These photographs are from the actions of the 382nd 96th Infantry Division Deadeyes at Leyte and Okinawa. My grandfather TSgt R. Grant Van Orsdol (Bronze Star, Purple Heart) fought at  Leyte ad Okinawa. As a large man, standing som 6’6′ at 260 pounds he was assigned to BAR. However, his company was devastated at Leyte, where he was field commissioned to Segeant. He took on a bolt action rift, type unknown. He truly felt more effective as a “Sharp Shooter.”

He related an obviously painful truth that he chose he and his Squad to avoid heavy weapons, as the Imperial Forces woud draw heavy fire to any heavy gun. The Squad rather took the approach of firing from heavy growth jungle positions, then reposition as needed. He also refused to forward charge gun nets, rather ordering flanking where possible. From recounts of his fellow Deadeye, Crpl. Harry Coates, my grandfather satchel charged three Imperial gun nests in one run; thus being honored with one of two Bronze Star recommendations.

My. grandfather is the tall man aka “Old Man Van” or “Van” as he was 26 years of age at the Battle for Leyte.

Trace Adkins’ trademark baritone has powered countless hits to the top of the charts and turned albums into Platinum plaques, selling over 10 million albums, cumulatively. The Grammy-nominated member of the Grand Ole Opry is a television personality, actor, author, spokesman for the Wounded Warrior Program, the American Red Cross and has performed seven USO Tours.

In his 2007 autobiography, A Personal Stand: Observations and Opinions from a Freethinking Roughneck, the 6’6″ oil-rigger recounted his rise to fame, brushes with death and battles with personal demons. He also explains just how the world’s biggest alpha-male handles fatherhood with five daughters. In 2008, Trace’s integrity and wry humor served him well as a finalist on NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice and prepared him for his return – on behalf of the American Red Cross – to NBC’s All-Star Celebrity Apprentice (Sundays, 9PM EST/PT).

Trace has played a tough as nails biker in The Lincoln Lawyer (starring Matthew McConaughey), he developed and hosted GAC’s “Great American Heroes” honoring every-day Americans doing great things and he has hosted the American Country Awards on FOX for three consecutive years.

In 2011, Trace album, Proud To Be Here debuted atop the Billboard Country Chart with the Top Ten hit, “Just Fishin’.” His eleventh studio album, Love Will… will debut May 14, 2013 and will feature appearances by two-time Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter, Colbie Caillat, the esteemed Harlem Gospel Choir and Rock/Country veterans, Exile.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

6:30 PM – Reception, 7:00 PM – Lecture

The Army & Navy Club

901 17th St., NW

Washington, DC 20006

2013 Recipient

Lt. General Bernard Trainor, USMC (Ret)
Marine Corps veteran of Korea and Vietnam, former chief military correspondent for The New York Times and Director of the National Security Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, military analyst for NBC, and co-author of several books including the recently-published The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama.

Light reception at 6:30 to be followed by program from 7:00 – 8:00 PM.
RSVP to Nicole McKan at nmckann@radioamerica.org or at 703-302-1012 ext. 218.

Event is free and open to public, but space is limited.

http://www.americanveteranscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/Doolittle-Raiders-Conference-Call.mp3

Dear Mr. Powers:

I recently saw your name in the September, 1991 edition of the Golden Acorn, the 87th Division Association publication. It was indicated that you are the brother of Peter Powers, who was a sergeant in Company E, 345^th Infantry, 87^th Division, and killed in action on December 17, 1944

Age diminishes some things, but one thing that it does not diminish is the memory of a fine fellow like Pete. Everyone liked Pete. He approached all tasks with a cheerfulness and determination that was unmatched. He was the only one the ASTP guys that I knew that made buck sergeant before we went overseas. My squad leader, Larry Reichart, thought the world of Pete, and his endorsement plus that of our Platoon Sergeant, Hank Compton, resulted in Pete’s stripes. I will never forget the laugh that he had, that of someone who put everything into each effort. This sounds a bit overdone, but it isn’t.

Pete enjoyed the admiration of his peers and he was a natural leader.

Pete’s best friend was Blaine Littell. Blaine’s father was the editor of the Reader’s Digest, and he was a direct descendant of James G. Blaine, an unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States. Blaine lucked out unintentionally. He contracted pneumonia in England and was not in E Company when we had our baptism of fire.

Blaine had such poor eyesight I wondered why they put him in a rifle company anyway. So, when he arrived from England after recovering from his illness, they put him in as a clerk in the Headquarters Company of the Second Battalion, a much safer job. This I discovered when I called Blaine in New York, and he came down one evening to attend the first reunion of the 87^th Division Association at the New Yorker Hotel in 1950.

