She wrote:  ”The war had been both a catalyst of unity and a disrupter of community ties. More than ever, citizens sought their identity not through ethnic bonds, but as Americans. Flag makers fell months behind in their orders. There was a sharp decline in foreign-language broadcasts, and many foreign language publications went bankrupt. Men and women hastened to become American citizens’.

“No segment of American society had been left untouched. More than seventeen million new jobs had been created, industrial production had gone up100 percent, corporate profits doubled, and the GNP had jumped from $100 billion to $215 billion... the wartime economy allowed millions on American who had been on relief to get back on their feet and start over...”

Two authors discussed what America did in support of her soldiers and those of her Allies during the war as the “Arsenal of Democracy”:

“The range of carefully designed clothing and equipment which America lavished on her soldiers was the envy of the world; and servicing arms of the US Forces speeded the advance of the Allies on every front. The numbers were staggering. More than 88,000 tanks: 63,000 field guns: 66,000 fighters and 34,000 bombers: more than 328 million shells: nearly a million machine-guns, excluding aircraft and anti-aircraft weapons: nearly three million trucks. Whole new sciences - amphibious warfare, and the harnessing of nuclear power, to name a few - were perfected. In every nation the years of WW II produced enormous technical advances, and as the technical capital of the world America advanced further than most.”

Dad’s Life During the War
Dad went to Boys’ High, in Brooklyn. He graduated in June, 1941. His high school yearbook indicated his interest in accountancy. He looked ahead to doing what he always had wanted to do, study accounting in college and then joining his father in the accounting profession. His expectations were probably like most of us at the age of 16 or 17: expecting a bright future and much more focused on his personal life than on the great events happening overseas.

Dad enrolled in City College in September of 1941. His expectations and life would be changed, as would those of his friends, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and America became directly involved in the war in December of 1941.

The nation went through an extremely difficult time as it geared up for total war. For those living in California, there was real concern about a Japanese invasion of the United States.

It is hard to imagine the hysteria in the air. Japanese citizens were put in relocation camps, because, even without any evidence, some members of our government believed they might be working for the Japanese. This dark chapter in American history has received much attention over the last few years.  And men started volunteering for the Army or Navy (the Air Force was part of the Army at that time; the Marine Corps was and (still is) a separate service within the U.S. Dept. of the Navy) and there was a burst of patriotic fever.

At first, Dad, who was 17, did not have to serve because he had a “deferment” since he was in college. Even in college he volunteered for the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), in case he had to fight. But then he was drafted in February, 1943. The draft was the system by which the armed forces got the men they needed to serve. While in other wars, like the Civil War, men could pay others to serve for them, that was all but impossible during World War II when a man got a letter from “Uncle Sam.” Like most inductees, Dad’s “ORDER TO REPORT FOR INDUCTION”, dated Feb. 2. 1943, stated:

GREETING:  “Having submitted yourself to a local board composed of your neighbors for the purpose of determining your availability for training and service in the land or naval forces of the United States, you are hereby notified that you have now been selected for training and service therein.”

When Dad went down to the Induction Center he memorized the eye chart for fear that his vision would keep him out of the service. While this may sound unusual today, at that time, in those circumstances, men were eager to do what they saw as their patriotic duty.

The Life of an American Child During the War
What was it like for a child growing up in America during the war? My Dad’s sister, Gloria, who was 10 years old when the war broke out, described it to me:

“The war and your father being in the army permeated every part of our lives. First of all, one of us wrote to him every single day and that is why we have so many letters. He kept every one we wrote to him and Mom kept every one he wrote to us. Many times there was nothing to write, and I can remember drawing every dress and pair of shoes I bought, just to fill up the paper. But he was the most important person in the world to me. When I graduated from elementary school (8th grade), we had a yearbook, with what they called “knocks” and “boosts” as captions under our pictures. Instead of the usual things, like “most popular” or “most likely to succeed, under my picture was Gloria's always the fun of the crowd; of her soldier brother she's very proud.”

“I went with my mother and her sisters to the Jewish Center where we sat at long, long tables with other girls and ladies, and rolled bandages for the war effort. I collected scrap metal with my friends for the war effort and remember saving my money for war bonds. We also knitted mufflers and socks for the soldiers. And were always baking chocolate chip cookies and gathering salamis, nuts and other “goodies” to send in packages to my brother. I remember the meat (and shoes, and gasoline) ration books. Also we had meatless Tuesdays, when the delicatessens and all butcher shops would be closed. There were always boys in uniform wherever you went, to the movies, on buses and subways, and especially if you went to the Broadway area. Everyone looked up to them and tried to help them in every way.”

My aunt went on to describe what she saw happening: “Everyone was involved in the war effort in some way. My Uncle Al was an air raid warden - oh, we used to have air raid drills - like fire drills - a few times a week. The sirens would blast and you'd have to put all the lights out and stay indoors until the sirens sounded again. We used to have them in school too. We'd all have to go into the corridors, sit on the floor against the wall, with our knees up, our heads on our knees, and our arms covering our heads. In school, everything we did was connected with the war effort.”

