Arthur Spaulding, Battle of the Bulge Veteran (Full Interview)

our guest this week on Veterans Chronicles is Arthur Spalding he's a world war two veteran who served in the 91st chemical mortar battalion he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for his service at the Battle of the Bulge mr. Spalding thank you very much for being with us I'm delighted to be here where were you born and raised I was born strangely in Oxnard California raised in Goleta which is essentially a suburb of Santa Barbara California life long California yeah okay how old were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked 39 in 1941 2016 16 what was your reaction my reaction I was playing in a swing band at the time and the reaction was let's all go home that it was just stunning we were all totally confused by it I'm sure we did just plainly were unprepared did you enlist or were you drafted I enlisted and a YB army why the army no because they had at that time what they call the army specialized training program which was rather like the Navy v12 program where they sent the new newly drafted or enlisted men off to college for an engineering degree I went to the California Institute of Technology for that degree but I was there only two months I turned 18 and I enlisted to participate in that program and after they called you up where did they send you for training they sent all of us they called us ast peers and they said now all of you have to go in for thirteen weeks of basic infantry training and I was put on a train to Fort Benning Georgia where I stayed until February of night well of 1944 and what did they focus on there what did they train you to do all the things the infantry is involved in everything from calisthenics to getting used to machine-gun fire going right over your head did you learn anything about mortars there or not until you got to France not until I got to Texas at a later time Oh Texas okay tell me about that well first of all the ASTP program collapsed they needed more soldiers at the front so they wiped out that program and sent us all off to various infantry divisions I went to the 94th division in Camp McCain Mississippi in February but they filled up the ranks of that division very quickly and I became surplus and they looked at my service record ah they said I was studying chemistry at Cal Tech we'll put him in chemical warfare and chemical warfare at that time consisted of four point two inch mortars so they packed me off to the 91st chemical mortar Patania and that was in March of 1944 did that come naturally to you didn't it come naturally yeah did you take it well I did it was something you were always did in doing well anything that fired fired a bullet I was used to and firing a mortar was something different but yeah it maybe it was novel others a long story behind that but anyway the training was very effective when did you go to Europe pardon me when did you go to Europe oh we had about six training in Texas and in October of 1944 we shipped out of Boston went to Liverpool and I spent two days on a Canadian ship going from England over to Normandy on the worship I think I ever been on that was a that was comparable to combat and then it was on the 18th of October of 1944 that I entered the European theater really why was it such a bad voyage was it the waves ever the sea was rough to begin with but they gave us no place to sleep we had a barracks bag and they put us down in the hold of the ship and we were there for two days amid all kinds of turmoil I could be more graphic than she was like I get the picture little motion sickness not a lot of facilities right yes okay okay so once you got to France what did you do that well we waited for our equipment to arrive and that took took about a month so we were assigned first to the third United States Army under General Patton but we had had to have our equipment and after it arrived we went to southeastern France where General Patton was about to mount a offensive directly into Germany but but the Germans sidetracked that with the onset of battle on the 16th of December of 1944 the Battle of the Bulge the Battle of the pose so the Third Army made a big left turn and I'll guarantee that was not the most comfortable of voyages that I've been on it was a hundred miles in the middle of the night it was snowing the temperature was about 10 degrees we are in an open jeep and you know the floorboards of a jeepers made of steel and they very quickly became quite cold and that cold penetrated at the combat boots that we had and pretty soon we didn't feel anything from our waist down it was a terrible truck and they got 100 miles 100 miles over two days right two days what happened once you got up there combat right away absolutely tell me about it well we were assigned to the 80th Infantry Division as to provide backup for the infantry and it was a second we were essentially guarding the South flank of the German offensive and it consisted of battles in various localities it wasn't one great offensive but always spread out over a front of a number of miles with the 80th division but it was in snow which by this time had amounted to about a foot deep that was just as frostbitten again yeah of course we were in well we had to see found in sleeping bags in the snow and I must say the first combat mission that we were assigned to the gun next door to mine had a shell that blew up in the barrel of the mortar killing or wounding the entire crew that was attending gun and I remember my my my friends head his leg right there it was a very bad introduction to what followed I must say how did you get focused after seeing something like that well that was just the introduction but it was caused by the ammunition that we were firing it was ammunition that was fraudulently made and it had serial numbers