39th Infantry Regiment

Heroes

America’s soldiers in World War II come from all corners of America – the teeming cities of the northeast, the rural south, the golden sun of California, the farms of the Midwest, coal country of Appalachia, cold country of Minnesota and even from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation somewhere on the endless Dakota plains. Some are illiterate, needing their buddies to help them read letters from home; others are college boys from schools like “Ole Miss,” University of Maryland, Santa Monica Junior College, University of Kansas, and Bradley Polytechnic Institute.

Jay Lavinsky (now Jay Lavin)

But college boys are in the minority; most start work at an early age to help the family, and a lot of them are more familiar with hard manual labor than they ever wanted to be.  A couple have dangerous jobs up in towering treetops as lumberjacks, or deep underground as coalminers.  Several toil on hard-scrabble farms, another is a harbor dredger under the scorching Georgia sun.  One stands in front of a hot plate hoping someday to own a small restaurant; another crouches behind home plate chasing his dream of playing catcher in the Major Leagues.

A few are married; a few are spoken for; the rest think they are God’s gift to women.  Descended from Austrian, German, Italian, Russian, French, Scottish, Irish, Lithuanian, English, Danish, Canadian, Swiss, Mexican, Korean, Filipino, Swedish, Romanian, Ukrainian, and Polish immigrant parents, they have nicknames like Mac, Hawk, Kenny, Willie, Noodles, Timber, Doc, Vito, Candy, Greek, Buster, Bulldog, Porky and Russian. Not all are born across the fruited plain and are more than happy to tell you about the “old country” of Scotland, Austria, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Poland, the Philippines, Greece, China, Norway, Canada…. or Texas.

They all would give their eye teeth to see their mothers just one more time; ladies with names of Pearl, Anne, Fern, Edith, Eva, Pauline, Rose, Tarcila, Grace, Estelle, Antonetta, Ruth, Lupe, Elena, Apie, Ella Fair, Margaret, Maria, Minnie, and Lillie Mae, because every mother thinks that her own son is the cat’s meow.  And while each son would trade a few of his tomorrows to be sitting at Mom’s kitchen table tonight, not a one of them one wants to become a Gold Star in her window.

Gold Star Mothers flag , in the window of Mothers who lost a son or ...

Jay Harvey Lavinsky, at the top of the page, was in Company B, winning two Bronze Stars with V for Valor, before being wounded by six German machine gun bullets outside a small village in Germany on March 4, 1945.  However, six days before that, before the dawn’s early light on February 28, something very tragic happened as Company B advances against small arms fire, mines and self-propelled gunfire at the western edge of Berg, two miles southeast of Nideggen.  Jay Lavinsky and Harry Nodell, who Jay calls “Brooklyn,” are involved in street-clearing operations.  In the dark night, Jay cautiously leads part of the squad, supported by a bazooka team, down the left side of a street, when he hears German drifting from a basement window and tosses a hand grenade through it.  On the right side of the street, Nodell spots a German half-track and approaches it, despite a cry of alarm from Lavinsky.  The vehicle’s machine gun drops Brooklyn with a lethal burst.  As other soldiers engage the enemy, Jay runs to his fallen comrade and holds him in his arms, screaming: “Listen you son of a bitch; you better not die on me!”  Harry looks Jay in the face, winks, smiles, and dies in his arms.  Jay will go several days before a change of clothes is available to swap for his blood-soaked uniform – drenched with the blood of his closest friend in the world.

