News-Info-Alerts

Re: The Liberation That Went Awry

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: December 30, 2002

"Veteran saw far different New Year's in '45

Robert Ballenger talks about New Year's day of 1945, when he was a 22 year old corporal stationed in the rubble of Aachen, Germany during World War II.

By Paul Boerger

Eighty year old Robert Ballenger will spend this New Year's warm and cozy in his Mount Shasta home, but it was not always so comfortable for the former World War II European theater veteran.

On New Year's day of 1945, 22 year old Corporal Ballenger of the 86th Replacement Depot unit was stationed in the rubble of Aachen, Germany, getting warm anyway he could.

"We burned the furniture," said Ballenger. "It was the only thing available."

From the Liberty ship that landed him at Normandy to the end of the war Ballenger traveled the length and breadth of Europe seeing duty in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.

Ballenger came ashore at Omaha beach on D-day plus four in a landing craft.

"We weren't under fire," said Ballenger of his landing at Omaha. "The front was seven miles away. The beach was pretty much cleaned up, but as we trudged up the bluff with our bags there was this terrible smell."

With the battle raging just miles away, said Ballenger, there hadn't been time to bury all the dead.

"At the top of the hill, we saw many American and German dead from D-day," Ballenger said. "The bodies were swollen with the arms and legs popped up and stiff. It was a sweet putrid awful smell. I remember that as the first thing I saw after landing in France."

Until the breakout at St. Lo, Ballenger's unit experienced numerous bombings in Normandy.

"We lost 60 to 70 killed in the first two weeks," Ballenger said. "There is nothing worse than being bombed."

After St. Lo, Ballenger moved with the front across France to the outskirts of Paris, north to the Belgian border and into the Netherlands.

"We finally crossed the Rhine at Cologne on a big pontoon bridge" said Ballenger. "After Aachen, we were stationed in Blomberg, an ancient German city dating to the 1500s."

At Blomberg, Ballenger was involved in the liberation of a prisoner of war camp that went awry.

"We had freed a bunch of Polish and Russian prisoners" said Ballenger. "They decided they wanted to take revenge by executing some of the townsfolk. We had to put them back into the compound and post guards to keep them in."

Ballenger also experienced German prisoners.

"A full Nazi colonel with several majors came and said he wanted to surrender his regiment," Ballenger recalls. "Out of 3,200 men, there were only 500 left. We marched them through a building where they surrendered their weapons. The colonel gave his sword to a 2nd lieutenant."

When Germany surrendered, Ballenger was given the choice of staying in Europe as part of the occupation force or transferring to the Pacific where the war against Japan was still raging.

"I volunteered for the Pacific," said Ballenger, shaking his head as if remembering how naive the young can be. "I don't why I did it. The adventure I guess."

Transferred to Marseille, Ballenger waited shipment to the other side of the world. Ten days from departure, the miracle occurred.

"The atomic bomb was dropped," said Ballenger, "and it was all over."

Now 80 and having served his country in the greatest war in history, Robert Ballenger will have a far more comfortable New Year's than in that far away year of 1945."