule trails

and checking for personnel mines. Since we couldn't dig in, we

would make forts with rocks but actually didn't get shelled much

there at all. It took us a full day to walk back for our trucks

and equipment and we drove around and caught up with the

Infantry who had walked on down and closed up to the Rapido

River in front of Cassino.

Books have been written about that battle so I won't go into

much detail. After the 36th lost the best part of two regiments

trying to cross in the valley below Cassino, the 34th had to

cross the flooded Rapido above the town. It was a very tough

crossing and we lost a lot of people to mines and artillery. We

were only at part strength anyway but got across after several

days and got a toehold on the mountain. While the rest of the

Division worked on up the mountain, the 133 Inf. with "A" in

support turned left along the edge of the mountain and pushed

into the town itself. This was our first experience at house-

to-house and even room-to-room fighting. Tried the old flame

throwers but they wouldn't ignite when we needed them. There was

a drainage ditch along the north side of town and we spent one

night passing stones from hand to hand laying on our backs to

make a tank crossing since the Germans were in the next building.

Spent another night depositing 3 wooden box culverts further

down the ditch.(see page 18) Arnold Brown and I had slipped in and

reconned it the night before so the 3 culverts fit nicely. A tank

wrecker would bring in a section and we would help lower it into

place. We would then duck back under the concrete slab bridge the

Germans had blown because the noise brought in all kinds of fire.

After the third section, they really hit us with rockets and

artillery but with the concrete slab over us and the ends forted

up, we had no trouble. After about 10 minutes they stopped and

the new Lt. asked me if it wasn't time to go. I said not yet.

This was partly hunch but I knew that they might recognize the

pattern after the 3 trips of the tank wrecker and expect a

fourth. I was right since about 10 minutes later they hit us

with another mess of stuff. When it stopped, I said lets go now

and we didn't get a single shot as we pulled out. We were in an

olive grove across the valley from the Monastery and about level

with it and went into the town during darkness only.

I had probably my closest shave there. The road into town

from the north was the supply line and the Germans had machine

and SP guns at the end of the road and could sweep it clean. We

would leave the road and come in over the rubble and through the

walls that still were standing. As I came through one doorway, a

shell, probably 20mm, went by my neck so close I could feel the

heat at a single point. It exploded behind me but my reflexes

were good and I was already flat on the ground. Shells pick up a

lot of heat from air resistance in a long trajectory.

We had a perfect spot to see the bombing of the Abbey and it

did a lot for our morale since we were sure the Germans were in

it and looking right at us. History says otherwise but the Div.

lost over 2000 men on that mountain and after 6 weeks of the mud

and snow and shelling, the Abbey didn't seem very important to

us. The Infantry took most of the casualties as always. The

last battalion of the 133rd that was relieved in the town had 45

walking out of about 900 normal strength. Of course many of

those were wounded and came back and some were lost before we got

to the Rapido as well. The folks sent me a letter that a Dale

Henderson who had married cousin Allen Hullinger's sister Myrtle,

was in the 34 Div. Infantry. I went to see him and found that he

had made Sgt. and been wounded and shipped back in about a months

time so I didn't get to meet him till after the war. Myrtle, her

mother and little brother were killed in a train accident near

Butler, Ind. about this time.

We were relieved in mid February 1943 and went back for

replacements and got our equipment in order. We then went to the

Anzio beachhead but the heavy fighting was over there by that

time. I made First Sgt. then and had a relatively safe job

spending most of my time in Company Hdqtrs. about 2 miles inland.

The platoons went out at night to lay wire and mines in front of

the Infantry and it was so flat that we lost several non-coms and

old timers due to machine gun fire. A different type of war

negates the experience factor.