So, it was from Blaine that I learned for the first time of Pete’s death in action on the same day that I was wounded and captured. I hadn’t had any contact with anyone from E Company in the intervening years, and one reason that I went to the reunion was to find out what the hell had happened on the day that we got clobbered. That was a bad day for E Company. It was in a deep forest on the German/French border on the way towards Saarbrucken. We replaced a unit that had lost contact with the enemy, and it was a “meeting engagement.” The enemy was Panzer Grenadier, armored infantry, with tank support and combat experience aplenty. We had neither.

Actually, both E and F companies were ordered to protect an uncovered flank that constituted a real danger to the whole battalion. Our company commander, First Lt. Joseph T. Lennon of New York City, lost his leg that day, as did our First Sergeant Jones. Both shared the same foxhole and were victims of our own artillery’s short rounds.

The F Company commander was killed. The battalion executive officer was wounded. Between the work of German machine guns, tree snipers, and the short rounds from our own artillery, we lost half of our men in E Company within the first one and one-half hours of the firefight. It was told to me that Pete was the victim of a tree sniper.

I was a bazooka man. We had recently beefed up our firepower to emulate what the Marine Infantry was doing in another theater of war. When called forward by the company commander, I responded. I saw Sergeant Compton involved in a firefight with a BAR that he had taken from someone, directly engaging the machine gunner that wounded me. The BAR had an extremely low rate of fire. The MG43 fired at the rate of 1,000 rounds per minute. Anyone having the guts to do that, should have received a medal on the spot.

Later Sgt. Compton got a Silver Star for a different action, and based on his ability was later given a battlefield commission. My whole belly was opened up from left to right by the MG43, my femoral nerve in the right leg severed, and my right hip broken. If ambulatory I would have beaten a hasty retreat like everyone else. Fortunately my intestines had not been hit, but nobody knew that. A couple of days later our unit returned only to find my rifle, but no trace of me. I quit yelling for a medic. Each outcry brought on only a new burst of machine gun fire in their attempt to put me out of my misery. Our own mortar counter-fire did not help at all. I was convinced that our guys couldn’t hit a barn, would miss the machine gun next, and hit me instead. I was lucky. True to form, they hit nothing.

After the mortar fire stopped, out of the machine gun next came the gunner and his assistant. It is not often that you get to meet first hand the guy that just shot you. I did. They both had machine gun pistols on the ready and I thought it was goodbye forever. They had both been drinking, and offered me a pull of schnapps. Exactly the last thing that I wanted. They took my hand grenade from my raincoat collar, took the leather gloves that my brother, an Army doctor, had given me in England before we shipped out, took my switch blade knife, but I talked them out of taking my watch, saying that my mother had given it to me.

Then we got into our pidgin English/German attempt at conversation. They told me that Christmas was coming in one week. That I knew. One guy showed me pictures of his family. I guess trying to show that he was not all bad, just doing his job, as I was attempting (unsuccessfully) to do mine. He had a Catholic Holy picture with him and when I kissed that, I guess the Lord responded. It appeared that they were both Catholic, and although an “Ami” enemy, I was still a fellow Catholic, and that counted for some Christian charity, especially a week before Christmas. I sure am glad that they did not know how poor a practicing Catholic I was then.

They carried me sitting on a rift to a half-track. The half-track carried me back to an aid station. The German medic inside gave me a cold cup of coffee and a shot of morphine. Enemy or not, it so relieved the pain, I could have kissed him. I woke up that night on a pallet on the floor, inside a building, but outside of a field hospital operating room, with medics and wounded coming and going and being carried on litters. Nothing personal, I was being written off as having a mortal belly wound, as did the German medics involving serious head and belly wounds, German or American.

To my surprise and right over me appeared my platoon commander, Lt. Smithwick, who it appeared had also been captured and had suffered a wound in his left arm that had passed between the bones without breaking them. Lt. Smithwick raised holy hell then and there and insisted that I be treated. The doctor told me to breathe deeply as they put the rubber mask over me and I woke up the next day in a room with a bunch of Krauts.

To make a long story longer, I didn’t get any water for two days, or food for five, since they thought my intestines had been punctured. I finally convinced them that I would take responsibility for my intestines, and I was given nourishment. I was moved to a regular German military hospital in Neustadt, where I encountered Lt. Smithwick again. There were about a dozen of us in one large room on the third floor of a former girl’s school. During each air raid, they locked us in, and went downstairs to the shelters, probably figuring poetic justice if we got hit. Lt. Smithwick tried to escape three times, and they were plenty pissed off.

