9 Lives: An Oral History

Home

9 Lives: An Oral History

Ebook - History

9 Lives: An Oral History The stories of nine people who lived through the World War II era. These include a Red Cross girl, a rifle company captain, an infantry private, a quartermaster who survived the torpedoing of a ship during Exercise Tiger, a veteran's widow, A D-Day veteran of Omaha Beach, and two survivors of the disastrous Kassel mission bombing raid of Sept. 27, 1944, on which 25 B-24 Liberators were shot down within six minutes in one of World War II's most spectacular air battles. (Amazon.com)

Preface:

When I first saw Arnold Brown, at a reunion of the 90th Infantry Division, he was carrying a scrapbook that said "Oberwampach" on the cover.

Places like Oberwampach don’t mean a lot to publishers of books about World War II. They want to hear of places such as Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima, whose very names will sell a lot of books. But Oberwampach – where Arnold Brown’s rifle company and two platoons of the 712th Tank Battalion, my father’s outfit, held off nine counterattacks over a three-day period – means a great deal to me, and it means even more to the men who fought there.

I knew Brown – who bears a striking resemblance to Colonel Sanders – was going to be one of my favorite interviews almost from the moment I asked him his name.

"Arnold L. Brown," he said.

"What does the ‘L’ stand for?"

"Lee."

"Was that after Robert E?"

"I don’t know of any ancestors named Lee, so it could have been."

After pausing, he added, "I hope the Arnold wasn’t after Benedict Arnold." ...

About the Author:

Aaron Elson is the creator of the World War II Oral History Web Site, which has been described by many visitors as the best World War II site on the Internet because of all the firsthand accounts it offers. He is also the author of three other books, including "Tanks for the Memories: An Oral History of the 712th Tank Battalion," which which his father served in World War II; "They were all young kids," and "A Mile in Their Shoes."

Read 9 Lives: An Oral History Online

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 Arnold Brown, Company Commander, 90th Infantry Division

Chapter 2 Jim Koerner, 10th Armored Division, Ex-Prisoner of War

Chapter 3 Chuck Hurlbut, 299th Combat Engineer Battalion

Chapter 4 George Collar, 445th Bomb Group, Kassel Mission survivor, ex-POW

Chapter 5 Jeannie Roland, widow of a 712th Tank Battalion veteran

Chapter 6 Kay Brainard Hutchins, Red Cross girl, sister of Newell Brainard, who was killed on the Kassel Mission

Chapter 7 Frank Bertram, Navigator, 445th Bomb Group; survivor of the Kassel Mission; former prisoner of war

Chapter 8 Vern Schmidt, a veteran of the 90th Infantry Division

Chapter 9: Patsy Giacchi, 94th Quartermaster Railhead Company, Survivor LST 507, Exercise Tiger.