Oscar Fettig
When I called Oscar Fettig to make an appointment for this interview, I was amazed at how nice he sounded over the phone. I was incredibly nervous about interviewing someone I didn’t know, but he made me feel relaxed. I arrived at Mr. Oscar Fettig’s house promptly at nine o’ clock. I rang the doorbell. My feelings about him being a nice person were confirmed. All through the interview I found myself getting more involved in his story. I enjoyed interviewing Oscar Fettig. His story is fast becoming one that many young people have a hard time trying to understand. This interview is a lesson to teach others about our history.
I wasn’t in [the army] at that time [beginning of the war]. Pearl Harbor was December 7th, ‘41. I went in in January ‘42. So, I was home on a farm [at the outbreak of the war]. I was twenty-two, I think.
I had heard a lot about World War I, but I had never given any thought to being in a war. Well, I wasn’t anxious to go into the army, but I knew I had to go. Everyone else was going. I didn’t have a reason not to go. So, I went along with the crowd.
I knew for a couple of years that, at least a year, that I would have to go [fight in the war]. But I waited until I was drafted (laughs). [I was in the war] three years and five months. I can remember that.
I was inducted in the army January 29, 1942. Well, basic training, I was sent to Ft. Walter’s Camp, Texas for thirteen weeks and there we were trained to be a soldier. We did marching, we fired all types of weapons, just general basics of things that we would come up against later on.
[I was in] “M” Company, 9th Infantry Regiment. I was in an 81 millimeter mortar platoon. That is a weapon that looks like a pipe. Stick it up at an angle. It had a firing range of almost two miles. We stayed behind the very front line because the shortest distance we could fire was 250 yards. So, we had to stay back that far. Behind the regular front line, and then we would support the rifle company.
Oh, from basic training I was sent to Fort Sam Houston, Texas and joined the 2nd Infantry Division. That was in May. November of ‘42 we were moved to McCoy, Wisconsin. We stayed there one year, and then we went overseas and was stationed in Ireland for six months. We went to Keady, Ireland for six months. Then, six weeks before the invasion of France, we were moved to Wales; and from Wales we went to France. April ‘44 we went to Wales. We was there about six weeks. Then [we] went to France. [My division] landed in France on D+one*.
Well, of course we landed in France first. Our particular group landed on what they called Omaha Beach. It was more fortified than the other beaches where we landed. They landed about three or four different places when they invaded France. This particular place there was over two thousand killed on the beach that day. Our division went [to] France on D plus One, which was the next day after [landing]. We were in contact with the enemy all but seventeen days, fighting all the time. Those seventeen days were spent moving from one area to the other. There was no such thing as pulling back for a rest. Not in those days. We didn’t have a bed to sleep in for two years.
You see, when we was over there, we had no idea where we were--except we were in France. We had no maps, our officers had maps; but it just covered the certain area we‘re in, like a ten mile area, and then they‘d give ‘em another map. We would just follow the leader. They said, “Well, we‘re gonna go this way today.” So we‘d go that way. We didn‘t go through very many towns. Now part of our division would go, but you got your division all lined up the whole front there for miles and miles. If there‘s a town in front of you, you go through the town. If not, you just go cross country.
The French people were very nice to us, most of them. Of course, when we would approach a town or something, they would move out and leave because they was in between two fires. The Germans were trying to hold the town, and we’d drive’em out. In Normandy the Germans had been occupying France for, I believe, about four years. Some of the German soldiers had married French girls, and some of the French were sympathetic to the Germans. They would help the Germans fight. So, we had to kinda be on our guard. We didn’t know who was friend and who was foe (laughs). Then, we got into Germany and I can say Germany is a beautiful country. The parts of it that I’ve been in. But we weren’t looking for beauty at that time, we were trying to end the war.
I was in five major, what they call, campaigns. The Battle of the Bulge also known as the Battle of Ardens. I think one called the Rhineland. I haven’t thought about this for so long, I’ve really forgotten. That’s all I can name right now.
[The worst part about the war was] getting shot at (laughs). [Being] away from home. [It was a] hostile area. You had no bed to sleep in, no building to get into. We’d dig a hole. [Then we’d] live in a hole. We had one blanket apiece.
We had just any kinda weather. In France, we had pretty decent weather. Quite a bit of rain. Then we got on in there to winter months, it got bad, cold, snow, sleet, rain, anything you can think of. We had it. [It was] very, very cold. Then on towards spring, the weather got nice again. But it was a real bad winter.
