Sabers

Show and Tell! Colonel shares and shows Pete his PSC ROTC saber.

Colonel: This is a standard issue item. So when we had formal parades and things of that nature, that was the only occasion for which we wore it. It was in a box in my parents house until my father passed away, eventually my mother. I took it out and its been in a box ever since again! I don’t think they have them at all anymore, do they?

Pete: They might have them at West Point or the Naval Academy. What we used was not personalized like this. More or less, if you were in a high-ranking position and you needed it for a parade, they gave it to you. Once you graduated, they passed it down to the next class.

Colonel: This, of course, I picked up somewhere’s in Europe. [Handing Pete another saber] I can’t tell you where, I don’t remember. On the internet somebody once told me they were trying to sell one for 3,000 dollars. I picked it up and threw it into a duffle bag in which I had put things of this nature. Mostly the purpose of that duffle bag was the hold pistols and knives and give them out to those who were wounded and did not have any souvenirs to take home. So Yust and I would go into that bag and give them something to take home. And I kept that for myself, I don’t remember where I got it.

Pete: The SS logo is on here.

Colonel: Yeah! Yeah. I may have gotten that, well we took a pretty severe licking on Palm Sunday. The influence of SS, a bunch of SS troops on Palm Sunday. We took a licking. Had to back up. And there was an abandoned school. An SS school. So when we went back, I may have taken that from the SS school. 

Luger

On a recent visit with Colonel, I heard a new story about the origin of one gun that he kept after WWII. This is not word-for-word record as the other posts on the blog, but is a very close and accurate replica of the story he shared with me. 

It was towards the end of the war. I had to stay in close contact with both the left and ride side units. But they were different divisions and so on. They were moving forward, moving forward, moving forward and his right side asked, “Do you still have communication with the left side?” I responded that I had lost all communication. For fear of being cut off, I was ordered to hold still until communication was regained. So with two sergeants in the back and a lieutenant driving, I got into the passenger side of a Jeep. They went out to do some scouting and to regain communication with the left side. They moved forward for quite some time, and I was getting hesitant, uneasy to move anymore because we were pretty far out there. It was all woods, brush, etc. So my report told me to return.

We turn the car around and find four German soldiers. One Officer and three soldiers. They already had their helmets and vests off with their hands in the air as surrender. As even further surrender to show peacefulness, the officer threw his Luger down on the ground in front of him. We approached and I picked up that Luger and put it into my side pocket. That is the Luger I still have today.

We all got into the Jeep and drove back. Can you imagine 8 of us in a Jeep! And also imagine – we had passed them on our way out! And only did we find them on our way back. They probably thought there were more of us coming. I don't think that Luger has ever been fired. I never did, and I don't think the Germans ever did either.

Most things we found from niffing, I threw into the bag. But the two things I kept were this Luger and the other Lignose gun out of a curiosity item. I was curious to know how it worked, so it was a curiosity item.

Wartime Fashion

Michelle: Tell Pete about the mishap during your wedding getaway leaving the reception!

Colonel: It was wartime. Everyone was practically in a small Methodist Church. It came a time when we wanted to leave. So I head out to the car and got my car, started it up. I didn’t have my hat! My military hat! In which, was our marriage license. It was buried inside the hat. In that day, when you registered at a hotel, you had to show your marriage license. Yeah! So I had it with me tucked around this military side and the marriage license was out in the house. So I had to go back and get it. If I had driven off I would have had been in a bad way. At that time, you HAD to be in military uniform. I had no civilian clothes.

Michelle: None?!

Colonel: NONE. I gave away every item of civilian clothes I had before I went into the service. Because I knew you were in military uniform 24 hours a day. You could not be otherwise. And I didn’t have my hat, I’m in trouble! I kept one suit in my mother and fathers closet. Of course it didn’t fit five years later when I came back. I don’t know what I did with it.

Life on Chesterbrook Farm

Recounting his days growing up on Chesterbook Farm:

Colonel: Everyone knew it as “The Big House” on Chesterbrook Farm. That was where the owners lived. Of course, it was a very, very, very nice house! Everybody referred to it, ya know, “I’m taking this over to the big house!” Yeah, yeah. That type of thing.

Michelle: Is that where you learned to horseback ride? Do you remember your first time or who taught you?

Colonel: Yeah. I was on a Chestnut Mayer. Sunwood! I don’t know where they got that name. Stanton Norwook (spelling? Man who tended and ran the stable) taught me. When I went into steeplechase and so on, there was a famous horse or two that came there for a race. And I did have an occasion to exercise SeaSoldier. Which was a brother of Clyde Vanhoesen, a winner of the Kentucky Derby. But SeaSoldier was not that caliber and he was just local and so on. Stanton would exercise him with a long whip and a lease to make a circle. And he let me hold that leash for a few moments while that horse was on the other end. He would snap a whip, he wouldn’t touch the horse, he would just make a noise. He’d snap that whip and that horse would go round and round and round. It was a simple way of exercising the horse!

Pete: Michelle was telling me that you used to ride your horse around for groceries and to the stores and everything.

Colonel: Oh yeah, yeah.

Michelle: Did you have your own horse at any time?

Colonel: At Chesterbrook, yeah. It was theirs, but it was mine while I was there! I had to take of him and groom him and everything. They had riding horses available. Every morning the dairyman would take the milk from the farm out to the siding of all the railroads. Where he would hoist the milk cans up on the platform and the train would come by, stop, and he would roll the milk cans into the box car. And they would take off, and he would come back. Once a day, because they milked twice a day. But the milk from the first milking at night was put in the spring house. It was in cold, cold water, and that’s where they kept it overnight until they took it out the next morning. Far from today!

Weaponry

Michelle: Do you have any other weapons?

Colonel: I have a 22, I gave the 9 to the museum. The 9 millimeter. I have one unusual one. As you grip it, your fingers are normally on the trigger in an encasement. This one has a section ahead of that so that you can draw it further in. It’s the only one I’ve ever seen. It has some function, I don’t remember what it was. It wouldn’t be to throw out the shell. I’ll get Bill to bring it next time you’re home, it’ll be here.

When I was doing target shooting in Penn State, it was with a 45 frame, but 22 caliber. 45 is expensive ammunition. And so for target shooting on a 45 frame, they chamber it for 22 caliber shells. The 45 I have is the real thing, but for most range firing they use 22. The Germans made 9 millimeter popular.

The strange one though. I brought that one home because I thought it was usual and I had never seen it before!

[Pete pulls up some photos of guns on his phone to try and figure out which it is – no luck though, but the following description is as follows]

Yeah, I brought that one back from overseas. Its like a double gripe, in front of the normal one. The magazine is in the handle. It had a guard over your trigger finger. Magazine in the stock. It comes out in front of the trigger guard. Its unusual. I’ve never seen one like it.