“Brooklyn” Harry Nodell

“Brooklyn’ Nodell left a wife and two young daughters behind.  Mollie never remarried.  He became a Gold Star in his mother Agnes’ window.  Jay survived the six bullets and subsequent five operations, and is now almost 99 years old.  He is in a wheel chair and in the last fight of his life, because at least here on this Earth, a person cannot avoid “the Grim Reaper.”  The Veteran’s Administration worked miracles and got Jay into long-term care at their West Palm Beach facility, and Jay is taking that fight to the later rounds in boxing terms, because there is no quit in Jay.  He knows all about that because when he was young, a family friend in his hometown of Philly is like an uncle to Jay – Barney Lebrowitz, who boxes under the name of “Battling Levinsky,” former light heavyweight champion of the world.  Jay learns as much of the “sweet science” as he can from “Uncle Barney” and departs for England on April 5, 1944 to fight for America in some pretty rough places like the Hürtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge and the Siegfried Line, where German machine guns are nicknamed “Hitler’s buzz saw” or the chilling-nickname “bone-saw,” one of which got Jay.

So if you live in Florida and see Jay Lavin (his father changed their name after the war,) or see a World War II veteran anywhere you live, reach out and give them a hand — in thanks but also in helping them do the little things in life like walking out to get the newspaper, or even cutting the old-timer’s grass.

Over 400,000 military personnel made the ultimate sacrifice for us in that war.  Just don’t just say “thanks for your service”: do something special for them.

Heroes2023-07-15T17:13:22-05:00

Why Did I Write This Book?

The book on my father’s World War II unit, the 39th Infantry Regiment, has been submitted to the editors at Schiffer Publishing, who will work their magic to turn it into something you will love to read.  So what is it all about?  In short, the story is about one tiny American Army infantry company that fought for our country for several years in World War II.  But it’s a lot more than that.

Once upon a time, the forces of evil came within a razor’s edge of plunging the world into a second Dark Age.  Many, many nations answered the call to defend civilization, but only one – the United States of America – could tip the balance of fate to victory for the defenders of what was good and right.  And she did.

America won the war with a huge industrial base.  She won it with a unity of effort seldom seen before and never seen since.  She won it by bringing women and minorities into the war effort.  She won it with magnificent technology.  She won it with a few senior leaders in each military service and in Washington who had the remarkable foresight to comprehend the new character of this war and how it would be conducted.  But most of all she won it with a bunch of boys who stood on God-forsaken battlefields around the world and in their own brazen and cocky manner snarled at their foe: “Not today Tojo; not today Benito; not today Adolf.  Not today, not tomorrow; not ever.  To get to where you want to go, Adolf, you have to go through us.  And that ain’t happening.”

The cost of that victory was monumental – which is why we have so many monuments around the world to remember their sacrifice.  Unlike in many other nations, however, most of America’s monuments are not triumphal arches or palisaded promenades, but rather her military cemeteries, unfortunately filled to the brim with her heroes.  In World War II the United States of America lost 407,316 military dead – enough that almost every city, town, and village lost loved ones.  As to civilian deaths worldwide, the slaughter estimates range from 45 million to 95 million – and the only reason America did not suffer millions of civilian deaths at home is because these same young Americans stopped the enemy before they could get here.

There have been thousands of books written about the war, maybe tens of thousands, based primarily on records and reports, and the accounts of senior officers.  And many are excellent.  But there has always been a problem.  The enlisted men and women of America who fought World War II were notoriously reticent about discussing their experiences.  Called “The Greatest Generation,” they should also have been dubbed “The Silent Generation.”  Not only were they closed-mouthed, many seemed proud that they “wouldn’t talk” to the extent that children and grandchildren, maybe even you, of these soldiers came to the conclusion that even if they waterboarded “Old Gramps” – which they would never do to such a beloved person – he wasn’t talking, so why bother because everyone was just going to get wet.

Maybe it was because my father was so closed mouthed about the war that I wrote this book.  Once in a while, you could get a few grunts and groans out of the old man if you were lucky, but he was of the mind that the war was a chapter of life already finished and better off not to be re-read.  My brother and I would get a hint of his experiences when Dad stormed into our bedrooms each school-day morning, screaming at the top of his lungs in German to get out of bed, turning on every light, throwing back the curtains and, when he was in a particularly charitable mood, opening the windows all the way on frosty-cold mornings to ensure that you got out of bed – quickly.