Well, in Normandy we had very long days. The sun would set about 10:30 in the evening. It’d be dark around 11:30. It would get daylight about 5:00 in the morning. During that time, say from about 11:00 on, the fighting would stop. [Maybe] earlier than that, about 9:00. Then we had to dig a hole to sleep in. We ate our evening meal. They would give food to us, and we would eat. Sometimes during the day we would have what they call “K-rations” or “C-rations”, K-rations was a little box of food about the size of a Cracker Jack box. Different menus in different boxes. So, we wouldn’t know what we got until we’d pick up a box. And that’s what we’d eat during a day. At night, after dark, about 11:30 the Mess Sergeant would bring our dinner to us. Then half of the men had to stay on guard. Someone had to be on guard all night long; and we took turns at that. So from, uh, nine, ten o’ clock in the evening until five in the morning, that was our schedule. First we’d dig a hole and we would take turns standing guard; and in the meantime, if the Germans behaved themselves we’d get a few hours of sleep, two to three hours (laughs). That was our basic day, there in Normandy. Then we got on into the winter months, days were short, just like they are here. It was very, very cold over there. One of the coldest winters on record. And snow! The Battle of the Bulge was, uh, weather was absolutely miserable. Then the days got a little longer, and by then [the] fighting was dying down. So, we had a little more freedom. We didn’t have to work quite as hard during the day. [We] had longer nights.
[When] we got into Germany, we were sleeping in houses, we didn’t dig holes. We would spend a night in a house. So, basically that’s pretty much our schedule.
Wherever there’s been a big battle, for quite some time after that, there’s the smell of gun smoke. Just powder. Burnt powder, it just stays in the air unless there’s a wind to blow it away. You take a still day, when there’s been a real big battle, and two armies firin’ million of shells at each--rifles and mortars and artillery. I said we come along right behind the front lines. Sometimes we’d be a mile and a half behind them because our gun would fire two miles. So we didn’t always move. We had to keep our guns where we could use ‘em; and then when we got too far behind them, we had to catch up on ‘em. By the time we got up there, where the big battle was, that smell of smoke was still there. You hear all sorts of sounds. You hear machine guns fire, you hear rifle fire, mortar gun firing. You can hear artillery shells going over, whether their coming from our guns, going towards us, you can hear ‘em. There was times when you never knew when you was gonna be alive from one minute to the next. You just had to have faith that you was gonna make it. [Once] we were going through a place where there had been a terrible battle. We were walking over a ridge--fairly high hill. Then there was a valley, and another hill. They’re in a process of backing up, while our riflemen is going up the hill. We was walking across the hill, which is something you don’t walk parallel to your enemy only in cases where you have to, and that time we had to. So they were taking pot shots at us with machine guns. And we lost one man, he was killed, in my platoon crossing that ridge. But as we came down the hill into that valley, I saw two men in a kneeling position. They were riflemen. They didn’t have their helmets on. And I could see ‘em for a ways and they just, they’d never moved. And I thought well, why are those two men, right there side by side on their knees, and not moving, not doing anything? Well, when I got to ‘em, they were both dead. They had been hit with machine gun fire, and that was one scene I never forgot.
I’ve gone six weeks without a bath or a change of clothes. For example, when we went into France, it was six weeks before we got a chance to take a bath or get a change of clothes. It was two weeks before I ever took my shoes off. I was afraid to take ‘em off. Afraid I might have to move too fast, and I’d get caught with my shoes off. But we finally thought it was safe, and we took our shoes off. We had these helmets that had this two parts--fiber-filled liner, and then the steel outside shell; and that was our wash pan, that outside shell.
We’d get water and we’d wash, wash in that, that was our wash pan. Wash our feet, your face, or whatever you wanted to wash you could in that helmet. We went into France, we didn’t know whether the Germans would try to use gas on us or not, so we were wearing clothing that was treated.
The battle for the twin villages Krinkelt and Rocherats--Battle of the Bulge--our division was the one assigned to defend these two cities. And we did. It happened that there were highways and roads that come pass between these two small villages that were very important to both us and the Germans. Now, if the Germans could capture these two cities, they would have an open road to go to Antwerp, that’s where they wanted to go. We didn’t let them have those two cities. They threw everything they could find at us. Like I told you, the S.S. troopers couldn’t handle the Second Division. They hit us one day with three armored tank divisions against our one division; and we didn’t let them through. See, there was a long standing history of our division, and that was drilled into us all the time--from the time I joined them til we got over into France--and that was, “The Second Division, anytime they were assigned to take an objective, they never failed to take that objective. And once they took ground from an enemy, they’d never let the enemy have it back!” They got some ground back during the Battle of the Bulge, but it was because we had to back up. We was so far out ahead of everybody else that we had to back up to get the line straightened up. They come in behind us, and had us completely surrounded for something like six hours. The Battle of the Bulge. It’s called the “The Battle of the Bulge” because the Germans massed a much larger fighting force then we thought they could put together, and tried to break through our lines. They did break through in places, but they was gonna drive us a way back, and it failed. The reason they got that much armor together, in one place, in front of us, was because of the weather. Had snow. We had rain, fog, cloudy weather for several weeks, and our planes couldn’t get out and watch what was goin’ on. So they had it all put together; but it failed.
