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Chet Rohn – Liberator, Half-Track Machine Gunner from World War II - In this amazing episode, Pete A. Turner has the honor to have a conversation with Chet Rohn, a World War 2 veteran. While winning the war, Chet and his units fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and freed concentration camps.
Chet's war began well after D'Day, his first big fight was arriving to break through at the battle of the bulge. One humorous note, Chet was assigned a WW1 water-cooled machine gun. BUT, it was so cold, he couldn't use water to cool the weapon...so he had to fire the weapon in quick burps of rounds. BIG SHOUT TO, Andrew Biggio for getting Chet to Bastogne for the 75th anniversary of that fight. Magical |
things happen when we get out and connect with people. Look for Andrew's book, the Rifle in 2020 from Regnery
Chet Rohn was a machine gunner on a 1/2 track in the 11th Armor Division of General Patton’s Third Army. Chet talks about the challenges of simply living through the coldest nights and deadly days with his buddies.
But perhaps the most horrifying experience he shares with us, is when he participated and lived through the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp where he witnessed the Nazi atrocities inflicted upon innocent civilians and tells their story to the world.
Haiku
The Siege of Bastogne
The Germans asked “Surrender”
The answer was, “NUTS”
worldwar2 #veteran #war #battleofthebulge #liberatingeurope #soldier #sacrifice #army #inspiration #liberation #freedom #victory
Join us in supporting Save the Brave by making a monthly donation
Executive Producer/Intro: Pete A. Turner
Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev
Writer: Bojan Spasovski
Chet Rohn was a machine gunner on a 1/2 track in the 11th Armor Division of General Patton’s Third Army. Chet talks about the challenges of simply living through the coldest nights and deadly days with his buddies.
But perhaps the most horrifying experience he shares with us, is when he participated and lived through the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp where he witnessed the Nazi atrocities inflicted upon innocent civilians and tells their story to the world.
Haiku
The Siege of Bastogne
The Germans asked “Surrender”
The answer was, “NUTS”
worldwar2 #veteran #war #battleofthebulge #liberatingeurope #soldier #sacrifice #army #inspiration #liberation #freedom #victory
Join us in supporting Save the Brave by making a monthly donation
Executive Producer/Intro: Pete A. Turner
Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev
Writer: Bojan Spasovski
Transcription
Pete Turner 0:00
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of the breakdown show. We've got a hell of an episode for you guys today. My buddy Mike van stories, a co producer. He's a lifelong friend of mine. And he said, Hey, I know World War Two vet. And I think you should have him on the show. And so we did. His name is Chet round, and he was the 11th armor. That's part of the unit that helped break through at the Battle of the stone, and you're going to hear his memories as recollections. Chad is over 95 years old, and he is just such a delight to be around. He's just heard and seen everything. And I'm so proud to be able to share him as a liberator as a warrior, and just truly an American treasure. And there's a neat story that goes within all this.
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of the breakdown show. We've got a hell of an episode for you guys today. My buddy Mike van stories, a co producer. He's a lifelong friend of mine. And he said, Hey, I know World War Two vet. And I think you should have him on the show. And so we did. His name is Chet round, and he was the 11th armor. That's part of the unit that helped break through at the Battle of the stone, and you're going to hear his memories as recollections. Chad is over 95 years old, and he is just such a delight to be around. He's just heard and seen everything. And I'm so proud to be able to share him as a liberator as a warrior, and just truly an American treasure. And there's a neat story that goes within all this.
Pete Turner 0:00
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of the breakdown show. We've got a hell of an episode for you guys today. My buddy Mike van stories, a co producer. He's a lifelong friend of mine. And he said, Hey, I know World War Two vet. And I think you should have him on the show. And so we did. His name is Chet round, and he was the 11th armor. That's part of the unit that helped break through at the Battle of the stone, and you're going to hear his memories as recollections. Chad is over 95 years old, and he is just such a delight to be around. He's just heard and seen everything. And I'm so proud to be able to share him as a liberator as a warrior, and just truly an American treasure. And there's a neat story that goes within all this. So Mike says, hey, let's get this guy chat. Of course, I say yes, as a world war two veteran, I'd be honored to tell this story. And it just so happens that Andy Biggio, the guy who's writing the book, The rifle and will definitely tell you more about Andy later on, but remember that name, Andy and Scott using he's an award winner. author and a producer on the show as well. They were having a trip with a bunch of world war two veterans back to the Battle of the Bulge for the 75th anniversary of the fight. And I asked Chet, I said, Chip, you were at the Battle of the Bulge, are you going on this trip and he said, I don't know about it. And so we were able to connect chat to Andrew Biggio and we got chats on an airplane right now coming back from that trip. at the Battle of the Bulge. We got to put his his feet on that battlefield one last time and it was it was a super exciting thing for him to do and we're awfully proud that all the pieces impossibly fell together to have that look. All these World War Two guys have incredible stories. Chad is among them. I mean, just the fact that they liberated concentration camps and you can see it still makes emotional and it's hard to have that conversation and not be emotional yourself. You guys are going to love Love, love this episode. Okay, so I'm going to really short you guys know what to do support the show. And listen, save the brave save the brave daughter We can always slow down and take time for charity. So let's do that. Do you if you're going to do your annual giving here at the end of the year, think about us. It can be a boat, it can be stock options. It can be cars, it can be land, whatever it is, we'll find a way to put that to use to help these veterans and save some lives. Save the brave, or do me a favor and join us in supporting Okay, here comes here comes Chet Rohn and you're about to hear a crazy story.