Dad had spent some “quality time” as a prisoner of war (POW) at some place in Germany called Stalag VI G and obviously wanted his two sons – who had designs on attending West Point – to get used to catching hell like he did every morning there at that camp when a German sergeant did the same thing.

We are going to try to get their story right, in spite of their reluctance in life to talk much about the war.  Of course, each one would insist that we not talk about his own efforts, but remember his buddies instead, saying that they were the real heroes, and what they were able to accomplish together.  All were unique, and it was this individuality that made every other soldier better.

“A soldier can be a hero and a hero can be a legend and a legend can make a superman out of a soldier.”  You will read about all about that; in fact, the intent of the book is to put you right alongside of the soldiers of Company B, 39th Infantry Regiment – in the same foxhole.  You’ll start your journey at Fort Bragg, North Carolina where the division is formed.  Then its’ off to England in 1942 and then we’re all going to Algeria, Tunisia and Sicily; we’ll see combat in each.  After that it’s Normandy, France, and then we’ll head east to Belgium.  This fighting is tough, but you’ll think the war will be over by Christmas.  It won’t be.  Your next stop is the Hürtgen Forest.  If you survive that, and a lot of us didn’t, it’s on to another miserable place, the Hohes Venn.  Then it’s Merode Castle (see photo above) and then Elsenborn Ridge in the Battle of the Bulge.  The castle, built in 1263, has five-story towers, and a wide moat with 7-foot-deep, cold water.  There is one entrance – a narrow bridge twelve feet wide, covered by machine gun fire.  Getting into that castle, borrowing a phrase from poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, you will be “stormed at with shot and shell.”

In January 1945 we’ll try and get warm and attack the vaunted Siegfried Line, where concrete bunkers have machine guns we call “Hitler’s buzz saws” or “Kraut bone saws” and when you hear them firing, you’ll know why.  Then you’ll see the inside of a German POW camp.  You’ll lose a lot of weight, be infested with fleas and lice, suffer constant diarrhea, get no hot showers, sleep three to a bunk, and see guys drop from typhus – while angry guard dogs try to bite you.

Meanwhile, Company B keeps fighting to the end of the war in Europe.  It is a rough time and casualties continue at an alarming rate right through the end and a lot of our buddies died.  After that, however, everyone did not just pack up their gear and head home.  What would happen with Japan, how long will the occupation of Germany last, what is the system for a soldier to return home?  Finally, there is a Conclusion and Epilogue; save them for last.  Some of the book is sad; but much is funny, which could be offensive to some readers.  But no less an authority than famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle had this to say about humor in war.

“It would be wrong to say that war is all grim; if it were, the human spirit could not survive two and three and four years of it… As some soldier once said, the Army is good for one ridiculous laugh per minute.  Our soldiers are still just as roughly good-humored as they always were, and they laugh easily, although there isn’t as much to laugh about as there used to be.”

At the end of most chapters you will find a total of over fifty special topics under the category of “School of the Soldier,” an old Army term that has to do with teaching a soldier the really important stuff in the Army and how to survive, so you can tell their story when they wouldn’t.

History is the oxygen for storytelling; and storytelling is the essence of humanity.  Once upon a time, your father, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers became part of that history which fueled a legend that should never die – in part because so many of them did.  Your mother, grandmothers and great-grandmothers were legends too, sometimes in combat areas – such as the Philippines, where 77 Army nurses, the “Angels of Bataan and Corregidor,” were forced by the enemy on a 68-mile “death march” without food or water in 100-degree temperatures – or back home working in dangerous factory jobs building the Arsenal of Democracy.  Now it is up to you whether that legend is passed down to your children and grandchildren, or whether you let that legend die.  Because legends don’t die with a bang; they die with a whimper.