“And I do remember that the rationing made things harder to get, etc., but we never went hungry or anything like that. Any young man that was not in uniform was wondered about. But you must remember that I was only 14 when the war ended, and we were not as sophisticated or mature as today's 14 year olds. So I was still a kid and it's hard for me to tell you about my emotions because I don't really think I had that vocabulary.”

To give an idea of how people sacrificed during the war, it was reported that the Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was canceled in 1942 and the balloons were turned into 650 pounds of important scrap rubber.  While maybe that doesn’t sound like a tremendous sacrifice, it does give an indication of what was occurring around the country.  Others gave over their clothing, including furs and other warm clothing, tin, steel, and rubber good to help with the war effort.

My mother, who did not meet my Dad till well after the war, also described the home front that she remembered:
 

“I remember even before the war, knitting sweaters for British children before the war started for us -- the project was called Bundles for Britain. During the war, you never saw a man in civilian clothes on the street. Every young man was in uniform.

“During the war, I remember the gasoline rationing (we had a big “A” on the car indicating that it was for civilian use and we could only buy gas on ____). My mother [the author’s grandmother] served as an air raid monitor and I remember the windows on our house being blacked out, so that if we were ever bombed, it would be hard for the enemy to see where the buildings were. We had a small flag on the front door with two blue stars on it. That meant that you had two men from your family serving in the armed forces (my brother and brother-in-law). In school, we bought stamps each week which were pasted in a book. When you accumulated $18.75, you were able to buy a defense (later war) bond worth $25 in 10 (?) years.”

Dad's War
Dad became a soldier in the United States Army in May, 1943 and was sent to Camp Dix, New Jersey. He was homesick, as were many of the boys away from home for the first time, besides summer camp. His officers were tough, including one sergeant, who would yell, “you’ll jump when I tell you and stay there till I tell you to come down!”  Like his friends, he whined about this new, tough life and about being away from family and the relatively easy life he had known. He was forced to get up early, worked in the mess (kitchen) on KP duty. He was then sent to North Hood, Texas, the first time he had been that far south. This was where he was really turned from a boy, into a soldier.  It was basic training for 13 weeks.

Dad was a regular “GI”, or “Government Issue,” a phrase to describe the men now fighting in the infantry in the U.S. Army. At Fort North Hood, he prepared to be an infantryman, that is a common soldier, who would fight on foot. Among other things, he:

By now he knew how to handle himself as a soldier. The college kid would now have the opportunity to play on a larger stage.

Dad was a member of the 94th Infantry Division, 301st Regiment Company. During the war, the Army was organized into divisions, which were composed of three regiments, each of which had three battalions. A division had its own artillery, signal corps (for communications), medical battalions, military police, quartermaster company (whose job was it to see that the troops were supplied with the food, fuel and other provisions they needed) and other groups. A division in WW II had about 15,000-17,000 men.

The 94th division’s insignia was a circular design consisting of a black "9" on a silver background and a silver "4" on a black background, separated by a diagonal line, within an olive drab border. During the war, it took part in campaigns in Northern France, the Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace and Central Europe.

The division was activated in Michigan in 1942 and then was moved to Camp Phillips in Kansas. However, Dad joined it when it had moved to Camp McCain, Mississippi.

His diary for the time spent at McCain notes how soldiers spent their days in camp: drilling (on how to use gas masks), marching, training and “qualifying” on rifle range and with bazookas and cleaning his rifle and having it inspected; seeing a movie on mines; spending time on the smoke infiltration course; practicing throwing hand grenades; training to use a bayonet; learning military courtesy and discipline; getting inoculation shots; getting an orientation on fascism; studying camouflage, mapping and first aid. There were days after days on bivouac and marching and always, training, training, training.

While at Fort McCain on May 27, 1944, Dad was promoted to Private, First Class. On June 6th, he wrote the following in his diary: “TODAY is D-Day. Allied forces landed in France for invasion-- God grant a speedy and not-too-costly victory.” But the rest of the day was ordinary-- Dad served as a table-waiter at the officer’s mess.

Free time was spent at the movies (almost every day), reading and writing letters. He apparently also had a bad case of poison ivy, which he probably got while in the fields.

The division was then sent by troop train to New York City for embarkation for Europe. Where in Europe was a military secret.

While he talked to his parents by phone once he got back to New York City, he could not go see them. He and the division shipped out on the Queen Elizabeth, which had been turned from a first-class ocean liner to a troop transport for the duration of the war. On August 6, 1944, two months after the Allies had crossed the English Channel on D-Day, the division left New York. They arrived in England on August 12. They first went to Greenock, Scotland, near Glasgow. From there the division was soon sent to Chippenham, England, where they kept training for the fighting that they soon would join on the continent. His letters describe continued drilling and that he now was training with a bazooka, a gun used to stop tanks.  He remembers his free time as spent on beer and girls!  And even after he was in France, he wrote his parents that he was still in England, so they would be less concerned about his situation.

The Channel is Crossed
On around September 3, the division was taken by Liberty ships and other craft across the English Channel. Over the side of these ships went the soldiers, using huge nets to climb down into their LSIs (landing ships infantry), the troop-carrying boats used to transport soldiers to the beaches. They landed on Utah Beach in Normandy, one of the beaches stormed by the Americans on D-Day.

At this point, Dad was not overly concerned about what he would be facing. He knew he was well trained and that it would be a while before he would probably see action. And, after D-Day, the soldiers had a better idea of what they should expect.

