Ecuperating - Chapter 33

There followed many pages of text describing the building of the lodge. It was not known yet as lodge 16, for Eric evidently didn’t know how many people would eventually be invited to participate in his plans for a lodge. He only knew the lodge would be a haven for heroes of the past war.

He only knew he wanted to do something for those men who gave so much of themselves. Jayne was not interested in the particulars of the construction. It was sufficient for her to know that it was built and completed in the fall of 1945.

Robert Calwell.

5th Army Intelligence September, 1944

For the United States, the war in Italy began on September 8th, 1943, with the invasion by the 5th army. It culminated with the surrender on May 2, 1945.

I was a runner for the 2nd division during that time. Runners are soldiers who would carry information from one position to another when it was impossible for it to happen any other way. Every army in history has had its runners.

Before the advent of radio, that was the only way information could be had by the various sections of an army. We never carried the traditional rifle. All we had was a pistol.

The funny part of it was both we and the Germans had the same idea as far as runners were concerned.

Many times I would see German runners traveling much the same route as I did, just one ridge over. We would wave to one another almost every day. It got so we recognized one another. There seemed to be an unwritten law out there; we wouldn’t shoot at their runners, and they wouldn’t shoot at ours.

We were somewhere south of Rome, in some sharp hills that were all but mountains. On Feb 7th, 1944, I had just brought a bunch of papers to another company a bit to the west of us and was headed back to my outfit. I passed a range of hills and heard a lot of shooting through a cut in the hills. It looked like an old river bed that had cut through these hills sometime in the past. It was all grown up and was more like a tunnel than a stream bed.

I was curious so I sneaked along the old stream bed for about a half mile. When I broke through the hills I could see the Germans had a lot of GI’s pinned down. The Americans hadn’t found this stream bed or they would have been able to escape. I sneaked around the German right flank and contacted the Americans. There were 22 of them left.

I led them one by one to the dry stream bed and eventually out the other side of the hills and back to my outfit.

The after action report an hour later asked me if it was possible to get a small force through the stream bed back to the German line on the other side of the range of hills. I led that force back through the dry stream bed that night and by morning we had outflanked the German line there and pushed it back three miles to the north.

For the first action they gave me the Silver Star. For the second the Bronze Star. I was wounded in the action and was sent back to the States in June. A few months later I joined Eric Tanner in the building of a lodge in the Seney Swamp.

There were four of us in the lodge and that summer we finished it. The main purpose of the lodge, according to Eric, is to provide a haven for the heroes of the war. I don’t consider myself a hero, but it is nice to talk to people who have similar experiences. I’ll probably stick around awhile. Especially since this property seems to abound in wildlife.

I love hunting, and what better place than this one? And Eric is footing the bill! Can hardly beat that!

Hans was a German U-Boat captain who befriended Eric. He and his family are living in a town near here. He has a large family and I found out during the summer that Eric will be footing the bill for the education of all his kids through college. Yes, I think I’ll stick around awhile, especially since I plan to have a large family myself.

I have a start on it. My wife and I have one boy, Mark, and another child is on the way. This is a nice country and my engineering degree will do me well in any community we settle in.

Footnote:

Robert Calwell is credited for saving the lives of all 22 of the soldiers he led to safety that day in 1944. The Silver Star was given him only because he is not credited with killing any of the enemy in the process. The Army was criticized for not awarding him the Congressional Medal of Honor for that action.

Colonel Robert “Lucky” Anderson 2nd Marines August, 1946.

I first ran into Eric Tanner at the dedication of the new American Legion building in Munising, Michigan. I was born in Munising and had gone back there after the war. We were both looking at the role of veterans listed under glass on the front lawn of the building.

Later we even rolled a few lines of bowling on the new lanes in the basement.

Eric invited me to join his lodge that day after he had heard of my war record from the rest of the crowd there. One of the things I had to do was to write this document for the archives of the lodge.

Eric has it in his mind to create the lodge for the benefit of special veterans of which he thinks I’m one.

I joined the Navy on the day I turned 17 in 1942. I trained as a coxswain and was running one of the first boats to land troops on Iwo Jima. I lost power when I hit the beach so I went ashore with the troops. I wasn’t prepared or armed well enough to survive and when I saw a dead soldier I took his uniform and his gear. It wasn’t until much later that I found the uniform belonged to a captain.

I was somewhat confused to find the men looking to me for leadership, but too damn busy to worry about it. I led the men up the beach and moved along the beach to lead others through the flack. A few days later a colonel gave me a field promotion to Major and another week saw me as a Lt. Colonel, leading most of the right flank into the island.