Oh, you think about [dying] everyday. I didn’t dwell on it. Some [soldiers] did. Some of them, the ones that did, went berserk; but I just didn’t think about it. I just felt sure I was coming back home; and if it did happen, it would probably happen so quick that I wouldn’t know what was going on anyway. So, you just go on and try and protect yourself and hope you make it. I was wounded twice. Once in Normandy, and again in Germany. So I missed about a total of five months fighting. That really didn’t bother me too much because I was spending time in the hospital.
Well, at the time it happened (I got shot). The first time was in an apple orchard. The Germans were backing up, but they left one artillery gun up close, and he was firing. We was on a hill, and he was firing across the valley right in an apple orchard. Specifically, to get us. We were laying down--because you can hear an artillery shell coming, and when it comes you lay down flat on the ground. This artillery shell hit, and this shrapnel come right on down and went in through the sole of my shoe. Most of my platoon was in an apple orchard, but I’m the only one that got hit. We could see the German guns, but there was nothing we could do about it. If we were to get our mortars out there, we could of got the gun. But if we had put up our mortars to fire at him, they’d wipe us off the map right fast (laughs).
The second time [I got shot] was, again, and artillery shell; but it wasn’t an 88, it was, uhm, let me think, 150 millimeter artillery--which would of been about a five inch or six inch diameter shell. And about two feet long. They had been shelling all around us that day, but this was just before dark. They started droppin’ ‘em in close to us. One of ‘em got too close. Hit eight of us. None were killed.
We carried a first-aid kit fastened on our belt. It had a bandage and sulfa tablets in it. So, anytime we were wounded your buddies would take that first-aid kit, and wrap your bandage; and if you had water, you would take your sulfa pills right away, soon as you could. We also had one of our medics from our Medical Battalion. There was one in each Platoon. So we had one of the medics with us at all times.; and he would do what he could, he carried more medical supplies. He had a big bag that he carried just full of medical supplies. And then they got you to an aid station, which is back down the road. They call it aid station, which is a tent they would set up. And they would give you more first aid there, and put you in an ambulance and send you on to the hospital. I can’t tell you how far away they were, they would have field hospitals. This second time we drove it was after dark. They called for the jeep to come and get us ‘cause there was eight of us. These jeeps would lay one stretcher, they were called litters, across the hood. They had two racks of two could lay over the head, and over the driver, and the other medical man that was with them. Then they had the “backseat” that someone could sit up in, if they didn’t need to be on a stretcher. One of the jeeps came up to get us. Cause there was eight of us they had to make two or three trips. I waited for the last one. They put me on top. With one blanket wrapped around me. Drivin’ down the road, and that blanket came a flippity floppin’; and you can imagine drivin’ down the road, ridin’ on top of the jeep. They didn’t have tops up on the jeeps. The man on the other stretcher beside me had been hit in the side, and he was in a lot of pain. He couldn’t keep his blanket tied down, and bouncing on that, he was moaning and groaning most of the time. I was hit in the leg, and I wasn’t hurting very bad. So, I would try to tuck my blanket around under me to hold it down, and I would lean over as far as I could--cause I was strapped on to that litter--and try to hold his blanket down, tryin’ to keep him warm. We went to the aid station. They said their ambulance wouldn’t be back for awhile. They said go back to another station. Their ambulance should be there. So we went back there--three, or four miles. It’d already left by the time we got there. So, we turned around and went back to our first aid station; and then they sent us some place else, to find an ambulance. So, it was pitch dark by then. We probably rode ten or twelve miles up on top of that jeep. We went through forests on old back roads to get to town where they had a hospital set up in a school house. We got in there ‘bout midnight.