I remember one incident during a low-level daylight raid by French flown P-47s when we started to cheer before the Kraut medics had left the room, and it seemed to amuse them, like we were involved in a football game rather than the more serious business of war. After a month at Neustadt, the honeymoon was over. I got transported via ambulance and German hospital train to the east bank of Rhine at Heppenheim, outside of Mannheim, where there was a regular POW hospital for over 2,000 POWs. No head, no medicine, no bandages, plenty of lice, practically no food. We were liberated by the 3^rd Division on March 27, 1945. I weighed 120 pounds and had lost 45.

General Devers personally came to the hospital and ordered the 150 or so American prisoners to be flown to Paris and to be in clean sheets by Easter. We were and I couldn’t have been happier when the war ended from E Company, 345 Infantry. There about 40 members of the 87^th Division Association from E Company, 345^th. In Chicago in 1989, there were only six of us. Only two did I know. Sgt. Brantner from North Carolina and Pfc. Hennessey from New Jersey. One good reason for that is even though half of the company survived December 17^th, the company received 60 percent casualties in the crossings of the Rhine and Moselle rivers in March, 1945.

I lost my best friend from high school, Roosevelt High in Washington, DC. Jimmy Lord was his name and we enlisted in the ERC ASTP program together. He was killed in action with the Big Red One, the US Army First Division.

I don’t always say my prayers at night, but when I do and mention all my family members who have passed, I always mention Peter Powers and Jimmy Lord also, but am sure that when they approached St. Peter that they were waived right in without a check of their credentials and were assured that their reputations had preceded them, no record check was necessary. It always gives me a laugh to see who has this medal or that, or who were the heroes.

The heroes were the guys who didn’t come back and gave everything that they had for their country.

Peter Powers was a hero. Jimmy Lord was a hero. The rest of us just had dangerous experiences.

Clarence R. Saccardi

Formerly Pvt Saccardi

Second Platoon

E Company

345 Infantry

87^th Division

Born June 15, 1925

Died March 23, 2006

Buried in Arlington National Cemetery

Lynn Davis “Buck” Compton December 31, 1921 – February 25, 2012) He served with the L. During os Angeles Police Department, he was a commissioned officerwith Easy Company, 2^ndBattalion,506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Divisionof the United States Army. Buck was portrayed in the HBOminiseries Band of Brothers .

Recollections of James Hugh Powers

From the photograph hung on my living room wall, the 19-year-old soldier gazes into the room, his Army visor hat on at a cocky angle, yet “regulation.” His uniform is immaculate, the Acorn (87^th) Division patch showing on his left shoulder. His eyes twinkle, and a broad, engaging youthful smile greets the world. An eternal teenager and Harvard freshman, he is frozen in time.

It is so like the photographs one sees of Soldiers, Sailors and Marines of other wars, captured by the camera….the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the two World Wars, the Korean War, the War in Vietnam, and most recently the Gulf War. They are young, and their moods are many. They are in their hours of hope, boredom and danger, living for today and aspiring to live to see tomorrow. They are not supermen, not larger than life, however great their bravado. They are very human. They are regular guys.

They griped about the powers that be who commanded their units. They opined abut the offerings of the cooks. They tried to impress the girls when they were on liberty. Some of them got into trouble with the Shore Patrol and Mps, and were extracted from it by their Cos and their buddies. Their feet hurt. They endured either tropical humidity and heat, or the dampness and cold of winter battlefields. They talked about what they would do when they returned home, gambling that the odds were in their favor They wrote loving letters to their parents, kidding letters to their siblings, and outrageous nonsense to their girl friends. They died.

For those of use who shared the rigors of war and survived, there lingers always that haunting question? How would our families and country have fared had we died and our buddies had lived.? Why were we spared? Why did so many men who were so much better than ourselves because the victims of fate?

Our dead have faces. Their voices echo in our memories. They gave the last full measure of devotion, taking their courage in their hands and defying fear. They marked their ballots for freedom with their own blood. This is how it is, out there on the battle line. Death is nasty. It is not poetic. Parting is instantaneous for some. Others, less lucky, linger in agony their buddies write white lies home, to spare the family. Every article of the Bill of Rights is fashioned from torn flesh. And in my worst nightmares, the red stripes on our flag begin to run downwards, dripping to the ground, as the banner flies lazily against a black sky, and the moans of wounded intensify , the legacy of time spent in a Naval hospital.