Joel Manzer 2:27
Lions rock productions
Unknown Speaker 2:32
This is Jay Mohr that group This is Jordan. Dexter from the offspring naked me Sebastian youngsters, Rick maronna Stewart Copeland Baxter,
Unknown Speaker 2:41
Gabby Reese, Rob Ellie,
Jon Leon Guerrero 2:42
this is Jon Leon Guerrero
Pete Turner 2:44
this is Pete a Turner.
chet rohn 2:48
This is Chet Rohn you're listening to the Break It Down Show
Niko Leon Guerrero 2:54
And now the break it down show with john Leon Guerrero and Pete a Turner.
Pete Turner 3:00
Chet is an American treasure. He's a liberator and He's my hero and I'm already getting emotional. Alec his grandson sitting here chat is one of the magical world war two people not magical improbable impossible that are still with us and have all these incredible tales to tell and your war least part of the world war two part of it. You probably to me, I think to all of humanity is the liberating of the concentration camps, you know, that you've got to participate in. So we'll for sure get into that. But just from all of us in humanity, thank you for what you've done. It's remarkable.
chet rohn 3:34
I don't know, man. roughly a million others you don't. Yeah,
Pete Turner 3:39
yeah. But I mean, you all play your own small part in something that you know, and a lot like we were talking about the Battle of the Bulge. You know, that barely goes our way. Two or three things don't break our way and that that's a different fight. different outcome.
chet rohn 3:52
biggest battle Americans have ever been in
Pete Turner 3:56
Yeah. And how close to become to losing that fight. Hey, this is Dave Turner from the break it down Show checking in real quick to ask you this, john Scott and I all support save the brave with our time, our location, our effort and our money each month we give a small amount. Do the same with us go to save the brave.org click on the donate tab, pick an amount that you want to come out each month and they will handle all the rest. I stand behind these folks. Thank you so much. Let's get back to the show. And how close to become to losing that fight. Very close.
chet rohn 4:27
Right. Very close. Yeah, you know, it was so damn cold.
Pete Turner 4:31
Yeah.
chet rohn 4:32
Oh my god. Not only did you have cold in Afghanistan or not. Oh, yeah.
Pete Turner 4:40
Well, yeah, both both. But I had the the horrible, coldest I ever have been was in Afghanistan. For sure. I lived on Hoth
chet rohn 4:48
we were we were well below zero. Yeah. for quite a while on the bone.
Pete Turner 4:53
Yeah. And then you outside the whole time or were they able to pull you back and warm you up anywhere?
chet rohn 4:58
I guess one Twice you had a little warmer. See, wikia couldn't dig. Okay. The frost line was five feet deep, right? There's no such thing as it was we're foxholes. If you blew. You throw grenade or something, right. You might be able to dig a little. But you're moving too much. We find some German holes. We lose. Yeah. But I have never been so cold for so long.
Pete Turner 5:26
Yeah.
chet rohn 5:27
And my life.
Pete Turner 5:28
How did you take that? I mean, look, you're from Wisconsin. So you've got some cold stuff building out
chet rohn 5:35
here. But well, we didn't have the kind of footwear we should have had right. Now we had I don't know what it was. You call it was a shoe that came up? right around here and you flipped it over and your calf? Yeah, it's like a shoe board. But you know, when I went down at 20, or 30, below zero, yeah. from four days. You just didn't say Worm
Pete Turner 6:01
so surviving in that environment you guys have to you have to do all of the things you have to do you have to eat you have to make waste you have all these things but you're also moving Did you have warm food at all during the during the battle?
chet rohn 6:14
through st not very often, right? Not very often Most of it was a K rations. Yeah, you know stuff like
Pete Turner 6:22
tell the audience but k rations are
chet rohn 6:26
crap well everything everything was just concentrated food I guess I don't even remember what it was. Yeah, I mean somebody eat but it was very good. Yeah. And I'm see rush steering drivers have sees
Pete Turner 6:41
I've had c rations and you didn't want them.
chet rohn 6:46
Or worse. That was the point of getting that is you guys are living as hard as a human. Having been fed k rations. We didn't even Christmas. We didn't get anything. You know? It was crappy food all the time. Right? All the time. You know they were forced to fly and turkeys and we got all this stuff that we're going to do for Christmas. I think I had a cold turkey dinner or something. We're on the move all the time. Yeah, what an armored division you didn't sit, which was good. I didn't want to sit in one spot all the time. On the other hand at times in the boat. You know, I'd be on guard. One time for 24 hours without moving. Yeah, in zero weather. And my feet I found an old box to get my feet up because there was a slow on and I said Damn, hold the German whole right. And I sat on that whole luckily I had a buddy we go I was a machine gunner. So had my assistant gunner. Sure. And he's in some of these pictures here. But all I'm second was cold. I had one shower. In the middle of a field in sub zero as they pull they had put us sing like a tent open on top. Yeah, they just wrapped up material guy I'd be up on a stepladder with a with a big thing and he said, Okay, ready and boom. So you got that okay soap up. And 30 seconds later Okay, y'all ready? Here comes another warm water on you. And now you got out out of this tent, and you know the wind was blowing and everything it was 20 below zero. Yeah. And you're trying to dry yourself. Oh my god. Yeah,
Pete Turner 8:42
better not to have the shower.
chet rohn 8:43
We had tremendous number of frostbite. Yeah, people are just, they're freezing their feet. Freezing their fingers. You never saw him again.
Pete Turner 8:55
What unit were you in?
chet rohn 8:56
11th Armored Division
Pete Turner 8:57
11th Armored Division and when did you join them?
chet rohn 9:00
I joined, not in the States. We went to England first. And I guess that's where we must have joined him. But we spent three months in England.