He and the other members of the 39th Regiment of the 94th Division waded onto the beach, aware of the tremendous battle that had raged here just two months before.  There were still indications of the fighting, even though the Americans used Utah Beach as a prime-landing zone ever since D-Day.

Wet from the nonstop rain, the men marched and marched.  Dad remembers that the men could fall on the roads into the mud on the side.  Dad remembers marching while German POWs were taken to the rear in trucks.  The prisoners were hungry, tired and cold.

They were marched from four in the afternoon till eleven at night. It continued to pour with rain. They finally stopped marching and Dad was assigned to be a sentry for two hours. He admits he probably fell asleep while standing guard. He could hear the French rifles firing.

The men stayed in a meadow for three days. They were exhausted and the weather did little to relieve their spirits. They were then taken on trucks to the front lines.

The 94th Division had the longest divisional battle line in the history of the U.S. Army, stretching some 150 miles, in Northwest France.   It relieved the 6th Armored Division at Lorient and St. Nazaire on September 9-16th.  These ports had been instrumental in German efforts to stop shipping in the North Atlantic and the English Channel, by resupplying German submarine wolf packs. While much of the action would take part further south and to the east, the Germans actually hung on in this area, especially the ports of Lorient and St. Nazaire, well into May, 1945. It was decided not to attack these two ports at all, since the capture of one other port, Brest, came at such a high cost. It was decided to merely contain the enemy forces in Lorient and St. Nazaire.

The 6th had broken through the German lines in August. But there were still between 21,000 and 25,000 Germans, including the tough kriegmarines (German Marines) in Lorient  --- and they had a lot of artillery to protect the port. They had 500 pieces-- of which 300 were stationary and 200 could be easily moved. And the artillery prevented the armored division from getting at the German infantry.

German combat efficiency on the front lines facing the 94th was considered excellent. After the fall of Brest, the Germans were led by General der Artillerie (Lt. General) Wilhelm Fahrmbacher. It was rumored that his headquarters was a bunker capable of housing 1,000 men. It was supposedly suspended on huge springs, which would act as shock absorbers when the bunker was bombarded. But in October, 1944, there was another rumor that the bunker was abandoned because it rocked
excessively.

After moving through another meadow, the 301, Company K, set up the pup tents which became company headquarters. The men then started patrolling the German line.

The particular area of France in which Company K was deployed was Brittany. Farmlands in Brittany were separated by huge bushes with trees called “hedgerows.”  Roads were cut between the lines of hedgerows.

The Division’s role was really to restrain the Germans; their orders were specific, the 94th was not to attack. In containing the German pockets, the Americans set up ambushes, went on 12-man patrols, searched houses where Germans might be hiding. They also served in outposts – two men watching the line.  But some of the French told the Germans when the Americans were coming. The Americans stood guard, but were terribly afraid that any lights from cigarettes, even the luminous dials on their watches or other signs of life would be seen by the Germans. Their nerves were tight--- any crack of a tree branch, fluttering of a leaf or any other sound could indicate the Germans were near.

The Patrol
On October 2, 1944, Company K was selected to go on a patrol to pick up a group of Germans that a Free French (this was the “FFI”, Free French Forces of the Interior) officer had reported were anxious to surrender. At that time, members of the French Army, under General Charles DeGaulle were fighting alongside the Americans and other Allies. Dad later learned, though he never determined whether it was true, that the FFI officer was working for the Nazis and was sending the patrol into a trap.

This assignment seemed easy: pick up some Germans who wanted to surrender. Dad put on his olive drab uniform and his regulation combat boots. The 55 men on the patrol (nearly two platoons) did not even wear their M1 steel helmets, only their fiber helmet liners, believing this patrol would be easy. Dad grabbed his rifle, his field jacket with the divisional emblem sewn onto the shoulder, his helmet liner and his cartridge belts and went. The patrol left around 8:00 in the morning.

The patrol carried Garand rifles and carbines and a radio. Expecting an easy time of it, they had no machine guns, bazookas or mortars. it started out like almost every patrol he’d been on-- everybody laughing and joking till we left our outposts and then, stealing along searching with our eyes and ears every bit of ground around.

The patrol ran into a mined tree and bush obstacles but they were cleared by some engineers in the patrol.

At one point, the patrol came across a French farmer. He told the officers that there were no Germans in the area.

Dad was towards the middle of the column when it was fired on by machine-guns at around 1100 Hours-- 11:00 in the morning. Two scouts were killed immediately, since the patrol was moving in a column, was in the shadow of the hedgerows, the soldiers could not see the Germans. They tried to stand and fire over the hedgerows, and because of camaflouge, but they could not see what they were firing at-- or what was firing at them.  They fell back around 500 yards, then they could not retreat further because of the machine guns and burp guns.

One American tried to go across an opening in the road.  As he got into the open space, he saw a machine gun position, hidden by a hedgerow.  He dove for cover, but the German manning the gun motioned with one finger to come over and surrender.  He did.

Feeling blinded, the men knew they were in trouble.

The order from the officers was to fall back, but their retreat was also blocked by German machine guns.

They couldn’t move forward, back or even to the sides. They were surrounded.

