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Clarence Whistler read about his own funeral
Editor's Note: This is the final installment of Clarence Whistler's account of his experiences during World War II.
By Nemoa Foreman
Special to the Daily Mail
As we were going through a small town and I was thinking about how glad I was that we were far enough from the front lines that the American artillery couldn't reach us, a shell landed right in the road. We all scattered to each side and I chose to slide under a German tank for protection against shrapnel. Another shell or two landed and then it was quiet. The German guarding us began to shout, but we reassured him that we were all here.
Another time we stayed in a farmhouse situated in an area much like Kansas wheat fields. When it came time for some of us to go get the food for all the rest I was selected along with another fellow and the guard accompanied us to the next farmhouse. We were just sitting in the front room and watching an officer come in and out of another door. A German sergeant was there in the room and when we noticed two pans sitting on the stove we made motions to eat what was left. He indicated that it was all right and we divided the slaw in one pan and the potatoes in the other so we had some extra ration that night. That night we slept in the barn with the animals, which was quite cozy.
While we were here in this area we were compelled to shovel snow off the highways during the night on account of aircraft and stayed out of sight during the day. This is when I missed my gloves so much, but we were getting the same food the Germans were getting.
We shipped out on trucks to a small town close to some mountains and just outside the town was a camp for transient prisoners of war. While we were here we were lumberjacks all day every day. We cut up a lot of wood, but at least we had warm quarters to sleep in. One day they gave us a chance to take a shower and told us the water would only be on for 3 minutes.
When we left this camp we were loaded on boxcars to travel to the next camp. There were so many of us that half had to stand up while the other half sat down. I didn't want to be next to the sliding door because everyone used that area for a bathroom making it very undesirable especially after a couple of days. After three days and three nights were allowed to disembark in the railroad station in Limburg, Germany and marched out to the prisoner of war camp at the edge of town.
The camp was sectioned off according to nationalities except that the British were in with the Americans. Other sections contained French, Russians and Indians (from India). Everyday we had roll call, but we learned from some of the other guys not to answer so we wouldn't be shipped any farther back in Germany. There wasn't much food and all we received was reconstituted dry milk every morning and a slice of black bread laced with sawdust. In the evening we would have barley soup and once in a while a patty of meat. There was no way to cook so we just ate the meat raw. On Saturday night we had barley soup with potatoes and that really was good, but we were losing weight all the time.
Nighttime was the worst time of all. Just before the last rays of light left I took off my undershirt and picked the body lice off, but during the night more would hatch out and sometimes I could catch one as he crawled across my waistline. Since we were mostly on a liquid diet everybody had to get up six or seven times at night to relieve ourselves in the big vat that was placed on the back porch of the building. We were not allowed to leave the barrack at night to use the latrine under penalty of death. The latrine was simply a building with the walls lined with stools, which were inlaid with wood. Everything was caught in the basement and when it filled it was pumped out into carts with tanks and they used it on their fields for growing crops.
In the mornings there was a group assigned to clean out the end of the barrack that was the hospital. Dysentery was prevalent and every morning bodies were passed out through a window for burial. I was on the group to help clean out the buckets the sick in the hospital used in the night. The reason for being on this detail was to receive an extra ration of milk. I became in charge of the detail. It was a dangerous job messing around with those buckets because they carried the dysentery.
My second shower came when four of us were told to carry a lieutenant in the town of Limburg. The officers were separated from the enlisted men. We took him to a building there in the camp and helped him take his clothes off. Then we took ours off and we all had a shower while the workers steamed our clothes, which were contaminated with body lice. Then we helped him dress and loaded him into a two wheeled cart and pushed him in to town. While we were there we had an extra ration of barley soup. By the time we started back night was coming on and the bombers began to fly over. One plane came down low and set off a flare at which time the guard wanted to get up next to a large building, but we objected and kept moving toward the camp.
One day I was standing out in the compound and noticed a German soldier was having a Russian dig potatoes which had been previously stored. The Russian didn't do something right because the German raised his rifle and hit the man in the back of the head with the butt, but it didn't seem to bother him because he got right up and began to dig again
Once in a while we had ivory soap in the Red Cross parcels and since our compound was next to the Russians we would toss some soap over the fence and they would toss some tobacco back in a little bag. They ate the soap and called it sweet lard. That was the strongest tobacco with which I was ever acquainted. Also the garbage sump was in the Russians' compound and I frequently saw some of them rummaging in there for a scrap.