Pete Turner 9:13
Okay.
chet rohn 9:14
We had no equipment, they took our equipment away. And we thought What's going on? And why? Why aren't we going on? You heard of the flesh gap?
Pete Turner 9:22
Yes.
chet rohn 9:24
I guess so many people died in that thing. Yeah. And so much material was was shot, right. They took all our tanks, they took all our trucks. took our peep show. Yeah, all the equipment. Already artillery. We actually had nothing. I didn't even have a rifle in England, sir. Three months. We sat there. I didn't mind it because I got to London every weekend on a pass. Yeah. The rest of it. We were sat in a Quonset hut gambling right now. hundred miles north of London. I was mad about it because I got to go to London a short weekend. Yeah, just get on the train on kind of a history. So I knew what I wanted to see. Sure. And I wasn't gonna play cards or shoot craps all day. Yeah. But I went almost every weekend. Fact I even bought a bike. Each two of us who bike one bike. We were going to we're going to bike in London, could you add these crane cars for bikes? Right, put a line and gets there. I got to London I said too often will here's what we want first. Where's that? Bill at 15 miles over this way. Say? Okay, where's the other? Well, that's 20 miles over that way.
Pete Turner 10:43
Yeah,
chet rohn 10:44
London is probably the biggest city in area in the world. Not up.
Pete Turner 10:50
Yeah. Why? Yeah.
chet rohn 10:52
Well, I never took a bike back to London. I wasn't gonna spend all my time male pedaling, pedaling. There the underground there. Yeah. So I could get from one place to another
Pete Turner 11:04
so when you know history you don't want to shoot dice and play cards. What did you want to see in London when you were there and what impressed you that you maybe were surprised?
chet rohn 11:13
I mean, a changing of the guard. Yeah, madam to show waxwork old castles. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I'm just kind of a history buff right? I knew about all the places I wanted to go there I read a bottom but of course remember Minar
Pete Turner 11:33
So did you land at Normandy then? D day?
chet rohn 11:36
Let's see. Yes, we landed at the same place where the invasion that we landed after the invasion, okay. I want some time.
Pete Turner 11:46
Normandy or where I don't know is it little town there. Same same place, same place, same part. But you so you didn't go with the initial wave. You were like D day plus two or something like that. That they pushed you guys through
chet rohn 12:01
D day plus two, three months. Okay 60 or something? I didn't you're there till December. Okay. DJ was one May June Yeah, yeah. We were in London all the time that we thought we couldn't understand why we had an over it was they didn't have the equipment Yeah, yeah, they had shut up so much of our armor right that we had nothing left I guess it looked general had a peep to run around and but we had no tanks that we I was on a half track during the war. No half track, right. I wasn't veteran I wasn't sure when I knew what was happening over in there and no,
Pete Turner 12:48
in my right and thinking in that so December you come across the channel and you catch up at the unit and basically you catch up at the Battle of the Bulge. Again, yeah. Okay. Yep. Like welcome. We have no food.
chet rohn 13:01
Well, here's what happened without there being an armored division. We were going to crack the German fork in German and placements along the channel, okay? They were surfacing all their submarines or infantry divisions could not crack those. So they said, Okay, we're going to use murder. And I forgot the names of the towns where all the Germans were, even after the front head move, right? There were still thousands of Germans along the channel, right other places. That's what we thought we were going to do. And then one day, that's a couple weeks after we hit the beach. There's some trouble over in Belgium, all WhatsApp? Yeah, we ran it took us three days and three nights to get from coast to Belgium, whatever they say. Now we're of course very outfitted with all the equipment and We moved my day. But you've only go as fast as the slowest vehicle. So it was one long, cold ride. We got into the barge at about midnight
Pete Turner 14:15
on that ride. Yeah. Were you sitting in the back of a truck? Were you Where were you sitting?
chet rohn 14:21
there? I have a half track. I remember marine gunner. Okay. Pushed Mars. Yeah. Okay. And we on the front mile we had a 50 right? I had a world war one or two. What do you call it hills? type tube? Water. Yeah, never put water and I voted for a soft
Pete Turner 14:41
Yes. It's too cold
chet rohn 14:42
for a water so I had to learn to shoot past burps Uh huh. Because the barrel was only as big as a rifle barrel right shooting gun. Yeah. And that thing could you know if you held that? Shoot, maybe 30 rounds didn't freeze up. Yeah. So all the shooting Identity bird bird bird yeah most of which there's not a German troops although we did shoot up a number German true but our awful lot of shooting at airplanes
Pete Turner 15:12
okay
chet rohn 15:13
when we were moving in column there's me one or nine would come over right and are flying fool so flow between the trees wow those guys were when they come over me they were no more than 15 feet above my head
Pete Turner 15:31
Good grief that is low
chet rohn 15:33
and I get get maybe one or two second burst so I had to learn to watch yeah the tracers from our guys back and we know they were coming we get here are the machine guns that you know 234 miles away and we can see treasures even though the day yeah and I watched the trician when the tracer started coming back I started shooting yeah cuz I When I was got my two seconds in yeah and it worked that way because they had a fly through my mind Yeah. And I knew if I'm hitting I'm because my tracers would bump would jump off it on. Didn't penetrate, but they bounce off the German planes right then I know my, I used armor piercing. I loaded all my own belts. Okay. Okay. So I had a lot of practice shooting and planes. And the Germans once in a while, our column will shoot him down that way. Yeah, I know. I hit Come on those plans, but I never never knew if I hit one, you know, vital spot because they're gone. Yeah, they're coming at 300 miles an hour. Yeah. 15 feet above you.