Sgt. Dan Harding who took over my platoon when I made First

Sgt. had them laying concertina wire in front of an infantry

position one night. They saw these two soldiers in a foxhole and

moved the wire out to include them. Dan went over to them and

asked them how it was going. They answered in German! Turned out

it was a German outpost with two very scared recruits in it. He

promptly took them prisoner and the barbed wire line made a sharp

bend at that point. (See page 19)

We had several air raids there but the ack-ack was so intense

that the Luftwaffe stayed high and didn't hurt much. They had a 15

inch Railroad gun in a tunnel up in the mountains that made a lot

of noise but didn't hit much most of the time. It was about 25

miles away and you could hear a boom when it fired, the sonic boom

when it broke the sound barrier on the way back down, and the

explosion when it hit. It took about 5 seconds for all this to

happen and you can do a lot in 5 seconds when the motivation is

right!

In May as we were getting ready to break out, I had an

appendicitis attack and was operated on the tent hospital. The

ward boy who came in to shave me used a double edge blade in a

pair of forceps. In addition he was shell shocked and every time

a shell came over he would flinch and look up at the top of the

tent. I knew it would be a funny story to tell if a shell didn't

get too close but I didn't laugh until later!

I was sent back to Naples on a hospital ship and got back to

the Company in July after they had moved through Rome and on up

close to Leghorn. Col. Coffey (the football coach from SDSC who

had been a Captain in the guard, stayed in and made general after

the war) offered me a field commission to 2nd Lt. So I gave up my

safe spot as 1st Sgt. and went back to platoon leader in "B" Co.

which was originally men from Huron and Hot Springs. Went to Rome

with Don Byerly of Huron who had also been a 1st Sgt to get

officers uniforms and see the sights. I got another break then and

got 3 months as Asst. Adjutant assigned to Div. rear which was

really out of danger. In the meantime the Div. moved through

Florence and on up into the mountains to the north to another

defensive line. They had some hard fighting and almost broke

through into the Po valley. I rejoined "B" Co. in Nov. but we were

about fought out by then and after some attacks which didn't go

anywhere, the generals went on hold until spring. We still got

involved in patrolling, mines, and maintaining roads and mule

trails and had a few narrow escapes but nothing major.

Morale was pretty low, especially in the Infantry. By this

time they had most of the 21,000 casualties that the Div. had by

war end. The few oldtimers that were left had been overseas 3

years and knew that the only way to survive was to get wounded bad

enough to be sent home. From where we were in the mountains, we

could look north and see the tops of the Alps on a clear day. We

figured we would be there for the next winter and they were higher

and colder than anything we had seen so for. Anyway, quite a few

would deliberately do something to be court martialled and put into

the stockade. For a while, we would take details of stockade

prisoners out to work on roads but they knew we had no way to make

them work and we hated the job anyway.

Some of them were battle fatigued enough so they should have

been sent back. As soon as a shell came in they scattered like a

covey of quail so Headquarters stopped that practice. We had been

a very good division when we came to Italy but were never very good

after Cassino. But after a winter of not much fighting, and with

the weather warming up, things started looking up again. I was

promoted to 1st Lt. which was fairly automatic at this time.

The European front started to collapse in the spring and by

the time we jumped off in May, the Germans didn't have much left

and we broke into the Po valley and it was a rat race from then

on. We first swung left up to block any Germans in the mountains

west of Bologna, and then made another loop across the Po to trap

the Germans who had been on the France/Italian border west of

Milan. The whole division was on the road with our lights on as

we moved west towards Milan when we met a convoy of Germans in

trucks driving in blackout. They were full of soldiers heading

for the Brenner Pass. There were no guards or anything and we

never knew if they had already surrendered or not. If not,

meeting a full division with lights on coming from what was your

supply line and homeland, would be a real morale buster.

They had started giving furloughs a few months before to

about one man per company per month. My name came up then and I

flew back to Naples in a DC-3 about 3 days after the surrender in

Italy and had VE day in a transient camp in Naples. They

wouldn't let us go into town to celebrate! We were given a

choice of going home by ship or plane. I chose plane but should

have been warned since the Air Corp men were choosing ships. They

left shortly but we waited weeks for planes. Finally they loaded

us onto a B-17 that had been stripped of bomb racks, turrets, and

had benches along the side. As the only officer, I was asked to

ride in the jump seat behind the pilot. They had replaced the top

turret with a flat piece of plexiglass which blew out when we got

going and shards flew all around but didn't seem to hurt anything.