and later we were issued sheets with all these serial numbers on them not to fire that guy's ammunition it came from the garson brothers in Arkansas and we had other incidents but none as bad as that first one so what was it like to engage in combat for the first time with your mortar well it just consisted of following orders said there was a forward observer who was identifying the targets that we were shooting at and that information came back to us in the form of numbers what we how we would go aim our mortar and our reaction to combat was simply following those orders and dropping the mortar shells down the barrel and firing them now the mortar shells themselves weighed about 25 pounds and had a and had about 12 pounds of TNT in them so if they they were really vicious weapons consisted of white phosphorus for smoke screens and high-explosive or essentially killing the troops so we would alternate that depending upon what the order that came to us was but our reaction to combat was simply following orders but you were getting very precise with this correct Oh quite so these mortars were rifles just like a hunter's rifle and as the gun was fired there was a copper plate which would expand with that explosion and engage in the great lands and grooves they called them or the riflings and I wish but put the spin on the mortar and the mortar was really quite accurate as a consequence of having a spin being imparted to it let's talk about that a little bit more right after this break we'll be right back with art Spalding on veterans chronicles we are back on veteran's Chronicles I'm Greg kurama's thanks for being with us honored to be joined today by Arthur Spalding a World War two veteran of the US Army and we're just talking about his service at the Battle of the Bulge but before we get back to what happened there there may be quite a few listeners who don't know what is involved in a mortar group so tell us about what your team did and the different jobs that you all had well to begin I should say that there is one of these rental weapons on display at the World War two Museum in New Orleans and I was very interested to see that again after a hiatus of about what 70 some years before Point 2 inch mortar that was a diameter of the barrel they weighed all the component parts put together weighed about 400 pounds the base plate upon which the barrel was fixed weighed about 200 pounds and took two of us through a one on each side to manipulate it and place it in the proper position the the well the piece that held up the barrel was fairly light I think that was 50 pounds and the barrel itself weighed about a hundred pounds so we put all that together and you come up with something close to 400 pounds so each squad I would say buck sergeant in charge of one of those squads consists of about six or eight men depending upon who who came and went and we had a jeep to haul the trailer in which the mortar was located and we had about 25 rounds of ammunition each weighing 25 pounds or so in the trailer and that was our combat appearance now that you were already in combat but as I've read about you there was a moment where the Germans hit you with shrapnel where you realized you were actually at war and they were trying to kill you tell me about that well I how can i distinguish one incident from another yes they were trying to kill us and we were trying to kill them so if it was a Mexican standoff if you will in that regard but well in the Battle of the Bulge the offense was created by the Germans and they were really quite effective at the outset until adequate reserves came to offset them because they penetrate well we were always just waiting to cross the Rhine River at time and that was in December of 1944 and well what can I say that we were just well I was a General Patton and he was prepared to amount his own offensive I had a different location along the Rhine and then we took that hundred mile junket up into the southern flank of the you German offensive so it was at the Bulge where you engaged in actions that led to you receiving the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart the Germans attacked your position you were hit with shrapnel and another friend of yours was more severely injured oh if you've been reading my biography yes sir well indeed we were setting our guns up again for some offensives of to preclude the crossing of the Rhine River and the Germans had a captain who was located in a building at the very place that we were setting our guns up and he he was in charge he was a forward observer for a German mortar battalion and they had a hundred and twenty millimeter mortars which were bigger than ours but not nearly as accurate I might say the in the midst of setting our guns up all of a sudden mortar shells tan it was started landing among us and well strangely enough of well after one of the explosions of these incoming shells a fragment that shall hit the barrel of my mortar and split into two different pieces and the bigger piece bounced off the base plate of our mortar upon which one of my men was sitting to avoid the barrage coming in you know we were all dug in in pits there were about three feet deep so we had some some way of escaping in a direct barrage and this piece bounced off the base plate and hit him right in the spine and it was fairly large just was in terrible agony and say the other fragment that split when this piece hit the barrel entered my hand and at the time I was unaware really that I had been wounded it it felt as if something had just hit me with a hammer until I took my glove off well that comes momentarily later but anyway we you know there's no saying leave no man behind and the medic we had in the platoon came to help and the American I got my squad member out of the this pit that we're in and hauled him