Pete Turner 16:49
And you're what you're 10 feet out. Your head is 10 feet off the ground to the back of that half track. So that planes 25 feet off the ground, going 300 pounds. Yeah. So those guys must be They didn't,
chet rohn 17:01
you know, we never sat on the seats of abstraction sat on the edges, right. And the edge was about this wide, your feet from the seat, and then all your belongings were down your feet with normally be. And I kept a couple extra machine guns down there. We would read things. You know, I had maybe three machine guns back there. Yeah, they weren't ready. But in case something happened to mine, I had another one, right, we usually carry at least 100 or 200 pounds of TMT. And so if we'd ever been hit, there would have been a big hole in the road.
Pete Turner 17:37
Boom. Yeah, yeah. And when you guys are on this movement to catch up to the unit, you're going through three days, three nights. I'm familiar with all this. It is mind numbingly boring, you know, to sitting there and driving 10 miles an hour, 15 miles an hour because that's about a fastest week ago. I don't know about you guys, but
chet rohn 17:55
well, we could go on and fast.
Pete Turner 17:58
Right? And how fast was that that vehicle Broken usually and like it was an awful lot of
chet rohn 18:02
stop and go. Yeah. And of course, you had to keep your intervals. We were always 100 feet from the interview for the next vehicle in front of us, and 100 feet from the one behind us. Right. So that's, you know, not to get wiped out maybe I didn't like the fact that we have that all engine T and because there's just been a hole in the roads that are going on. Yeah, yeah. But that's what we're doing. Yeah. And boys as Germans are flying are fools. Yeah. Once in a while, we'll get them. my body and my squad. We got one plan. We were in a big, big U turn that went for a couple miles like that. And there were a lot of open spaces. And this guy flew right into that. He evidently didn't realize how many guns were going to be on him because that across back there were 20 or 30 adversity. Gun zone
Pete Turner 19:00
Did you guys worry about friendly fire by shooting like following your tracers and or was it casually?
chet rohn 19:06
Yeah, I mean we had our char artillery going over our heads all the time. And currently Welcome. I'm sure that could help but yeah, but if you had a short round and it could be bad
Pete Turner 19:20
Yeah. Did you guys were hearing protection at all? No. Yeah, I don't know how any of you guys can hear
chet rohn 19:28
it so bad. Oh, I'm saying I did we're and I'll show you and of course we had to keep our steel helmets on right but I found this worked I could get my my she'll Helmet nice German reissue. So he's
Pete Turner 19:43
pulling out a rabbit fur your I think
chet rohn 19:46
it is yeah rabbit for feeling. That's for Yeah, I think it was rabbits for and of course, this is a very my color. Right? We were if I word like this, I can just jam my my helmet on I would not have survived that winter. Yeah, I found a somewhere in the bones. Yeah, and I'm glad we weren't captured because Scotland German and German stuff on.
Pete Turner 20:20
Yeah, it looks like Lobos hat from Hogan's Heroes if you remember that but but
chet rohn 20:25
kinda kind of smelly.
Pete Turner 20:28
It's getting kind of smelly. You've got a German emblem with everything. So this kept your head warm. Which is my ears to your ears too. Yeah, because
chet rohn 20:37
the metal helmet didn't didn't
Pete Turner 20:40
really cover your ears and that in that helmet is it just straps?
chet rohn 20:44
No, we never could use the straps. Okay, we haven't even had an inner element. Okay. And another one. The inner helmet use a chin strap went over the lip of this week. And then the other strap went over that way. Yeah. So you had to get these two helmets strapped together so, but you didn't wear them because if you're in a bigger explosion Marissa could break your neck if you had a strap, right? We never worn more, but it stayed on.
Pete Turner 21:15
You found this along the road or whatever, like at a stop or something like that and just
chet rohn 21:21
Well, you know, William we were looters. Yeah, yeah, gotta be and if there was ever a house, we all ran into see what's they got what good is. Yeah, I am. I got a German rifle here. And got shot guns from castles. We took Yeah, winners anything in his first term first. Sure we got and I've got a whole German uniform. And so I've used that fact I tried to go to military ball and when University Wisconsin Yeah, after the war, we thought well, let'sWhere we could wear our army uniform, but one guy on 1812 uniform, he put that on, he got an available, but I had a German uniform and I got as far as the door.
Pete Turner 22:13
They said No thanks.
chet rohn 22:15
Yeah, that's funny.
Pete Turner 22:16
So, okay, you move for 36 hours you catch up at the Battle of the Bulge. And then like what's your what's your in brief and no, like, all right, glad that you guys are here. Head over that way or like, you know did like when did you know the situation you were getting into? I can how dire it was,
chet rohn 22:35
I guess it was just because of what we did. We didn't know what was going to happen. But I had to spend almost every night trying to get to our minds. as engineers I was our job right. So as a tax we're going to use such and such a road to in the morning. We go there, one squad at a time. And we were not allowed to build The mines we had a turn take them off. Wow. And we could hear that German trucker two blocks ahead of us yeah. throwing these out what the snow? Yeah. But that's what we did a lot of taken out mines and it's just a scary job. Yeah When hear the German patrols going by sometimes can be talking you know they might have been 15 feet away. We didn't move right and no talking right or with your whisper to somebody and we had intervals of 15 feet usually hoping they didn't find on we had rifles.