Who was this soldier? A few vignettes come down through the halls of time now fading into history.

He was a small boy once, full of imagination and mischievousness and adventure,,, at times a bit too much for his parents!

In 1927, when we were living in Sudbury, Massachusetts, mother was expecting a third child which she hoped would be a daughter as she found two sons quite a handful. She asked Pet and myself, his oldest brother, whether we would like a nice little sister. Pete and I retired to a nearby room and consulted. Then we returned with this verdict: “Mommy, we would rather have rabbits.” We got neither. What we got was one number 3, John, Yale man, future attorney, Assistant District Attorney, administrator and author.

A small boy, Pete went into our Father’s studio office, upstairs in our home, then in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Curious, he began to explore, peeking into everything, including then unlocked drawers of our dad’s office desk. Pete came upon Dad’s Army service revolver, and ammunition therefor, in a drawer left unlocked by oversight. Pete loaded the weapon, aimed it at the studio floor and began firing.

Mother, working in the room below, suddenly came under fire as bullets whizzed by her head. Dropping everything, she raced upstairs to disarm her son. When Dad came home that evening from the newspaper, he was in the doghouse. He remained there until he disposed of the offending firearm. Mother earned her combat star that day!

Returning home from school one day, obviously having participated in a schoolboy fight, Pete, then about 9, was asked to explain himself. His triumphant answer, “I was carving my initials on a Swede.”

As a kid he was intensely loyal to his brothers, his friends, and our family mutt. One day, the dog was put down because of allegations made by a grouchy lady, which later proved to be false. Shortly thereafter, Pete confronted her, with almost demonic fury. He never forgave her. A boy’s relationship with his dog is a very special one. Kids see pets as being one of themselves.

In his teen years, he developed into a fine student and athlete at the Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, winning the school’s Nichols Prize for scholarship. He was demanding of himself in his school work. He was a good team player, and very aggressive, on the playing field. He was reliable, with a good sense of humor and little patience with cheats. He was very popular with his schoolmates.

Once, Mother was asked about the differences between Pete and myself. She replied, “Hugh is my Scottish son, and Pete is my Irish son.” Asked further to elucidate, she explained:

Hugh is my Scottish son, because when he is wronged, he broods upon it for some time, before getting angry and acting.

Pete becomes instantly furious when he is wronged, and wants to tear the offender apart right there and then. Each is formidable in his own way.

These traits were to follow Pete into the Army. His Army buddies particularly valued his amiable disposition, his daring under fire, and his fierce loyalty to his comrades-in-arms. He was a regular guy, some steps short of sainthood.

Two incidents reported ancedotally to our family by men who served with Pete in the Army seem to human and so characteristic of him.

While on liberty in the west of England where is division was then stationed, Pete had a few drinks an made the acquaintance of a young lady whom he took with him to the next pub, one frequented by Gis. When he entered the pub, someone had the poor taste and bad luck to make a remark about the girl to which Pete took considerable offense. Like Andy Jackson, Pete believed in dealing very directly with such offenders. In no time at all, he created that condition so dear to the heart of an Irishman, a full-blown riot. He, his buddies, and the young lady, made their exit seasonably just as the Mps showed up. Mother did not appreciate this story. But Pete’s buddies raised their glasses to it! he was their kind of guy!
His loyalty to his men was demonstrated dramatically during an incident in northern France during the winter of 1944, just before the Battle of the Bulge. Pete was leading a party of soldiers over snow-covered fields swept by bitter winds. The unit came upon a farm, the barn of which contained hay. Some of his men asked whether they could “appropriate” some of the hay for use in lining their foxholes, to make them a bit warmer. At that point, the farmer showed up.

Pete, who was fluent in French, asked the farmer whether his men could take some of the hay for the purpose of lining their foxholes. The farmer refused his permission, arguing that he needed the hay for his cows. Pete pointed out that his men only wanted a little of the hay. Still the farmer would not relent. Pete then offered to pay for the hay with an Army requisition or with occupation money. Again the farmer refused. Pete’s patience was at an end.

Slowly and deliberately, he drew his 45 automatic from its holster, placed the muzzle to the farmer’s head, and asked ever so politely, “precisely what price does Monsieur have in mind for his hay?”

Pete’s men got their hay.

Pictured below, Tom is honored by Miami University President David Hodge in 2012 (also pictured, American Veterans Center Program Director Wes Smith, President James C. Roberts, and Executive Director Tim Holbert). Tom always had a smile, and was always ready to share his story with young people right up until the end. His mission is now complete – Godspeed, Major Griffin.