October 8, 2003
Friends formed under gunfire
Members of W.W.II artillery battalion attend local reunion
Carol South
Special to the Herald
The memories are still vivid, nearly 60 years later. The friendships forged under fire still strong.
This week, 30 members of the 44th Infantry Division, 217th Field Artillery Battalion gathered in Traverse City for a reunion. Based at the Sugar Beach Hotel, the veterans and their wives and families, wined, dined and toured the area. The gathering is an annual tradition of the group dating back to 1978; Dick Steckley of Traverse City hosted this year's event.
Steckley and the other 29 reunion attendees - like millions of young men who fought in World War II - experienced events that changed their lives. Those who came home resumed their lives, built careers, raised families. Now, decades later, the surviving survivors gather, their numbers dwindling year by year.
They tell stories, reminisce and enjoy the company of a peer group that transcends education or profession, religion or region. And they remember, recalling the many who did not return. Stray bullets, random luck, the grace of God, they don't know why they made it and others did not.
Corporal Charlie Davis lost a brother in law in France. Decades later he and his family visited a United States Military Cemetery in Alsace-Lorraine where his wife's brother is interred.
"It's a beautiful facility," he said, describing it for his friends at the reunion, all of them pleased at the care and respect given the fallen Americans.
The 217th hit the shores of France in September of 1944, after the D-Day invasion. The 44th infantry division was the first division to unload directly off a ship onto French soil. They surged through Europe, driving the German Army back into Germany.
The men in the 217th fought ferociously through the end of the war, at one stretch logging 156 days of combat without a break. Nothing interrupted the mission to defeat Hitler. Babies born to wives at home? A terse telegram conveyed the news for both Steckley and John Landers that winter, then back to the foxhole or the fighting or the marching.
"There were no days off, it was 24/7 fighting," said Landers of Corvallis, Ore., a Missouri native who served as a second lieutenant in the war.
During one of the coldest European winters in 40 years, these soldiers went without even the most rudimentary equipment. By March, winter sleeping bags, boots and coats finally found the men, who had won many battles without them. They foraged food and scrounged to fill cold and empty stomachs, following rules of share and share alike.
"Your background didn't make a bit of difference, we were all buddies," said Davis of Winchester, Va.
"You took care of your buddies, you had to, to survive," agreed Landers, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. "It wasn't unusual to sleep standing up in your foxholes, with your feet in snow and rain."
When the war ended on May 8, 1945, the division was one of the first to head home. From Scotland, they shipped back on the Queen Mary. The return trip took fewer than four days, compared with the 17 days required the previous year to reach England.
In New York City, the packed ocean liner was greeted at the port in New York City by cheering crowds and even Marlene Dietrich, perched on a pier, swinging her legs and singing to the men.
Granted 30 days leave, these veteran soldiers had another job waiting for them on return: invade Japan. The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war in August and their next assignment was cancelled.
"Then Harry [Truman] dropped the bomb and the war was over," said Landers. "Harry saved my life, God bless Harry!"