Pete Turner 23:37
You guys are on your you're on foot on your own with rifles with rifle no
chet rohn 23:42
mounted machine gun, right, right. But we would have to take let's say a mile or two inch crack and and they have other engineers do the other. did an awful lot of them. You couldn't bury them. I mean everything We're so thick and the frost line so deep and there was no digger. Yeah, they just put on snow and half the time, right? So, German teller mining in front of you see no Yeah, they're about this big and that's thick. Yeah, like a big Pete So they had it all had to handle this, we'd find them. Only thing we did we gradually get under we want to make sure there's not attached to a second mind. German is dead dead right there was a well in the bottom was they could put a firing device and so there was no firing device. We very generally pull those things off. And we weren't allowed to do because supposedly the Germans didn't know where we were
Pete Turner 24:45
right. When we know where the Germans were I think they knew where we were pretty good idea right? And then did I know that job is dangerous and scary but did the blinds go off at times or were you guys so you guys were pretty fortunate with that
chet rohn 24:59
one. We were fortunate Yes, there were some guys I got blown up. Supposedly you could stand on a teller line. I wasn't going to try it. They told us you know your waiter is not enough to do it. Yeah and that's probably true that's not test this is made for a tank going over a truck or yeah some heavy but I wasn't going to test them. Yeah, yeah.
Pete Turner 25:26
So okay Battle of the Bulge. Terrifying and you guys finally are able to break through. What happened? Where'd you guys go next? What happened?
chet rohn 25:34
Well, she the bone lasted I think it was five weeks. But how much sleep Did you get on a day? During the Battle of the Bulge? I don't remember. Yeah. I mean, you slept for 10 minutes for 20 minutes Erica, if you if you're lucky enough, you know right and just curl up on the ground right like you weren't caught or anything on the ground. Couldn't dig So we would look for brush something like that. Yeah, that's her. There's my old sleeping bag. Not the Army or shoe. I bought this at a px. I don't know if you ever saw what's the Army or sure you? Yeah, you went into interesting no gyptian mommy's Yeah, yeah. You went to LA set from in side. Can you imagine trying to get out of that now? I would throw hours away whenever to come overseas. So I bought this, but didn't get much help. I could get an army blanket within one in it. But, and I had a sleep with my rifle inside. Yeah. And my boat's inside. Yes, they would freeze up. Yeah. So you were just jammed in this thing's Yeah. And always cold, cold, cold, cold. Yeah,
Pete Turner 26:52
I know. When I slept. In those cold environments. All of my clothes would go up towards my face hole would be and I cry. off like a cat inside just so that my own bad breath would heat me up and already want Murray in this just a regular army sleeping bag you know, but it's kind of a mommy sack but a little innovation probably had better one that they gave us at first we wouldn't go in with a new one has when I was in the newest one was a thin summer and then a fatter second bag of
chet rohn 27:23
a zipper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No more late zippers. Yeah. Can you imagine? Yeah, NASA had a snaps
Pete Turner 27:29
so you could snap it up if you wanted. That was the fast version and 20 minutes you could get out of it. Yeah, no way. No numbers left and there are three parts to the bag that I said there was the summer bag, the winter bag that would go around that and then there was an outer waterproof layer.
chet rohn 27:46
That's all I had and I bought it. Yeah. Wow. Well, Coach good. First thing we do is look for evergreens. Yeah, and when you use our banner, only way we use a banner every night. Get as many pine branches as you could. Because you gotta get the cold off get underground. Yeah, that frost line was so deep. Yeah, it's just sleeping on ice.
Pete Turner 28:13
So you would get little catnap So for the most part,
chet rohn 28:15
you took your boots off, but you left them in there because if you left him outside for you never get them on in the morning they'd be frozen. So, so Right, right. There wasn't much room after you get your army boots. Yeah. And there and your rifle. Yeah, right. Right. We're all afraid and the moving parts should freeze. Yeah, I mean, I'll could freeze You know, I'm sure. I saw you know, I don't want my rifle to freeze up. Yeah, I might need it.
Pete Turner 28:44
He would need it. Soon as she and then how often do you get to change socks? Because I know like, you know, as long as I kept changing my socks, my feet stayed pretty good.
chet rohn 28:54
Well, we change our but not often enough. Okay. Did I didn't have enough sex. Never had clean one to put dirty one shirt. Yeah. rotative Yeah, I know I've slept with a boot shine in my in man. But on the other hand, I didn't want any more because if we were overrun by the Germans, I didn't want to be running naked through the fields when it's 20 below zero. Yeah, yeah. So I might have had to run in bare feet. I hope I didn't. I didn't. Yeah, I've never been so cold. And I mean, I'm used to cold Yeah. escaped to school and in Wisconsin, right. The roads wherever upload middle. And when is all the time so I was used to skating I don't know when. But try and operate. And then it's gone in one place. It got to 40 below. She's lost one ours was 20. Yeah. But it is cold, cold, cold. Yeah. Your fingers, you know, they gave us. I don't know if you ever saw the original German Army, Mitch. Yeah. Okay. That's what they were like, yeah, you get one finger and a big heavy, you know? Yeah, these two fingers are going this one. And then your thumb. He's showing a
Pete Turner 30:20
three fingered glove and the pinky sticks out and the thumb sticks out and then you have the other three together.
chet rohn 30:25
I could not get this through the trigger housing on my rifle. So what I did is I did I just hand was out the cold all the time, right? Because I'm right handed. And the other one I did have my big mitten. Yeah, we had to massage her hand massage or feet all the time. Yeah. Cold trench foot. Yeah. And I don't know if had was like frozen feet or what but a lot of guys went to the hospital fast. Yeah, they froze her feet. was miserable it's just just miserable conditions. I mean finally and I change the change but for December in January in February hard living Good lord Yeah, I mean wasn't set out to be in a battle of the boat first closing.