The bomber pilots were very unhappy since hauling people was way

beneath their dignity. The co-pilot changed seats with me so he

could sleep and the pilot put the plane on automatic and dozed off

too.

I was enjoying myself until I saw another B-17 converging from

the right. I eyeballed it and estimated that we would probably

miss by at least 200 yards so wasn't too concerned. But after

years of traveling at a maximum of 30MPH, I had no concept of

closing speeds at 350MPH. When he crossed in front of us at about

400 yards, the pilot woke up very quickly and stayed awake all the

way to Casablanca.

No one had bothered to tell Casablanca that we were coming

and that they were going to get 10 plane loads a day at this

transition point to the Zone of Interior. So it took a week to

find another plane, a regular transport C-54 with plush seats and

the works. We flew south over the Sahara to Dakar, refueled at

night, and were in Natal, Brazil by morning. While refueling, a

baggage truck backed into the plane and we waited 3 days for

a bucket seat C-54. We took off and were over the Amazon

estuary when an engine gave out. We still had 3 but turned back

and landed at Belem, Brazil and waited four days for another

engine. Finally got to Miami, took a train to Minneapolis and

Vivian, SD in June, 1945. It was almost 4 years since I had

been there and had been overseas 3.5 years. I had over 500 days

of combat and never wounded and no psychological problems. (in my

unbiased opinion!) I had a lot of good luck. Soldiers that

survive the first few days of combat learn a lot. You listen all

the time to know what's going on and where the action is. You

watch constantly to stay out of observation and to have a hole or

a ditch or even a depression picked out to get into if necessary.

You develop some automatic practices that stay with you for

months or years. Thunder storms gave me some trouble for a while

and I listened to every plane that came over since the German

multi-engine planes had a different sound that we could identify.

I really enjoyed 30 days at home. I then reported to Fort

Sam Houston in San Antonio where I stayed about three weeks, and

was then sent to Belvoir, Va. with a delay in route to go to SD

again. Stayed 30 days to help Dad and my brother Jack and little

sisters get the harvest in. The atom bomb and VJ day at this time

made my expected assignment to the Pacific moot and I was

discharged on October, 1945.

Fini le Guerre, Fini le Armee.

Except for the killed and severely wounded, it didn't seem to

hurt us permanently. We hadn't heard of Post Traumatic Stress

Syndrome so were not alarmed when loud noises or low flying planes

made us jump or hit the ground. I couldn't stay still in violent

thunder storms for about a year but got over it as did most of the

rest of the men. Most of us had fathers or uncles in WW I and sort

of expected that reaction. Drugs weren't an option but alcohol

consumption was considered normal and several of the men have since

died from alcoholism. However I have never seen any evidence that

alcoholism was any more common in veterans than in comparable

populations. It sure doesn't seem to be related to the amount or

severity of combat experience.

AFTERMATH:

After the war, I re-enrolled at SDSU in the middle of my

junior year right where I had left 5 years before. I thought I

might be rusty so cracked the books hard and got better grades than

I ever had. The GI bill made it possible to go farther than I

would have. Got my BS and MS at SDSU and got a fellowship to

Purdue where I completed the academic work for my Ph.D. in

biochemistry. Went to work at American Maize in Hammond, Indiana

in 1950 and stayed 32 years as Research Chemist, Dir. of Research,

and Production Manager before retiring in 1982. I have had several

consulting jobs overseas since, and play a lot of golf and bridge.

I married Louise Liffengren from Draper, SD while we were at

SDSU on June 6, 1946. The fact that that was the first anniversary

of D-day has no significance! We had four children. One has

passed away but two are near Chicago and one in Montana. We see

our six grandchildren frequently and have lived in the same house

in the south west corner of Chicago since 1950. We have traveled

to all the states and many foreign countries including Italy. It

looks a lot better now than it did then.

Clif Hullinger

10628 S. Lawndale

Chicago, Il 60655

Clifhull@juno.com

Written June 6, 1995

Revised slightly September 1999