off to a safe location in a building not far away and for that I've received a Bronze Star and the purple well I pulled my glove off and not realizing that I'd been wounded beforehand and the gloves all the blood so I was out for about two weeks and they couldn't get it out because it had penetrated so deeply that the local surgeon that we had in the company is that I can remember his name his name was Leo you Samba anyway he's fed over a couple of hours probing around he said I can't do this because of all the nerves that he had to separate to get this so I had it taken out of it after VE day when we were back in the States but anyway the bronze star came and later time in recognition of taking care of my buddy how did he do did he make it pardon me did he make it oh yeah yeah I never saw him again but his wound is in the his back so he that may have affected his lower extremities but I never saw him again he was probably taken back to England for treatment art let's pause one more time we'll be right back with the rest of our interview welcome back to veterans Chronicles on the radio American network I'm Greg karumba honored to be joined today by Arthur Spalding a US Army veteran of World War two and sir when we left off we were explaining the actions that earned you the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star explain your role throughout the rest of the Battle of the Bulge oh well the I company was attached to the fifth Infantry Division which is one of General Patton's favorite divisions I might say and are the the whole object of the exercise at this point was getting across the Rhine River into the heartland of Germany where we knew the war would soon be ended and well the first thing was to get to the Rhine which was about 40 miles away from our immediate location where this battle occurred where I got these award Awards and the 4th Armored Division was given by a General Patton 48 hours to make these 40 miles to the Ryan River and they made it in about half that time I met Terry through patents patents urging I might say and anyhow and we got we followed the fourth armored divisions very closely and arrived at the Rhine River at the time that the early crossing of the fifth Infantry two was taking place and we had a one of our lieutenants just happened to have a navy jacket said US Navy across it and crossing the Rhine River has played a naval operation as it had been in brine rivers very large you know and he put his naval jacket on in order to create some priority for our company or our battalion to get across the Rhine because all we ended to get across was an engineer's bridge which was just a one track bridge and not very wide and he was directing traffic a safe because the Navy had this as a part of their operation it was a naval operation crossing the Rhine and with a jacket saying USN despite the fact that he was a lieutenant in a mortar battalion he was the guy that got us across the Rhine and instantly on the other side on the eastern side of the Rhine River we encountered a very intense combat by the Germans because they were attractive protecting their homeland and the we found a billet for the night after that if there are crossing of the Rhine and first thing that happened was that we were under attack by the Germans with all sorts of weapons such as machine guns and high-powered well anything that they could put together to kill us and so that permanent memory well we were upstairs in the building and they were down in a field where there were fruit trees and very shortly they were firing at us through the window and we were firing back at them and our platoon lieutenant was a big man and he told one of us to go down and get that 40 50 caliber machine off the Jeep that we had and her II was with a 50 caliber machine gun firing by by hand at the Germans firing at us you see so anyway they that pretty well stopped them but not until they but their machine guns were mg 42s and the the fired about 1,500 rounds a minute as opposed to our machine gun so it's only had about 500 rounds per minute and pretty soon in came a streak of these mg42 bullets right through the window across the ceiling and that that rather scared me I must admit but anyway that was the last major combat we took care of that with reserves and fortitude I might tell you but in the meantime one of my guys was shot through the knee and he had been wounded before he he was the most decorated man of our platoon in fact he had a Silver Star a couple of Bronze Star two Purple Hearts and God knows what else and he was just playing dumb stupidity counted for a lot you mentioned a moment ago about General Patton's urging and he'll desire to keep pushing east what did you and the other men think of General Patton asked me again what did you and the other men think of General Patton well we we were delighted to be part of his army I must say because if we were part of the first army who had general Montgomery to put up with and Patton hated Montgomery it feeling was mutual well Patton was a man of action as you know and the 5th division was his favorite that was he wasn't the first crossing of the Rhine but that was the first big crossing of the Rhine and he cabled Eisenhower at back a chief headquarters that well we just casually put one of our division across during the night anyway we're all we never saw a General Patton but on the other hand we knew that his presence loomed very largely in the background yeah so then after you crossed the Rhine you've had this encounter with the Germans defending their homeland from their the the run through the Rhineland was pretty overwhelming right well there was not really it was very quickly done the crossing of the Rhine was about the 24th of March and VE Day was the 8th of May so there was virtually only a month in between and the