Pete Turner 31:21
So okay Battle of the Bulge happens. You guys say nuts you're not going to give up you keep fighting and then you ultimately win the battle of the bulge and that's in January Is that right? end of January end of January start no started in December 16. In the last week of January, we finally got him on the run and kicked him out of there.
chet rohn 31:46
But never want to be that cold again. I was just guys tend to the hospital you never saw him against frozen, frozen fingers truth man's. You kept massaging him every night. Well, they made you do it to take your boots off besides your feet. Yeah. Get the circulation going. Yeah. I don't remember ever being warm. Right? I remember being not quite as cold. Yeah, if I had enough junk in there no way would put pine boughs over us sometime.
Pete Turner 32:21
Yeah. So when I was in Afghanistan, I was on a very cold camp. There was ice everywhere, right? We stayed on a camp. So when it would snow, we'd all walk on the snow and pack it into ice. And so what would happen is is it was like, like an ocean almost. So there was no flat surface. And so you'd walk. And then you had the longest winner, the Battle of the vault. Yes. Nice stone ice. We fell down all the time. It's what I'm getting at. Like you walk slowly and carefully but the ice was such that you would just slip BAM and fall all the time. Did you guys have a lot of that where you were just constantly getting sleep.
chet rohn 33:00
Yours are here wading through snow snow. Okay, seaside Stanley is down below. Yeah, sure we fell, I'm sure. But what you can do is keep moving. Yeah. Or your circulation.
Pete Turner 33:16
Oh yeah, Siegfried Line.
chet rohn 33:20
We were so short handed. We just, you know, no army plans for something like the Battle of the Bulge. Right. So everybody who's on that guard all the time. Yeah. You never got to sleep. Now at least I had a buddy. Yeah, my on my system gunner said froze next to me. Yeah, so I had somebody to talk to right. But one night they put us on the perimeter well they gave us many too many yards for a one platoon to handle. Yeah, we were anywhere close to our next guys Sergeant says, look, sorry, I'll get back to you when I can. That was 330 or something in the afternoon. We weren't relieved until four next morning or something for a long time. So you sat there. I had an old old box or something was a German. Yeah. I didn't know to carve it. But my feet were up on that wooden box. And you didn't move for 24 hours.
Pete Turner 34:30
Yeah, I know. You're on guard. So you're alert. But how scared how tense are you when you're on guard in that situation? Well, you're always tense
chet rohn 34:40
there. Yeah. I mean, the Germans were during good fighters, right. And they would attack at night, as well as during the day when we did too. But you never knew if they were crawling up at night. The first thing you did was make sure you knew where each tree was because Later on i'd tree was a moving thing Yeah,
Pete Turner 35:04
yeah. Do you take out your iPhone and take a picture of the tree line? Let's just joke so you your assistant gunner there you know you know your fields of fire you memorize the trees and all that kind of thing. What are you guys talking about? How do you pass the time?
chet rohn 35:22
Food girls girls yes family yeah you exhausted every subject you could right because you're trying to stay away yeah when you don't have any any money relieving you're scared Oh yeah. Well we didn't know the next guy his words I we knew there were somewhere within 100 feet bro. Yeah, couldn't hear him or anything. Right. And guys were you know the Germans were devilfish sneak up with grenades or something. And I'm telling you, I know those trees removing their UC Santa Cruz.
Pete Turner 36:00
Yeah. So Battle of the Bulge ends, you guys are going towards, you know, towards the end of the war, but how many more big fights did you get in because it doesn't take that long. Yeah,
chet rohn 36:10
they were all nine fights and all that. No more than platoon strength and most of time squads right? It'd be quick and older was, you know, yeah. You did a lot of praying. Yeah. You just had at least I had a guy to talk to, right. Some of the poor guy was sitting by themselves for 24 hours. Wow. I mean, you got brandy. Yeah. And everything. You swear smooth or after a while? Sure. You look and you know, it was at a tree. No, it looks like somebody's sneaking up. Yeah. You couldn't sleep.
Pete Turner 36:50
And I know for me. If I'm awake for say, 25 hours. I start to hallucinate and I don't know that I'm hallucinating. Right. away, and then I go Okay, I've any anything I think I see. And when I say hosting it, I've seen someone walk in front of me. I waved at them and they wave back and my friends like, what are you doing? Who you waving at? And I'm I know a guy didn't just walk by. So it's fully you don't know you're hallucinating at first,
chet rohn 37:17
you swerve tree or a bush was moving. Yeah. I said Who is he? You see that? Yeah. Well, sure we had a machining. We weren't supposed to fire. If you can imagine. Yeah, I wouldn't give away what we're doing or where we were. I was the most miserable time in my army was was that just as horrible? Yeah. There were no saving features. You're always cold. You were always hungry. You didn't have hot food, right? You mean try and eat. You know some of the food was so tough. It was frozen bottle, your water bottle with fruit. It was Just absolute misery everybody just hated every minute of it.