In front of my father, a Free French soldier was hit in the thigh. Dad remembers carrying and dragging the soldier as the patrol struggled to pull back. The patrol retreated maybe 500 yards, but was under constant “burp gun” and machine gun fire from the Germans. Burp guns are not actually machine guns, but because of the way they sounded when they fired, the soldiers referred to them by this other name.  They are more like the hand-held tommy guns seen in gangster movies.  But on this day in France, they were real and shooting Americans.

The patrol could retreat no further because the Germans had closed the trap with machine guns placed in every avenue of escape. Those who survived later found out that the Germans were Naval Kriegsmariners, maybe 3-400, all young soldiers well armed with machine guns, burp guns, mortars, hand grenades and rifles.

By this time it was around 1300 Hours. The patrol was on a relatively straight road, of about 200 feet with unevenly high hedgerows on both sides of the road. If you tried to fire from the higher side, the Germans to your rear could shoot you from behind. The Americans stayed low, but the Germans kept up a steady barrage from their 88-millimeter guns as well as machine guns, rifles, mortars and burp guns. The 88’s were really antiaircraft guns, which, when their muzzles were brought down, could be used with “devastating effect” against tanks.  Of course, they were even more overwhelming when used against infantry.

The 88’s were the “most feared” and “most dangerous” German weaponry to the American foot soldier. The next most feared and dangerous weapon, according to a survey of American veterans was the mortar.   A few men in the patrol were hit. Dad tried to defend one flank while other men tried to keep the Germans at bay.

The Americans were in touch with the rest of the Army by radio and artillery was called in to help the pinned-down patrol. The shells came in so close that shrapnel (shell fragments) flew into the road.
The 301st’s Company I was sent out to relieve the patrol, and, for a while, the surrounded men had hope of rescue. Those left from the patrol kept fighting. More American artillery fire was called down almost on top of the soldiers since the Germans were so close.

There were Americans who kept fighting, but there were a few others who could not fight because of the fear that they were feeling.  But most of the Americans fought valiantly.

Then the Germans started placing Grenadewerfer (mortar) fire in clusters up and down the road and more men were hit.  Rifle fire is straight, while the mortars could fire shells over the hedgerows and into the road.

The fighting had now been going on for nearly four hours.

Around 1500 Hours (3:00 pm), Dad decided to change his position and started to run, crouching, up the road. He held his rifle in front of him as he moved forward.

Then he saw a mortar round hit 50 feet up the road and then, a second round hit 25 feet from him.
He knew what was coming next...

The third shell hit right next to him and smashed him six feet into the air, against the hedgerow. He then dropped to the road, gasping for air, wounded and bleeding. It took long minutes for him to catch his breath. He could not move from his position; he lay flat on his back. He is convinced he was hit by a concussion, rather than a fragmentation mortar shell, otherwise he would have been killed. The concussion shell produced great shock and vibration, but the fragmentation shell exploded and would have sent pieces of steel shrapnel throughout the area. As it was, pieces of shrapnel lodged in both legs, both hands and some in his upper right arm.

Although his wounds were not life threatening, the shrapnel caused concussion, pain and bleeding.  Fragments would be embedded in his body for the rest of his life.

Dad lay, unable to move, for perhaps an hour, thinking he was going to die in that place. As many people have experienced when in mortal danger, Dad’s life flashed quickly before him – his family, relatives, friends.  Then, somehow, he got his buddy, George Boyd, to bury his dog tags. Dog tags are noncorrosive identity tags worn around a soldier’s neck and used to identify the soldier if he was injured and unable to communicate or killed. They contained the wearer’s name, blood type (in case the soldier was wounded), serial number and the religion of the soldier, if any. Dad’s read:  Bernard I. Rader, 32962290, H (for Hebrew).   At the beginning of the war, the dog tag also indicated next of kin but this was ended because the Germans began to release false casualty information to the relatives of captured soldiers.

Dad’s dog tags had an “H,” for Hebrew. Had the Germans captured him and found out he was Jewish, they might have treated him much worse.  Some American Jewish prisoners were worked to death by the Germans during the war.

Members of the patrol then received a radio message that Company I had been badly battered. They could not reach the patrol.

The mortar shell had knocked all the fight out of Dad; he was dazed and on the edge of consciousness and could move only with a good deal of pain.

Around 1700 (5:00 pm), the message from headquarters was to surrender.  Ammunition was down to a few clips of bullets.  Dad remembers a Corporal Atkinson trying to wave a white flag to signal the surrender. Atkinson was then killed by a burst of machine gun fire.  This was an obvious violation of the Geneva Conventions on how war is to be waged by civilized countries.

Captured
The surviving members of the patrol were finished.  They were told to come out without their weapons. Dad hobbled out with his hands up, somebody helping him. He remembers a German sergeant saying that the Americans did not have to keep their hands up because they were brave soldiers. He was later told that they had killed over a hundred German soldiers, but he doubts this. However, George Boyd saw many German dead as the Americans were taken away.

The Americans also learned they had been up against three companies. They had thus been outnumbered 12 to 1. The Germans could not understand how the patrol had held them off as long as it did.

Dad did not know if he killed any Germans during the battle and did not want to know.