Well, they (hospitals) were operated by the American army and the first time I was wounded they flew me back to England. They moved me from one hospital to another. I was in about four different hospitals. I stayed twenty-nine days in one. They were just big, old buildings they called a ward, and there’d be like fifty to sixty beds in there. It was very nice. The second time I was wounded they put me on a train and sent me back to Paris. The American army had taken over a school building in Paris and converted it into a hospital. So, all the classrooms were called a ward. They had as many beds as they could put in there.
The end of the war we were sent to Klatlopy, Czechoslovakia. We guarded eighty-five hundred German prisoners. They sat up a discharge station at this camp, and they were discharging German soldiers. They discharged two hundred a day. Every time they would bring in those two hundred men, they’d get off the trucks; everything they had in their pockets, whatever they had, they had to lay it out on the ground in front of ‘em. We’d go along check to see that they didn’t have anything we didn’t want ‘em to have, like knives, or pistols, or anything like that.
Most
everyone got a good conduct medal. I have a Purple Heart with an oak leaf
cluster. I have the European Theatre of Operations Medal, known as the
ETO medal with five oak leaf clusters on it. [The clusters], represent
the five major battles that I took part in. [I also have the] Occupation
of Germany [and] the Bronze Star. Everyone got the Combat Infantry badge.
Ah, there’s a little blue ribbon that you wear. Most of [the] medals you
wear on your right side, and there’s one you wear on your left. [It’s
a] little blue [ribbon], it’s not a medal. It’s just a ribbon that you
call a Presidential Citation for some outstanding battle in our battalion.
We got a ribbon for that.
I had an experience that very few took part in. I was a dignitary at that time. About eleven o’clock one evening they came to me, and told me that I was suppose to report to Battalion Headquarters right away--that was in Czechoslovakia at the time. I went to Battalion Headquarters and they told me I was going to come home. They told me that the big generals had been bringing groups of G.I.’s home with them from their home state. This officer asked me if there was a big general over there from Kansas. I said, “Yes. The biggest one here is from Kansas.” I’ve never known why they picked me. The only thing I can figure out it they sent a request to my division for one man to represent the division, and they had a lot of requirements they had to meet. I happened to be the first one that they came to that fit that requirement. I got home about four months earlier than I would have. But there was either fifty-two or fifty-three men came back to the United States with him [General Eisenhower].
I flew from Paris all the way to Kansas City. In the group there was one First Class Private, everyone else was non-commissioned officer. We landed in Washington D.C. They had private cars for everyone. There were about three [people] in a car. We were in a parade in Washington and stayed in the Statler Hotel overnight. That evening, when we got to the Hotel, there was an engraved invitation, on our dresser in our room, from President Truman inviting us to a dinner in the White House that evening. So we went to the White House. The [dinner] was in honor of Eisenhower and his group that he brought home. We had turkey, and I don’t remember what all. They had cocktails before the dinner. At that time, they told us that was the first time liquor had been served in the White House, in I don’t know how many years. Leaders of Congress were there, [and] General Patton was there. [Also present were] General Marshall, and of course President Truman. I have President Truman’s autograph on the back of my invitation. I held his drink for him while he autographed my invitation. He was just real friendly and congenial; and would visit with you just like anyone would at that time.
The next day, we then flew to New York. We had ticker-tape parade in New York. LaGuardia was mayor at that time. He took us to his home for a buffet lunch at noon. After noon we went to a ball game to see the Yankees play ball. But it was rained out; and at that time I was no more interested in ball than anything else. The next day they took us to West Point. We spent all that day and night at West Point. And you see all that time, General Eisenhower was with us. The next day, then, we flew to Kansas City. [We] were in a parade in Kansas City. The following day they took us to Leavenworth for discharge. So I had the honor that all the unions of soldiers over there [didn’t have], [and] I always wondered how I was picked. I never knew all the requirements I had to meet. I knew a few of them. So, I got home three to four months sooner than I normally would have.
Things had changed a lot [when I got back home]. They had rationing and I didn’t know what rationing was. I heard about it. You couldn’t buy a car. I didn’t have a car. You couldn’t buy one. They stopped making new cars during the war. You couldn’t hardly find a used one. So, the time after I got home was, basically I was still on foot.
I was back in Europe in 1984 with a group from my army division. There was, I think, ninety-six [people]. Two bus loads. We traced our route from Omaha Beach to Prague, Czechoslovakia. We was in Czechoslovakia when the war ended. We just kind of, basically, retraced our route. [We] spent two weeks doing that. I have relatives in Germany, and we stayed another week and visited relatives. Europe is a beautiful country. Especially Germany, when you don’t have to see it through a gunsight.
This oral history was written by Penney Morton from an interview conducted in 1989 and October 10, 2000.