Every Sunday everybody went to church. There was an early service for the Catholics and then a later service for the Protestants. A British chaplain conducted both services. There was also a small library of paperback books that had been included in the Red Cross parcels. For other entertainment four of us organized a singing quartet and we sang old songs and new songs for the different barracks.
Everyday there was an air raid on Limburg and we were in a position to watch. The fighter planes would swoop down toward the town with their machine guns blazing and then drop a bomb. The German guns were shooting at them all the time just behind them and I never saw one get hit or come down. When the bombers came over I could not imagine that we had so many. It looked like the whole sky was filled with them and they droned over what seemed like hours
The front lines moved in so close that something had to be done so the Germans made arrangements to move us all out by train. So we were loaded on the familiar boxcars, which numbered about 50, and we traveled only at night for fear of the fighter planes. At one point we were in a tunnel overnight, but when morning came they moved our train out on a straight track and moved an ammunition train under the tunnel, but left several cars sticking out. That day the clouds broke and the fighters came in strafing the few cars out of the tunnel and those cars blew up all day. But after the planes strafed that train they headed for our train and I could see them making a run across the middle, which contained the officers. The German guards promptly opened the doors and a great mound of men fell out onto the ground. By the time I jumped out I could see the German guard lying on the ground and I supposed he was dead.
As I ran across the field I saw one fellow, an officer, tearing up his shirt and binding up a wound in each arm and each leg. As I passed him he remarked, "they almost got me." Now we were arranging ourselves in the field to spell out p o w so the planes would quit strafing. It was hard to stand there as they made the run close over us to make sure we weren't German troops. Near the field someone had stored his turnips for the winter, but they were all gone by the time we loaded back on the train.
Somebody got white paint and identified each car with the letters p o w, which made us feel a little better. Now the planes had us spotted, but we still traveled at night. Occasionally they let some few at a time off the train to stretch and use the bushes to relieve ourselves, which helped the odor on the boxcar. They gave us cheese and kraut cabbage throughout the train trip.
With the front getting so close in spite of our moving at night, we were all unloaded to walk. We had a lot of the fellows from the hospital with us. Some could barely walk and there was one who had to be carried so we made a stretcher out of two poles and an overcoat. At first there were several of us to take turns carrying the stretcher, but after while no one came to relieve us. When we arrived to the first town some of the guys took this fellow to a catholic convent and left him.
It was a long night and once in a while civilians mixed in with us in order to escape the front lines moving ever closer. My friend Daniel and I decided to get a Red Cross parcel each and escape to the side of the road. It was easy to do and we heard several do just that, but morning came and I was the only one with a parcel so we decided we would make our break tonight. Some of the men were so weak they had to be helped along the way and Daniel and I were helping one or two, but the announcement came that if anybody dropped out they would be bayonetted. Some did drop out, but I didn't look back because I just didn't want to live with that memory.
About 10 o'clock that morning the sun came out nice and warm and that made me feel much better. We were approaching a town and were at the point of leaving it when we heard tank motors and someone yelled, "They're liberating the town!" We ran to both sides of the road and I went into a barn along with my buddy Daniel. There were people in there from all nations and we just stood and looked at each other. Daniel decided to leave and came back to get me, but I was anxious about the snipers. He assured me that all the German forces had been captured.
When we got back to the main road the tanks were still coming through throwing out candy bars and cigarettes to people on the side cheering them on. One family invited us into their house and gave us bread and sausage and other things we shouldn't have been eating in our condition.
We were picked up by jeeps and taken to the edge of town and loaded into 2 1/2 ton trucks for the trip back to our own lines. We were all standing in the back enjoying our freedom when out stepped two young Germans with machine pistols. I thought we were captured again, but they wanted to give up. They handed their weapons to the driver and climbed up with us. Farther down the road the driver took the wrong turn and we were approaching a town, which had not been liberated, and we could see the machine gun squad at the side of the road. The driver quickly turned the truck around and got us out of there.
As we got back to our lines we joined other prisoners and were transported cross-country in amphibious trucks so we didn't care about bridges blown out, but waddled across the water. We arrived at a resort place, which looked like a castle and were given accommodations beyond our wildest expectations. Only two men slept to a room and an older lady came to the room with towels and soap and let us to a fabulous bathroom. The tub really was built in the floor and probably measured four by six feet with water that was bubbling. We enjoyed a luxurious bath!