According to one account in the History of the 94th Infantry Division, 26 Americans were wounded and five dead out of the approximately 50 who had gone on the patrol. In addition, the History states that only two members of the patrol escaped the trap.

Guarded by German troops, Dad was put into a wheelbarrow and George Boyd later told him that it was George who wheeled him away to a German outpost not far from where the capture had occurred.

Dad was lifted out of the wheelbarrow and, trying to walk, tripped a wire on the ground. His nerves shot, he thought it was a booby trap, and he sprung over a six-foot hedgerow without touching the sides. The Germans were quite amused by the leaping ability of this wounded prisoner of war. Even now he can’t explain never how, in his terrible condition, he ever accomplished that feat!

Dad was carried to some kind of barracks and put into a bottom bunk. There he spent the first night of captivity, sleeping on and off in exhaustion, pain and grief. He didn’t know if any other prisoners were in the building but he remembers that there were many German soldiers present. He doesn’t think he was fed or treated that night.

A German officer, Lt. Schmidt,  took Dad and George to see some of the damage done in the fighting. He showed them where American bombs had apparently landed in a hospital.

The same day, he was transported into Lorient and turned over to the German soldiers guarding the unwounded men left from the patrol. There were approximately 35 Americans in a stockade. Dad was interrogated by Lt. Schmidt. The German officer started out very patiently but Dad refused to tell him anything but his name, rank and serial number (even where in the USA Dad came from), just as American soldiers had been ordered to do if ever captured.  Lt. Schmidt progressively became angrier and angrier. He screamed that Dad had no dog tags or other identification. How did he know that this soldier was not French? Shouldn’t he be taken away as the Frenchmen caught with the patrol had been? Shouldn’t he be killed?

Dad grew more afraid as the German’s anger erupted but continued to refuse to yield any more information. Finally, an American (probably Sergeant Harrington) came in and said he would vouch for Dad - that he was American, part of Harrington’s platoon, and that finally seemed to satisfy Lt. Schmidt.

The subject of Dad’s religion never came up and he doesn’t think the Germans ever found out that he was Jewish. But, he took no chances. In his letters home, he was careful to send regards to Reverend (not Rabbi) Smith (not Cohen), at our church (not synagogue) and pledge that he would attend every Sunday (not Saturday). He also put a picture of Jesus on his hospital table.

And he apparently wrote of his eating cauliflower, a vegetable he detested, as a code to indicate how hungry he was.   And the effect of the concussion made him jump every time he heard a loud bang.

Because Dad thought the FFI caught with the patrol might have been executed and, because of his religion, Dad was pretty shaken up. However, except for the intimidation of a German officer screaming threateningly at him, he was not mistreated. He spent two nights with the other men and was marched each day, in great pain, to an aid station where he received only very rudimentary treatment of his wounds. On the third day, he was moved into the German-held Lorient hospital.

This hospital also held wounded German soldiers. Dad was finally treated by German doctors, although they did not operate on his wounds, possibly because they were short of all kinds of medical supplies. He was placed in a five-bed room with three other men from his platoon and a wounded and sick Frenchman, who had gonorrhea. Lieutenant David H. Devonald, II, leader of the patrol and another lieutenant, Baldwin, were in the same hospital.

Dad and some of the wounded men were in a room in the hospital adjacent to an 88 battery which both frightened the prisoners and kept them awake when firing. Meals consisted of:

In his letters, Dad asked for what any kid would ask for if he was at camp... except that these men were starving prisoners. He wanted  “Hershey bars with almonds (as many of those as you can get); Cashew nuts, peanuts, Toll House and Ice Box Cookies (plenty), Halvah, crackers and jam, other candy and anything else...” And Dad made up lists of foods he’d like to eat that were pages long and promised to eat the foods from the top of the list down and then start again from the bottom to the top... another occupation of bored, starving captives.

Then men talked incessantly of “food, food, food.”  The Germans could get food even though they were surrounded on land, because submarines would resupply them in Lorient.  They could also get food from local farmers.  But the Americans did not have options.

Dad was able to see other German patients on the floor and the kitchen and to shower towards the end of his stay. His orderly was a kind and friendly Russian prisoner who cheered up the prisoners’ day. The men were visited twice by the Red Cross, one French women (who smuggled a few apples in and cut it in the shape of the Lorient [French Cross]), and Lt. Schmidt. On Halloween, the men received their first Red Cross packages of food including chocolate pudding, coffee, cigarettes and corn, upon which they gorged themselves.

They received their second packages on Armistice Day, November 11th. The Germans treated them well and in accordance with the Geneva Convention, which nations had established to set minimum rules for how prisoners and others were to be treated. The rules established were often broken, but not in my father’s case.  The Germans probably could foresee what was occurring and realized that soon they would be the prisoners.

Those At Home
How was it for members of other families whose loved ones were far off, separated by thousands of miles? Often, Moms and Dads, to say nothing of brothers, sisters and other relatives of the fighting men, did not know whether their loved ones were involved in the great battles that were taking place. Remember that this was a time without email, when even telephone communication took place much less often. Letters were the best way to communicate and these took much longer than today to arrive.
Of course, many soldiers told of how much they loved getting mail, whether they were overseas or not. It connected them with home and those who cared about them. My Dad would write to friends, relatives and others for 30-60 minutes a day. He would ask about friends in the Army, share condolences about some of his close friends who did not make it and talked about home. Often letters were filled with comments about who had written to him and which packages he had gotten.

