“I grew up in the Kennedy Heights section of Cincinnati and graduated from Walnut Hills High School,” Bill said. “ I was 18 years old in September of 1943. A month later, I was headed to Fort Sill in Oklahoma for artillery training on 105 howitzers. I then went on to Camp Bowie where we were schooled on the 155 cannons. I received over 200 days of training on most of the guns that the Army had available at that time.”
“Had you ever been away from home very much at this point in your life,” I asked?
“No, not really,” Bill continued, “but it was my duty to go, and, like everyone else, I did what was expected of me. I wasn’t doing anything extraordinary. Millions of us were in the same boat, literally, when I found myself on November 18, 1944 on the New Amsterdam, a converted cruise ship that was outfitted as a troop ship. We came ashore in Scotland. From there we were ferried to Weymouth, England. In December, 1944, I was on an LST going to France. I didn’t find out until much later that the troop ship that followed us across had been torpedoed.”
“Were you in a specific artillery unit by this time,” I asked?
“Yes, we were, officially, known as the 666th Field Artillery Battalion, B Battery,” Bill said with a smile, “but we were better known as the Bastard artillery group because we were never attached to any particular unit. We pulled our guns all over Europe by tracked vehicles. It was a long period of shoot and move, shoot and move.
“After we landed in LaHarve, France, we were quickly dispatched to the Ardennes Forest,” Bill continued. “I didn’t know it at the time, but we were heavily involved in the Battle of the Bulge. We were generally behind the lines firing at targets that were passed on to us by forward observers.”
“Did you experience any counter-fire into your own positions from the German guns,” I asked?
“Yes that happened, but you really couldn’t worry about being fired on,” Bill said solemnly. “We were only concerned with firing out and hitting what we were supposed to hit. The biggest problem was the snow and bitter cold. We were wet all the time. There were German fighters, ME 109’s, that would strafe us on occasion. One of my most memorable days during this period was getting my first mail from home. That day was in mid-January, 1945. I served my entire time in Europe with the same gun and the same crew.
“I did Occupation Duty in Europe in early 1945, and then in April, 1945 I came home on a victory ship. I was glad we didn’t have to worry about torpedoes on that crossing. In the Fall of 1946, I enrolled in the University of Cincinnati in accounting,” Bill continued. “There was no tuition for veterans then, so I went through UC on an ROTC scholarship. I graduated in 1949 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserves. I was in the Army and Army Reserves a total of 13 years and was a major by the time I submitted my separation papers.”
“What direction did life take you in during this period,” I asked?
“Well, I was married in 1949 to a woman, Phyllis, who was to be my wife for the next 63 years,” Bill said. “She passed away this past June. We eventually moved to the Finneytown area. I also, had three wonderful children, Doug, Daniel, and Marybeth. I stayed in the accounting field and in 1959 I went out on my own with a friend. We founded the accounting firm of Hessell & Troy in Cincinnati. It still exists today under different ownership. I was also awarded the honor of being named a lifetime member of the Ohio Society of CPA’s.”
When I asked Bill about how his military service has shaped his life he said, “My service made me appreciate the value of people standing with you and by you, day-after-day, under conditions that most people would back away from. I was blessed to be in the field artillery. It also made me appreciate, much more, my country and my family.”
Think about Bill, and millions of others like him, the next time you think that the most important thing in your life is your phone, a dinner date, or a vacation. For many grueling months, his best friend was his gun, and I think we are all better off for it.
Columnist Lee Fisher is a Miami University graduate, a Vietnam veteran, a graduate student at Miami, and a resident of The Knolls of Oxford.
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