Pete Turner 38:05
After the battle and you're on the road you have these small skirmishes, how often are you getting warm child during that time? Are you ever getting warm rations at all?
chet rohn 38:16
Well, you didn't do much travels. If you did, it was usually during the day. Okay. When you could see. And you knew I was going on. We had a Technicolor force helping us you know? Yeah. If our plans for coming our guys could get some plans for us. Yeah. Not in the middle of the night. But during the day, once or more and I didn't bother me too much. We were always cold. Everybody was gone. I didn't have long jobs. My mother sent me some long guns. And I warm so long and I rubbed on the capital my legs trying Big sores that went right through the underwear. Yeah. And the scab would be on the outside of that damn underwear. Cuz his rubber on you? Yeah. And I have that I end. Once I say I had one shower in the Battle of the Bulge. The next time I had a bath was in a house alongside the Rhine River. Yeah. And that's all for the whole damn war. We were too dirty. Yeah, we were. Our faces were just black. Yeah, but you know, we're all in the same boat. Yeah, for sure. They're all complaining but
Pete Turner 39:42
what can you do? I we lived on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan for a while with a big platoon. Yeah, no heavy platoon. And water was rationed because we're running off of a well, and you know, just there wasn't enough water. Yeah. And so you didn't bathe very often. But the moment you did, you could smell How bad everybody else smelled. I saw you like I'm just not gonna shower because it's didn't. You're already
chet rohn 40:06
together. I didn't have a shower for see we got into the boat in December. Yeah. You know my I didn't have a shower, except what they gave us in the snow. Yeah. Nice. Okay until till we found a bath on the Rhine River. We were a long way from the Rhine River. Sure. It took us a couple of months just to get to the Rhine River. And we lucked out. We found a house that had running water, which was unbelievable.
Pete Turner 40:45
Could you pick up that house today? If you saw it? Do you think?
chet rohn 40:48
Would I know it? Yeah. It was a little old house right next to the river. Yeah, we couldn't cross because we only had so many bridges across. Okay, we're Germans blue. All right. bridges so we had floating bridges but when you get 10,000 men that want to cross at one point yeah takes a long time with all our equipment Yeah. So we were there for least two or three days before earned a vision got it. Okay. Yeah, but I don't think that best set was ever empty water to be black yeah luckily we get new water we had a fire going I mean we had to keep the water hot yeah we had a fire going on the system. Here's what heater for water heater. Yeah. But I know if I haven't.
Pete Turner 41:41
Were any of the businesses opened as you guys moved, like the businesses like the bakeries and the butcher shops. Were any of those things open at all or is all all closed down?
chet rohn 41:51
Every can we went through everything but nothing up. The civilians are hiding in the basement. Yeah. They took it on the chin too, because sure one of their houses were destroyed all right over them death and their bathtub ruined. But there were just no stores.
Pete Turner 42:10
When did it start to occur to you that the Germans were exterminating Jews?
chet rohn 42:16
Well, I guess we got the stars and stripes, maybe once every two weeks or three weeks. And you read a little about it and that Yeah, no other papers. Army paper. You heard stuff. You aren't sure if it was true, right. And,
Pete Turner 42:36
and what you heard was it like was it impossible to even believe like, okay, yeah, maybe it's true maybe it's not but like, what was what you were reading? Was it horrific?
chet rohn 42:46
It was gradual until you You didn't believe everything in the beginning. Yeah. And but we came across a lot of plan. wouldn't kill them. Yeah. Why were they Why were they did? Yeah. Women children, men weren't many men. They were all in German Army, right? The families they were either bombed on or machine gun or something. I think the internet remember these were different countries so the Germans were killing civilians. I'm sure we must have killed some. Yeah, we shot artillery certainly kill some people. They had stone houses in Belgium. Some of them were five 600 years old. The same families. Yeah, had those houses for five or 600. They were made made of stone, which was great until our jewelry shattered. Yeah, anything else that could burn? They burned the barns burned. dead animals. Dead Horses everywhere. Yeah, we never saw service. Any extent except if we hidden our basements once in a while that family I think the civilians and the men were gone. They were drug going into the German army was very were German or not. Yeah. What about the Holocaust? Okay was the first time you you learned about it really when you were at Mauthausen or did you have some? I think it was a slow thing you read about it. Sometimes you said oh, I couldn't be that bad yet right? You didn't see it right away. Occasionally you would see dead civilians but they got we killed a lot of civilians. What are her turi Yeah, I don't know. I can't place because we saw in our civilians but what were they so were they killed by shells? Fire. I remember. I don't know, but could have been killed by ours. Yeah. No. Show of our guys. Number one place on the side of a burn. There were guys maybe 10. Guys, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They weren't just killer haphazardly. Yeah. They're lined up on every machine gun by the Germans. Right? We know that. You heard horror stories. You didn't know if you could believe all Yeah. We heard about concentration camp, heard about those before we even left the states. Right. But you didn't realize To what extent it was and how bad it was.
Pete Turner 45:35
When you guys got to mount housing area and you were going to liberate those, you know, the people that were in the concentration camp. Did you know that was going to happen, or do you just kind of drive up? Oh, no, we knew
chet rohn 45:47
it was a long, long way from where we were sure, Jim? Yeah, mon hosen was down in Australia, right? Four or 500 miles away to the south. And we got to our eventually, but
Pete Turner 46:00
Why were you guys headed that way? Was that just your divisions now?
chet rohn 46:04
You know, whatever the front was. That's the way you went, Okay, we thought we're going to Berlin. So we turn right instead of left, right. We're not going to Berlin, we're going down into Austria, which was called automark. by the Germans would capture prisoners and say, Where are you from? Is that was smart. I said as right. Yeah, they're still calling. Or smark, which was the eastern province of Germany. Yeah, that's what it meant post market and a strike meant the kingdom of Australia. Right? Germany wouldn't have that they are now like a stage in Germany, Austria. So, we captured a lot of Australians who were in the German army. We captured a lot of polls or in the German army. Right. We captured just abroad from every little country. Yeah. But they were serving Germany, not by choice, but they were dragged going in. Right.