And there was always humor. One letter he sent from North Fort Hood, Texas, he signed  ““Tex” Rader, New York’s gift to Texas (poor Texas).” It was not that he liked writing so much, it was just that if you didn’t write, you wouldn’t receive any mail. And, unfortunately, all the writing never really improved his handwriting.

Once Dad got to Europe, his letters were sent as Vmail-- they were reduced to postcard-size and could thus be sent faster.  Soldiers did not have to pay for stamps, but the regular cost for stamps in those days was 3 cents.

Soldier’s relatives also lived for the mail, even though the letters might be censored by the Army so that secrets were not revealed, it was a great relief to receive any communication from their men. Everyone had to be very careful not to reveal too much--- there were sayings that were printed on posters, stationery and other communications: “Loose lips sink ships,” and “Idle gossip sinks ships,” which discouraged soldiers or others with knowledge about what was occurring from talking about it. People had to be very careful about who they talked to, because there was a great fear of there being spies in our midst who would pass on information to the enemy.

But even as long-distance communication took place through the post office, there were horrible instances of a soldier or sailor having written home in the lonely, anxious hours before a battle and his family only receiving the letter long after the man had died.

The Army notified relatives of those lost in battle usually through the delivery of a telegram. Few things in life were dreaded as much as the uniformed mailman coming up the steps of a house or driving out to a farm with a dreaded telegram from the War Department.

According to my Dad’s sister, here is how the family learned that my Dad was “MIA”, that is, missing in action:

“When the telegram came, Grandma [Dad’s mother] and I were about to have dinner. The doorbell rang and I ran downstairs to answer it. The minute I opened the door, I knew it was bad news. They used to train women to deliver those telegrams so that they could handle the recipient with compassion, and I knew from the stories of my brother’s friends who were killed that a lady at the door with an envelope was bad news”.

“I became hysterical and told her to “Go away and take your telegram with you”, but Grandma came down behind me and took it.
 

The telegram, dated 1944 OCT 20, read:

MORRIS RADER=
1634 CARROLL ST=
THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRES ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT YOUR SON PRIVATE FIRST CLASS BERNARD I RADER HAD BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION SINCE TWO OCTOBER IN FRANCE IF FURTHER DETAILS OR OTHER INFORMATION ARE RECEIVED YOU WILL BE PROMPLTLY NOTIFIED=
J A ULIO THE ADJUTANT GENERAL.

Gloria stated “I'll never forget how she continued to write to him every single night even though she didn't know where - or if -he was ever going to receive them.”

My grandmother spent hours and hours in the synagogue praying for her son – still unaware of what had happened.  The turn to religion was out of character for her, but in times of stress and anxiety people often turn to religion.

My Aunt Gloria continues her narration:

“We all continued to write and had no word at all about his status for some time, I can't really remember, but it had to be a few weeks. Grandma, Papa [Dad’s father] and all the family went to the Jewish Center and to the cemetery where their parents were buried, to pray for him. But we were lucky in that we got an unofficial letter that he might have been wounded and captured and in a German hospital - several weeks before the War Department let us know anything. And we grabbed onto that unofficial news.”

The unofficial news that they received was from a medic in Dad’s company who wrote Dad’s parents that he had heard that Dad had been taken prisoner. According to the medic, Manny Schwartz, families would first receive notice that the soldier was missing in action, for it took a while to confirm POW status through Geneva. The letter went on to reassure my grandparents that

1) the Germans had no way to return prisoners to Germany and
2) the Germans they faced have a good record as to respecting prisoners of war and the Red Cross. For obvious reasons, their present predicament [they were surrounded] leaves them no other choice.

The Exchange
Even during a war, there are sometimes courtesies between enemies. In Brittany, Andrew G. Hodges of the American Red Cross made trips through the German lines to check on the conditions of the American prisoners of war. On his fourth trip over, he casually remarked to several German officers that he would not have to make so many trips over if an exchange of prisoners could be arranged. While nothing happened at first, on his next trip, the Germans informed Hodge that they would be willing to make an exchange. General Malony, the 94th’s Division Commander, agreed and the first exchange was to be made within the Lorient pocket.

The agreement called for the exchange to be “rank for rank, branch for branch with physical condition as nearly equal as possible.”    However, some of the Germans did not want to leave for their own lives.

Two days before the exchange, Lt. Schmidt came to the men to give them the good news that they were to be exchanged.

His wounds better, Dad then came down with some kind of flu. He was kidded by a German nurse about not eligible for the exchange because of the flu.

On November 17, 1944, a temporary armistice was arranged and representatives of both armies met in an abandoned school in the little village of Etel.   (Where the Germans in the area were also to surrender May 7, 1944)

Dad could barely sleep the night before the exchange. On that great day, November 17th, he was taken in a stretcher (because of the flu or influenza) by ambulance and boat to the German side of the Etel River and his stretcher was carried onto a boat for crossing to the American lines. There is a picture of him on the stretcher on the ground. It shows a wide-awake, curly-haired young man, paying attention to what was going on. But at this time, there’s no hint of the excitement he must have been feeling.