The next day we traveled to Liege, Belgium, and were put in tents along the airstrip waiting our turn to be flown out. It seemed like a long time, but our turn finally came and we boarded a c 47 and were flown to Paris.
From the Paris airport we were taken to a military hospital. It was here that I discovered Willis C.R. Washington who had been in Camp Barkeley, Texas, and was still working in a hospital
We were anticipating the time when we would leave to board a ship for the good ole USA. That time finally did arrive and I went by train up to the coast of France close to Le Harve. There were several holding camps up there and each was named after cigarettes. I stayed in camp chesterfield for about two weeks, and all the while the rumor is that there is a boat in the harbor ready to be loaded.
When our turn came to load, I walked up the gangplank and went to the focastle to read the information on the ship. To my surprise it turned out to be one the ships I had worked on when I was in Pascagoula, Miss. There was the name, USS Sea Tiger.
We crossed the English Channel at night and I was in my hammock down in number one hole at the very bottom of the ship. It was about midnight and everything had quieted down and all I could hear was the steady hum of the ship's motors. All of a sudden the ship shuddered from an explosion. I could see in my mind a torpedo coming through the wall where I was. I was out of my hammock and climbing the ladder and didn't stop until I was about three decks up. We experienced several more explosions and found that the ship was dropping depth charges for a sighted submarine that never did attack. I was glad.
The next morning we sighted land, which turned out to be the southern coast of England. We picked up more wounded to be transported back home. After we were out on the ocean about three days I came down with yellow jaundice and was sent to the ship's hospital. I couldn't eat the nice turkey and dressing they brought me, but settled for some soup. I stayed on a soft diet for several days until I was able to eat. Before I left the hospital the doctor wanted to give me a shot of glucose to pep me up. When he showed up with a syringe and needle about 6 inches long. I said, "Doc, have you got a shorter needle?" He said to his assistant, "George, get the man a shorter needle." He got it and I got my shot.
It took two weeks to get back to the New York harbor and when we went in I could see the statue of liberty this time, and I was very glad to see it. We unloaded and boarded a troop train to camp Kilmer, N.J. We were still in the process of getting our records straightened and putting on more weight in order to go home
When I arrived at Camp Shelby, Miss., I was immediately sent home to Florence where my folks lived. When I got off the bus outside the town, I became acquainted with a fellow who had a pickup truck and I offered him a package of cigarettes to take me to the house. I told him not to say anything when we arrived, but he yelled out the window to my mother who was in the front yard, "I got your boy here Mrs. Carson." As I got out of the truck my mother came running to greet me.
After I went through the process of getting my records straightened out I was asked if I would like to stay there and interview prisoners of war coming back from Europe. It was interesting to learn the different circumstances of the fellows coming back. One fellow who had been overseas one year learned that his wife had a baby while he was gone. I asked him if he claimed the child for his own. He indicated that he did so he received the points for the child.
My last station was an assignment to Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. I didn't have enough points to be discharged so I had to wait until something else came along. I was assigned to the main post chapel to be a secretary to the chaplain.
Everyday men were mustered out of the army here at the chapel with a short service and I began to wonder when my turn was coming. One day we got the order from congress to discharge all prisoners of war immediately and increase their rank one step, which made me a corporal.
I made the trip back to camp Shelby to be processed for discharge. After the necessary things were taken care of they wanted to talk to me about staying in the service. I said I didn't have any thoughts about staying in. All I wanted was to get out. So I was discharged honorably from the service.
After Whistler got out of the service he attended college at Bolivar where he met Mynatte Kennedy, daughter of Cleta and Don Kennedy Sr. of Schell City. They were married in 1948. After he graduated from college, which was only two-years at that time, he taught his first year of English at Schell City and they lived on the Kennedy farm. He went back to college, but at Oklahoma Baptist University where he got his master's degree. He taught English for at least 40 years in schools in the area. The Whistlers live in Springfield.
Whistler closed the interview with these words: "I should have died. There were times when I could feel the bullets whiz in front of my face, but I was spared. I had the Lord with me."
Clarence's wife, Mynatte, is the sister of our former Missouri State Representative W. Don Kennedy.