John Valls – The Texas Liberators

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March 2, 2012

I took basic training in Amarillo. I took the test for pilot. I was—always loved airplanes—or model airplanes. I passed it. I marched in in 1944. I stayed there until March. They eliminated us without prejudice. We didn’t do anything wrong. The whole school was gone because they had too many pilots. I went be-fore a colonel and he says, “What do you feel like?” I said, “Well, sir—” He says—and then he told me, “I’m going to send you to a gunnery school. You’re going to be a gunner in an airplane.” And I said, “Sir—” I thought I’d impress him. I said, “Sir, if I can’t fly the airplane, nobody’s going to fly it for me.” He didn’t say anything, wrote something down, and then he said, “Next.”

The next day I was in the infantry. They transferred me to the infantry. They sent me to Reno, Nevada. I did nothing but went out in a truck in the sand and stayed in a tent. They were training us to go to North Africa. Fortunately, I got my orders changed, I don’t know why. They sent me to Greensboro, North Carolina. There, I was in a track meet. I won everything. Then they sent me to Boston. I shipped out of Boston, fourteen days to South-ampton, England. Out of the fourteen days I was seasick thir-teen. [I’d never been on the ocean before.] And you had a bunk and the—if you were lucky you got the top bunk, because the guy at the top would vomit and it would come all the way down. And it would—it happened. It happened. Oh God, I suffered. Oh!

But we got to England and, sure enough, that episode where—I . . . found a field, beautiful track field, with hurdles and all. I went and ran there. A man, a very well dressed man, saw me. I know it was him because when I got back to the base, Base Air Depot Number Two, we were taking infantry training. They said, “Hey, the colonel wants to see you.” I went in, saluted him. What the heck did I do? And he said, “They want you to go run in London.” I said, “Yes, sir, that’s fine.” They flew me in a C-47 all by myself into London, and that’s when the—they told us, “Hey, the queen is going to be here. We want you British subjects to stand before— When she comes out, you will bow like this. And you, Yank, you don’t have to bow but you can stand at attention.” But everything was—I mean, the queen was like a god to them. It was—and I got the fever, too, when everybody came and when she came out. And I bowed, too, just like the rest of them. But I won. I won the four-hundred-meter hurdles. I’d never run the four-hundred-meter hurdles before. . . . So the next week the colonel called me in: “They want you to go to someplace else.” I forget where. And I went and again I won. And the third week it’s, again, C-47 to another meet, and again I won and they gave me a prize and everything. I sent the prizes to Laredo and they got here.

In one of them I had a certificate, was signed by a bunch of lords. I got it somewhere. I think it’s in one of those books that my daughter made of me. And it said, “This medal will be given to you when obtainable.” This was during the war, so I under-stood that. And this was in, I think, March? No. Well—August. August of 1944? Yeah, ’44. I found the certificate in August ’94, and I sent it to the ambassador for the United States here, in Washington. Oh, he sent me a very nice letter. “Please refer your request to—” some town in England. So I did the same things: “When do I get my medal?” And they wrote back, says, “We have received your inquiry with great interest. We will be in touch.” In about two weeks they sent me the medal. It was really some-thing.

And we had a lesson that we had to say the words “Kill or be killed.” “Kill or be killed.” Thirty times a day we had to say it. Anytime we met a buddy and just, “Kill or be killed.” And Pat-ton— I never—I didn’t see him. The sergeant gave us—or the captain or somebody gave us the—said, “You will not surrender. You will die, but you will not surrender. You will not retreat. You might die, but you will not retreat. Understand that.” And sure enough, finally I get to see my first German soldier in combat, face to face. And I couldn’t shoot him. I couldn’t kill him because I turned cold. I turned cold and I couldn’t shoot him. He threw his gun down and surrendered. Ooh, I took him in. I said, “I caught a Nazzy! I caught a Nazzy!” I didn’t even know how to pronounce Nazi. And I told the sergeant, “Sarge, I couldn’t kill him. I turned cold.” He says, “Don’t worry, son. Next time you won’t.” And sure enough, it was—oh! From that day on, it was rough. It was bad.

I was only a PFC [private first class], but I was the leader. Everybody followed me, even in my half-track. Everybody fol-lowed me, what I did. I told them what to do and they did. And the master sergeant was in charge of us and he gave us the in-structions every day, but the first guy that— When I finally got to France, a captain, I forget his name, but he told me, “I’m your CO [commanding officer] here and I don’t wear my bars because it’s nothing but an aiming stick.” Sure enough, in four days he was killed. Out of a company of twenty-two that I joined with, two of us from the original came back. It was—it was hell. It was really hell.