Dad remembers a German ambulance sergeant warning them that Hitler’s scientists would invent a new weapon and we will win the war, but the Americans were just happy to head back to their comrades.

On arrival in the town of Etel, they were inspected by an American colonel (there were several high American officers present) and interviewed by an Associated Press reporter. After transport over the Etel, at 3:30pm, they were turned over to their unit and taken to a rear area clearing station, where the men were deloused and his bandages were changed.

The Americans got hot showers, steak dinners and new uniforms. They reported that although the Germans had treated them well, there had been a terrible shortage of food.

There were a total of three exchanges between the Germans and the Americans in this area of France. “With one exception, the Division recovered every man unfortunate enough to fall prisoner to the enemy in Brittany.”

The Family Learns of the Exchange
Our family still has the copy of the telegram they soon received from the Acting Adjutant General.  It states:

“I AM PLEASED TO INFORM YOU REPORT JUST RECEIVED STATES YOUR SON PRIVATE FIRST CLASS BERNARD I RADER WHO WAS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION WAS REPATRIATED... REPORT FURTHER STATES HE WAS SLIGHTLY WOUNDED IN ACTION YOU WILL BE ADVISED AS REPORTS OF CONDITIN [sic] ARE RECEIVED=”

“VERY GRATEFUL FOR TELEGRAM REPORTING OUR SON PFC BERNARD RADER REPATRIATED. VERY ANXIOUS TO KNOW TYPE OF INJURY [a reference to the wounds he’d suffered] PLEASE WIRE COLLECT.”  It is dated Nov 22.

The Rest of Dad’s War
After the exchange, the men were fed well, bathed, their wounds examined and dressed, and interrogated as to their treatment. The next day, Dad was taken to a field hospital in Rennes and, later, to the base hospital at Metz. He was discharged from the hospital on December 15, 1944 and placed in a Replacement Depot (called a “repo depot”) with the Seventh Army.

This depot was not far from the area of the Battle of the Bulge, the German Army’s last offensive against the Allies. While this battle was at first a setback for the Allies, once weather cleared and the Americans could take advantage of their control of the skies, the tables were quickly turned. Dad remembers the airforce flying over on the way to bomb and strike the Germans.  The German counter-offensive quickly turned into a German set back. One of the divisions heavily engaged in this action was none other than the 94th.

There was apparently a pact between the surrounded Germans and the Americans in the Lorient are, because, according to the Geneva Convention, ex-Prisoners of War were prohibited from combat duty once they were exchanged.  However, in some cases, prisoners in this area did fight in other battles.  However, Dad never saw combat again. From the repo depot, he was assigned to an Ordinance Depot company, trained as a medic, and ran an aid station for the company.

Part of his time was spent in Germany, which was particularly interesting-- where the flagpoles had all held Nazi swastikas, they now were white flags of surrender. The American soldiers were not allowed to fraternize with the Germans-- they were to ignore them. He saw lots of former slave laborers walking back to where they had lived before the Nazis pressed them into service There was lots of German Army equipment on the side of the deserted streets, as well as lots of rubble. Any time the Americans left their bases, they were ordered to carry their rifles.

The Germans were “scared to death” of the Americans. If an American soldier was walking on the same side of the street, the Germans would move to the other side. Dad wrote that “They really understand force in this country—they’ve had a taste of what we can do to them and they’re careful to stay on the right side of us.”

It was also while in Germany that Dad learned about the death of President Roosevelt on April 13, 1945. On that same day, Dad wrote the family:

“It’s terrible about the President dying. I heard about it at breakfast this morning and the Stars and Stripes [the Army newspaper] put out an extra [edition]. We’ll never be able to replace him. It’s too bad he didn’t live to see the victory that seems so near now and that he won’t be here for the peace. He was a great man.”

He was still in Germany when he heard of Hitler’s death. He noted that it didn’t cause much commotion, since it really didn’t matter at this point. But he commented, “It’s too bad if he is dead as the Germans say-- he doesn’t deserve a clean death in battle—Hanging’s about the best he ought to get. Coincidence-- Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler dying within a month of each other.”

Germany’s unconditional surrender, on May 8, 1945, was great news, but somewhat anticlimactic since it had been expected for so long.

Dad was in Mannheim, Germany when the war with Germany ended. He saw a bulletin board that offered soldiers the opportunity to study Elizabethan History and Literature at Stratford-on-Avon in England, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.  He quickly applied and was accepted into the program.

After VE (“Victory in Europe”) Day, Dad expected to be transferred to the Japanese Theater of War but that never happened. Many of the Americans who fought in the ETO (“European Theater of Operations”) were expected to be transferred in preparation for the invasion of Japan. They dreaded the idea of fighting the Japanese , who would be fanatical in defense of their homeland.

But, before this happened, while Dad was at Stratford-Upon-Avon. The instructors included English lords, even Lord Cecil (author of Jane Eyre) and famous Shakepearean actors. While at Stratford-on-Avon, a woman told him that the Americans had dropped a single bomb in Japan and that it had killed a hundred thousand people. He couldn’t believe it! This was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  Two days later, the U.S. dropped a second atom bomb on Japan, this time on Nagasaki.