You might ask: “Why is it up to me to keep their story alive?”  Because you would fit right in with us in Company B.  How do we know?  When something in life knocks you down, and you get back up on your feet, wipe the blood off your nose with your sleeve, and say: “Is that all you’ve got?” you’re in Company B.  If people have told you that you were too small, or too slow or too anything, and you went out and proved them wrong, you’re in Company B.  If you ever saw someone bullied by a group of people bigger than you and you jumped in to help that person, you’re in Company B.

You love dogs?  In 1942, a young soldier found a stray dog in the Aleutian Islands, and took care of him until he was reassigned to the States.  Putting the dog, named Buff, in his duffel bag, the trooper took him on the journey.  Months later the soldier climbed aboard a troopship – Buff hidden again in his duffle bag – and went to Europe and Company B, where Buff served as a mascot and helped pull guard duty.  So if you love dogs, you’re in Company B.  And if you love to read a book about American soldiers, then you’re in Company B, too.

 

Why Did I Write This Book?2023-07-07T17:30:33-05:00

My Hero

Mac MacLean

The best soldier I ever knew, my father, died on July 28, 2015 at St. Mary’s Hospital in Decatur, Illinois.  He was 91 and oddly enough, he passed away on the exact seventh anniversary of my mother’s death.

Thank you to everyone who knew him and was nice to him.  I may have been a colonel, but he was the general of the family.  The following is his obituary that appeared in the Decatur Herald & Review:

Myron D. MacLean.  I lost my hero on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, when he passed away at St. Mary’s Hospital in Decatur, Illinois.  He happened to be my father.  Born on September 4, 1923 in Peoria, “Mac” graduated from Peoria High School before attending Bradley University for two years prior to serving as an Infantryman in Company B, 1st Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment in the Hürtgen Forest and Battle of the Bulge in World War II.  Mac always claimed he made corporal; my mother insisted that he topped out at private first class.  At any rate, he was wounded several times, received a Silver Star and Combat Infantryman’s Badge and – after his last wound – he came to looking down the business end of a German assault rifle.  Years later, my brother David and I would watch “Hogan’s Heroes” on television and the young lad made the mistake of asking Dad if that was what a prisoner of war camp was like; he received a scowl as an answer.

To paraphrase the movie “Rudy,” Dad was “5 foot nothin’, 100 and nothin’,” and yet I saw him smash drive after drive each one straight as an arrow and close to 300 yards on the golf course, while I caddied for him.  I remember one memorable round when he carded a 69 – no mulligans, no winter rules, no TV tap-ins, no kicking the ball out of the rough when nobody’s looking, because Dad said it was more important to do the right thing when no one was looking than it was when they were – just a pure 69.  I think he won two bucks that morning and I know he paid me four.  He liked Jack and Tiger, but he loved Arnie – living and dying with his hero during charge after charge on the final day of a major.

Dad also loved Caterpillar, his granddaughters Heather and Megan, and most of all he loved my Mom, Julie Lane MacLean.  They had been married 60 years when she passed away in 2008; also on July 28.  For the last several years of her life, the saints at Decatur Memorial Hospital provided her with a restful life, while Dad went over for every meal to help her eat – knowing that she would never again be able to say the words, “Thank You.”  And over the last few days, the wonderful people at St. Mary’s did the same for Dad, making his last hours peaceful.

Knowing that I would never be able to swing a golf club like Dad, I went to West Point – as did David, who is now in London – in part to see if I could catch the old man as a soldier.  After thirty years in the Army, I realized I was chasing an apparition that I could never catch, let alone surpass.  And I am happy in that knowledge; because that’s the way it is supposed to be with your hero.

My Hero2023-07-07T17:30:03-05:00

Merode Castle

Merode Castle in the Hürtgen Forest

Both the 1st Infantry Division and the 9th Infantry Division tried to wrest this formidable fortress from the German 3rd Fallschirmjäger Division.  The 39th Infantry Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division finally succeeded on December 12, 1944.  We will visit the scene of the fighting.  Here is a rare view of the castle from 70 years ago.

Merode Castle before the Fight

Merode Castle2016-01-13T18:02:11-06:00
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