And you try to tell kids, you’ve got to dig a hole every night, whether it’s raining, snowing, or whatever. You got to dig a hole, because if you were above the ground, mortars come and hand grenades come, and they go this way and that way. So, I mean, every night. Many times we took houses; we took towns that didn’t fight. We had an American officer that spoke German. Every time we got to a town, he’d say, “If you fire one shot at us, we will destroy your town. If you don’t fire at us, we’re not going to disturb you. We’re not going to fire either. So please surrender and avoid bloodshed,” and whatever. Sometimes we went in, no problems. Sometimes we went in and kids with Panzerfaust, rifles with hand grenades—boom! boom!—beat the hell out of us. And it was— We lost a lot of people. You didn’t make friends. You did not make friends because your friend was gone the next day.

And I got wounded. I don’t have the Purple Heart, but I got wounded in my leg and in my arm. If I hadn’t been wearing my helmet, I would have been killed. The thing exploded on top of us. I feel pling, pling, pling, pling, pling! And the guy next to me, the Polack: “I’m hit! I’m hit!” He was covered with blood, all the—all in front. And so, “Hey, medic! Medic!” So they went and got him, took him off. And the next day they brought him back with a Band-Aid. He had been hit right here (laughs and gestures at neck), nothing but a little thing but enough for blood to— He was mad as hell. I remember it. And that night, all of us tried to take our jackets off and mine wouldn’t. The blood. The jacket had stopped the blood. And in my leg, too. But we didn’t say any— I don’t have the Purple Heart, but I was wounded.

But this is—that’s another beautiful thing too. Number one, I’d lie in my hole at night and see thousands of bombers com-ing over; thousands, thousands, thousands coming over. I said, “God, we cannot lose this war,” because there was doubt when we went in. The United States was number seven in power. Ger37 John Vallsmany was first, England was second, France was third, Italy was fourth, Japan was fifth, and somebody else—I forget—Italy or whatever. We were number seven. We didn’t know that we could win the war, but we did. . . . But towards the end we were so tired—mentally, not physically. We were strong—but so tired mentally that I prayed, and so did everybody else, to get killed or get this goddamn war over with. And that’s also the exact word. Please, please, I’ve had it. I don’t see the end. I don’t see the end. I’m here and I can’t do anything about it. I’m hungry, I’m scared, I’m tired, I’m cold. It was bad, bad, bad, bad. You cannot imagine.

We didn’t know anything about the camps. I learned about [Her-mann] Goering and [Joseph] Goebbels and all those after the war. I didn’t know. I was just a kid from high school that really was very naïve. I didn’t know anything. No. But when I saw that, I thought, “How can any people do that to other people? How— It’s impossible. It’s impossible!”

I don’t even remember what the orders were for that day. I know that we were under [Field Marshal Bernard] Montgomery. We were not— The Ninth Armored Division had been loaned to Montgomery, but we were still taking orders from my sergeant. My sergeant told me, “Hey, patrol this area and go into this area.” And I was alone, mind you, and I walked and I saw a giant wall right by, right on the street. And I said, “This is strange.” I didn’t know it was a prison camp. I opened the gate. It wasn’t even locked. I opened the gate, and . . . I walked in and everybody was looking at me. Everybody was standing, and there were some people in racks that I could see. They were laying down just—and all they did was got their heads up and looked and came right back down. They were dying. They were—and it stunk. It was very—

And all of a sudden this man comes up to me and tells me [unintelligible ululating]. He was trying to give me his prize pos-session, which was a sleeveless rabbit skin coat. I said, “No, no, no, I can’t. I’m an American soldier.

I can’t take anything. Go, you’re free! You’re free. Go!” But then very soon thereafter the English came in, and I understand that— Life magazine was also there because I’ve got the magazine that shows the pictures that they took. And Eisenhower got the people in the town to come and parade down and see what—the atrocities. There was about five thousand bodies on the street, all just dead. I never saw any-thing like that. It was gruesome. It was— As a matter of fact, I wanted to get the hell out of there because I couldn’t, number one, I couldn’t stand the smell; and number two, there was al-ready some British soldiers coming in after me. And they were in charge. Let them be in charge. I don’t want to have anything to do—and I went on and—but now I know where I was, and I know that Life magazine was there the next day. But it was gruesome.

I was— I know one thing. I know I have a guardian angel. I know it. I know it. I’ve been in so many bad things that somebody did speak for me, even now. Even now . . . And it’s— I’ve got a guard-ian angel, I hope.

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