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Everett Bailey rarely spoke of his experiences in the 3rd Battalion, 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division during World War Two. But on one occasion, he told a story about a German doctor who was taken prisoner during the push toward the Po Valley. The captured medic had volunteered to help tend to the wounded of both sides, and rendered valuable service. Eventually the man was sent to the rear with other POWs, and Everett spoke of writing the man a letter attesting to his contribution, which he could show to whomever he encountered as evidence of his cooperation. Albert Meinke Jr., the 3rd Battalion Surgeon, told a story that was so similar in its detail that both must refer to the same man.
On April 18, 1945 Company I led the battalion advance at 0900 hours under German artillery fire. The 751st Tank Battalion provided armor support. The march was rapid at first, and there was no resistance of any kind. The column moved down the narrow and winding road from Monte Nonascoso and into thick woods, which presented a serious impediment for the tankers. The rate of advance slowed considerably. Throughout the morning, several groups of Germans surrendered themselves without a fight. Captain Albert Meinke recalled that,
One of these groups included a German medical officer, and I asked the doctor if he would like to stay with us, or go back with the rest of the prisoners to the POW cage. He chose to stay, and immediately cooperated with me in the care of wounded prisoners. I was happy with this arrangement because I would now have another doctor with whom to talk, and I was even happier a little later, because we soon began receiving many more German wounded than Americans.
He was much older than I, perhaps in his mid-fifties. I don’t remember his name. He spoke a little English, and it was obvious that I could speak German much better than he could speak English, so we spoke mainly in German.
He presented a bleak picture of medical practice in the German Army, where medical services had deteriorated from among the best in the world into conditions of desperation and severe shortages. He had been short of supplies and medicines for months…he seemed skeptical when I told him what penicillin could do.
I Company emerged from the woods at 1045 hours, followed by the rest of 3rd Battalion, and moved down a long slope that was divided into pastures and plowed fields. There was a farmhouse there that was still occupied by local civilians. When questioned, the residents explained that the Germans had moved north the night before. The advance continued, and five minutes later I Company was fired upon.
The tanks were brought to the head of the column and the rifle companies followed behind, I Company still in the lead. At 1210, they crested a rising piece of ground and were stopped there by enemy machinegun fire coming from Sulmonte. Immediately, a heavy mortar barrage began dropping among the tanks and men. Allied air support was called in on the small village of a dozen houses, and then I Company moved in along with the tanks to take the objective. After tough and costly fighting, they captured the town and several prisoners of the famed Panzergrenadier-Regiment 200, which had covered the German withdrawal from Sicily two years before. I Company lost seven men killed and sixteen wounded during the attack.
At the 3rd Battalion Aid Station, wounded poured in from I Company as well as the Panzergrenadier-Regiment 200. Albert Meinke especially remembered one German soldier who, “had been particularly severely wounded.”
He had multiple shell fragment wounds, an obvious fracture of his right leg and a probable fracture somewhere in the region of his right shoulder. When he was carried in, he was barely conscious, had an ashen complexion, profuse sweating, rapid pulse and low blood pressure. He was obviously in shock, so I quickly reconstituted a unit of plasma and started to administer it intravenously through a large bore needle. The German Doctor was most curious about this, and asked what I was administering. I told him, and when I explained how it was made, and the medical principles behind its use, he understood immediately, and said that he personally had never had anything like it to use at the front.
With the plasma running I examined and re-bandaged the wounds, and splinted the leg. The external bleeding was controlled. I could find no physical evidence of any internal bleeding except for that which happened at the fracture sites, and when the prisoner’s condition improved dramatically after only a small volume of plasma had been administered, I was pretty certain there was none. I knew he was fully conscious again when he managed to scowl at me with a defiant expression on his face, and said, “Heil Hitler!” I also became aware that there was something definitely different about this particular prisoner, as compared to the rest of them. When I asked how he felt, and about the circumstances of his being wounded, he wouldn’t answer, but just stared at the ceiling and glowered defiantly. He did let me inspect his splints and dressings at intervals, and raised no objection to the plasma administration or to the later addition of a bottle of normal saline to keep the intravenous line open. The other wounded Germans in the aid station and the volunteer litter bearers coming and going, seemed to shun him completely. It was normal for most wounded prisoners to speak to each other, albeit in quiet and subdued tones, but none seemed willing to speak to this man. Nor did he speak to anyone, and he didn’t reply whenever I spoke to him. As his condition continued to improve the expression on his face showed increased defiance and eventually sheer animal hatred. The German medical officer didn’t fare much better either, but when he “pulled rank,” the man did give his name, rank and serial number.
After we had sent this man to the rear, my German colleague volunteered a surprising amount of information about him, some of which came from our healthy prisoners, and some of which was common knowledge among the German troops. In the past he had been a member of Hitler’s elite SS Troops, and…some of the men had been transferred to other units in order to try to instill some pride and “backbone” into the groups of old men and boys that the Germans were now calling up to be soldiers…They and all others like them were feared and hated by the ordinary German soldier and by most German civilians. They were arrogant, fearless, ruthless, and treacherous fanatics, and would not hesitate to shoot anyone, even a soldier in a German uniform who looked like he might be trying to surrender.
…the German doctor now asked to go on to the rear. He knew we had already been going constantly with little rest for three days, and said he was too old for that kind of activity…
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Wilbur Vaughan, of the 3rd Battalion Headquarters Company, took a small collection of snapshots during the offensive in the spring of 1945. These two photographs are among only four images he captured during the push out of the Apennines, so it can be surmised that this man was a subject he saw as important, and a person he wanted to remember. Everett Bailey had copies of these photos in his possession as long as he lived, and they may very well have been taken as the medic was given the letter attesting to his service.
This blog is part of a larger body of research culminating in the publication of the book ‘Heroes in Good Company: L Company, 86th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division 1943-1945’ which is available in select bookstores and on amazon.
Sources:
Bailey, Everett. personal interview by author. December 24, 2010.
Bailey, Thomas B. personal interview by author. November, 2011.
Brower, David. Remount Blue: The Combat Story of the Third Battalion, 86th Mountain Infantry, 10th Mountain Division. Unpublished Manuscript, c. 1948. Digitized version edited and made available through the Denver Public Library by Barbara Imbrie, 2005.
Caine, David. personal interview by author. December 24, 2010.
Carlson, Bob. A History of L Company, 86th Mountain Infantry. Self-published Manuscript, 2000.
Meinke, Albert H., Jr., Mountain Troops and Medics: Wartime Stories of a Frontline Surgeon in the US Ski Troops. Kewadin, MI: Rucksack Publishing Company, 1993.
Vaughan, Cameron. e-mail messages to author. September-November, 2017.
Wellborn, Charles. History of the 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment in Italy. Edited by Barbara Imbrie in 2004. Denver, CO: Bradford-Robinson Printing Co.,1945.