German army was defecting as prisoners of war to thee to us in huge numbers and so there wasn't very effective opposition and we were crossing a heartland of Germany by tens of miles each each day after the Ryan crossing and we eventually wound up in Bavaria on the Danube River which was a must say quite nice we're on the Danube for several weeks I think but then after that they turned us into military government and I should tell you that probably was the best part of of combat in Europe military government consisted of our battalion being broken down into companies companies into platoons and platoons into squad of which I would say the captain of a sergeant of one of them and then when we would be dispersed throughout Germany in control and I will wind up as a mayor of a several cities I might tell you congratulations military governor you see huh so anyway there's some incident interesting incidents connected with that we are occupying a building at one time my squadron aya and we got up in the morning there the usual thing good that this is larger you know after the war and we're all in our underwear after sleeping at night and there came a knock on the door and here was a German wanted him to surrender you see he could have wiped out the whole platoon and there was another incident in military government the Germans were trying to get back home just as what of course we were trying to get back home after the war and we can't as a part of military government I was writing in a cheap and I had an Italian machine yawn with me at big magenta with a clip that held 40 rounds and all of a sudden we came on three German soldiers that were trying to get home but it was certainly uncertain whether or not there were going to be friendly give up or otherwise to you know take us on so they scuttle off into the brush and I shot a couple and I write about that and the fact that you ordered them to be taken to medical care really emotionally any of the after that and the survivor came up to me afterwards and said thank you very much for looking after our comrade what did that tell you tell you we're all in the same boat how long did you stay there in the peacekeeping yeah well well the 4.2 million orders were part of the Japanese invasion plan and so our orders after VE Day and - this scent of military government which was simply to keep us occupied our plans were to go back to us take our rehab furloughs and head for Japan so we were afoot was described as a hot outfit so so I was back in the u.s. I think in June I had July as a rehab month and then back to Texas to await further orders to Japan and then the war was over what was your reaction to that you I proposed to my future wife that's exciting I assume she said yes yes okay so that after that you you left the army shortly after that then yeah I was discharged and I think in November of 1945 and had to wait the onset of a semester at Caltech and went back to school in February a married man and went back as a freshman which I had been in 1943 when the school had given us leaves of absence to join the army so that's why I went so early and anyway stated Caltech I'd played baseball and soccer and became a father and graduated in 1949 as a geologist and was hired by the cello company thereafter as a member of their production department and started drilling for oil and very pleased various places okay how long did you stay with them I stayed with him for eight years and I left to show no company because I the routine has simply started to bore me and I went back to school for a year to get sort out my future goals and got a master's degree in the process and then became what I I called a geo politician I signed up with the city of Los Angeles as first of all as a geologist and subsequently as their petroleum administrator which was probably the most interesting job I ever had I was assistant administrative officer there my boss was essentially the city manager but I was managing the oil and gas operations going on in the city of La and that led to another job the last job I had was the head of the trade association called the Western oil and gas Association and I managed I became vice president and general manager and managed there's a local operation for ten years and became essentially the spokesman of the West Coast oil industry during that period testifying before Congress and oddly enough one of my appearances before a Senate committee turned out to be fruitful and that they did what I asked him to do once in a while that actually happens just about a minute left here mr. Spalding what are you most proud of when you think of your military service oh I think the battle is about where there was a true opportunity of doing something in the cause of freedom as here and after that it was a day no more because it was virtually hand-to-hand combat and in the snow and the worst weather conditions you can possibly imagine that was a hundred year storm that overtook us in December of 1944 and I'm proud of that I'm proud of the work that I did for the city and also for the petroleum industry well mr. Spalding we thank you for your service and thank you for being with us today well I'm delighted to have the opportunity art Spalding a World War two veteran of the US Army and a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge recipient of the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart I'm Greg karumba this is Veterans Chronicles

Channel: American Veterans Center

Views: 56,810

Rating: 4.891983 out of 5

Keywords: AVC, American Veterans Center, art spaulding, arthur spaulding, battle of the bulge, 91st chemical mortar battalion, bronze star, purple heart, history, veterans, world war ii, world war ii veteran

Id: doOTpzXSOdk

Length: 36min 10sec (2170 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 02 2018