World War II finally ended as the Japanese surrendered.

Dad and the other American soldiers would not have to fight in the Pacific after all!

That was a glorious time! People started celebrating at noon and the singing and dancing in the streets near where Shakespeare lived continued till midnight.  Bells in the steeples in the churches rang out for hours.

Things immediately loosened up for the soldiers. Dad went up to Edinburgh, Scotland, technically AWOL (absent without leave), but no one cared-- everyone was still celebrating.

He then took a train to London, and there was told by a friend in the Judge Advocate General’s office (JAG, the military’s legal department) that he was entitled to go home. Together they went to SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force), then to Army Headquarters and they got all the necessary papers in order. He flew from London to Mannheim, went to the company commander in an Infantry Company to which he had been assigned, and spent a few days in Germany.

While Dad had not earned enough points in the Army’s system to qualify for returning home, as a former POW the Army let him return home.   He left Europe from the Netherlands on a Liberty Ship back to New York with lots of other happy, victorious soldiers.  As the boat returned him to New York, he remembers seeing Brooklyn, and Manhattan.

As for the 94th Infantry Division, with its 5,000 or so men, it lost 802 soldiers killed, 3,842 wounded, and 963 missing during the war. (including the parachute jump at Coney Island) Its total battle and nonbattle casualties amounted to nearly 11,000 men. It went to win 20 Distinguished Service Crosses, 3 Legions of Merit, 339 Silver Stars, 8 Soldier’s Medals, 2538 Bronze Stars and 66 Air Medals. It took 26,638 German prisoners of war.

Coming Home
When they arrived home, the veterans who had shipped over to Europe as boys were greeted by bands and banners and ships and tugboats from the fire department shooting water into the air. He called his parents, who did not know that he was coming back so soon. But, before he returned to Brooklyn, he had to report back to Fort Dix. There, he received three months’ leave for POW rest and recreation.

He went by bus to Times Square, all the time impatient to get home. From Times Square, he took a subway to his parents’ house. It was now around 9 at night in October 1945.  There was a party for him with lots of celebrating. He found out that after his parents had received his letter about what had happened to him, it had been used to help raise money through Liberty Bonds for the war effort.

Several months later, he went to Florida by train and then to Fort Ogelthorpe, Georgia. He met up with George Boyd and fought with an anti-Semite who said that the Jews hadn’t done any of the fighting in the war. It was the wrong thing to say to my father!

Then it was back to Fort Dix, separation from service and his final discharge in January, 1946.

Dad then took the bus and train back to Brooklyn. He had left a kid and returned an experienced man, who had seen many good and bad things about the world.

Dad Returns Home
My Aunt Gloria picks up the story as my father is about to return home:

“I do remember that when it was nearing time for my brother to come home, I had a recurrent dream. We had a small table facing out a window in the kitchen, and we used to come home for lunch every day and then go back to school, and my lunch would always be waiting for me at that table. I dreamed, almost every night, that my brother came home through that window, when I was having lunch and that I was the first to see him.

“And do you know what happened? The night he came home, my parents went down to some friends for a cup of coffee, and I stayed home to listen to “Lux Presents Hollywood” on the radio (they'd do a dramatization of a movie every Monday night), and when my brother came home, I was the first to see him when the doorbell rang. I can't fathom how my parents were able to take it. But everybody was in the same boat, I guess, and what could you do? We were so lucky, after all, and it was hard to face Mrs. Caine at those Jewish War Veterans meetings. And she was such a wonderful lady, working and active in the war effort even as she was grieving for her son. I don't think Sheldon was 20 years old when he was killed.”

The Rest of Their Lives
The war was finally over and the boys were returning home. For many of them, life would be very different, not only from when they had left, but even compared to how they thought their lives would turn out when they were growing up. For many, that short time in combat (remember that America only fought for four and a half years, while some countries, like China, fought for closer to 15), completely changed their lives. Some came back having seen the world and with a swagger and confidence that they did not have before they left. Others came back wounded, physically and maybe psychologically.

Others never came back
For Dad, who was still only 21 when he returned, life turned out pretty well. He went to college, became an accountant and partnered with my grandfather as he’d always hoped he could.  He married my Mom, moved out to Long Island and lived a healthy life for many years.

When depressed, as people get, Dad would think back that must be some reason that he was allowed to come back, while so many others, including friends like Sheldon Caine and Eddie Elefant, were not so lucky. This anchored him and gave him a sense of perspective when things seemed tough.

Those days in the Army were some of the greatest in his life. And, while the time was relatively short, they molded him and defined his outlook on life as few things ever could.  Millions of other GI’s and the women who served were changed in similar ways.

For Dad, and all who served, whether far from home, or in America, we thank you for your sacrifices. Although your generation may consider your accomplishments as merely fulfilling your obligations as Americans, your efforts went far beyond the call of duty.

As I conclude this history of one man’s war, I want to pay homage to all those who fought for the light of freedom in World War II, whether overseas or on the home front.  Time has a way of putting great events and the efforts of millions into a broader historical perspective.  Despite the never-ending march of time, your sacrifices will be always be remembered by those who benefited from your heroic efforts.

Generations to come will always admire your courage, your sacrifices, your unity in purpose and your perseverance.

We will never forget what you did for us.