Pete Turner 47:09
So talk to me about the concentration camp and tell me about that day.
chet rohn 47:13
Well, I was a long way away, I'm sure. We started seeing dead for bed dead people that we knew it was different. It wasn't dead soldiers. It was dead civilians. And they're awful lot of we have no they couldn't all then kill. First for you when they saw him in a line. Yeah, they weren't just killed by artillery. So we gradually new in as the Germans were executing people in other countries, right? Their decks were dead. Everybody from countries all over the world. And we read a lot. I mean, no army was reading some way to know how much was true or not. Yeah. Oh yeah. A lot of Stuff that wasn't true either thing fed to us, but it was a gradual thing. We are hosting a shortwave radio from our Signal Corps. We stole it, put it in our cat or half track. We could get a BBC in London on it. We want to for the music. Yeah. Glenn Miller Hello, rush, right. Glenn Miller who was killed course. But his drummer became the head of his orchestra. Right. And he followed us all the way across Europe. And so we're listening to swing music on our half track. Yeah, but what about when you approached when you approach mount house and what what was different about that as you're entering Mauthausen? Well, 30 miles before we got to mount homes, we started seeing shred people in the ditch did we go over and look at it to add on my concentration camp prison in the back of his head? Yeah. They were marching these guys from Poland Halloween Austria over 400 miles Yeah. Well these guys died from freezing they died from malnutrition from everything you can imagine was a digested a German shot and right so we know we're getting into a bad situation and we've read about know the army published stuff and but I'll tell you this and say you got to it and saw it and smell it were a different story. I mean, I've thrown a lot of dead soldiers everywhere. We saw dead Americans everywhere in dead German soldiers everywhere and got to be that you know, you sit next to him and eat your lunch. very grave registration did not find all the guys are dead, right? In fact, we've seen what might because as engineers, we ought to do a lot of night work. These guys were taken dead Americans, you know, my feet, my neck 123 throwing off the top of a big truck. Yeah. And when should you do that again? I'm going to kill you. Yeah. You're not going to do that to American soldier, right? I'm sure as soon as we left, they did it again. But we almost shot some of our own soldiers as they are in graves registration. And we, you know, if I'm killed, I don't want to be handled the way they're doing it. So, all they've seen you learn gradually now. We started the active war in December. But the war was over to me. So I mean, there was a lot of war in between. Most of our war was against armored troops. Tanks. Hopefully we had our tanks there to help protect us tillery I remember one time we were building a bridge on Little River. And for some reason I had a crow cross this river. There was a broken bridge here. You could walk on it, but you couldn't drive a show. We were going to put up a Bailey bridge. I think it was Uriona Bailey. Yeah. big, heavy range. Take 20 guys to haul the members together. It was most of our bridges were little tread with Yeah, you know, for 15 foot bridge or something like that. So for some reason, I went over on the broken Old Bridge, and I was over there by myself. Maybe 500 yards away a tiger tank came over a hill and looks to me as big as a house. I mean, they're Tigers were up in the 80,000 tons. Just I mean, just huge. Our little own Sherman's at 3200. Yeah. And finally, some are bigger ones. The We started getting the they named after our general after it was a t 45. Or something would look to us really huge. Then you saw a tiger their tracks their tracks for this wide tires. Well, maybe this was 18 this is what Yeah. And he sees lucky when I saw this thing on the move. They weren't going to worry. They weren't gonna waste on me. Yeah, right. But when you were alone and you see this damn thing come over a hill. Yeah. I got back across your old bridge. Past Thrashers. I could, I didn't know what they were gonna do. We got into a lot of middle of tank battles cuz we've fought with the tanks right? And we had to act not as engineers but as infantry. We're very short handed in some cases Yeah. Very very. So when you're on foot any tank looks great big. Not yours. Yeah, I don't care what tank it if you're on here by yourself and the rest of your buddies on the other side of a creek and something comes over a hill 500 yards away. You take off
Pete Turner 53:26
on what? You guys liberate the camp, the concentration camp, talk to me about that experience. What did what did you see what did you feel? Hey, this is Pete Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here and if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show calm. Let me help. I want to hear about it. You guys liberate the camp, the concentration camp Talk to me about that experience. What did what did you see? What did you feel we got there? We knew by this time there must have been camps which had seen a lot of dead prisoners, stripey
chet rohn 54:12
as for the last 20 30 miles. And we know, we've read about camps and things we should Holy mackerel, this is, yeah, worse than we thought. We got down to Lynch and that was Hitler's favorite city. After the war. He was going to move government down there who Lynch was now part of Germany, right. And he was gonna have his government buildings and online. We saw so many dead people in these uniforms. We knew what the uniforms were the striped uniforms. And we'd go and look at them in the ditches, you know, first rather dozens and then by the hundreds and find them by almost 1000. These were people a move from Poland. Yeah, those guys walking from Poland all the way down 450 miles Yeah. And to that area and off for maybe half of them died on the way or were killed. They couldn't keep up they miss out on now. So we saw an awful lot of dead stripe with stripe uniforms on. Then I had never heard about hosen till we got down there some guys said, hey, there's a big camp here. Some guys, you've been over there. And so we found out about it. And so the next day I was able to get into my house. I can't describe it. I remember seeing so many dead people in one place, right? Some of them stacked up like that. Others I'm in railroad cars was the doors open? You'd see the dead bodies in there I don't know what they were doing with them. I mean first it was bodies by the hundreds Yeah. Then all of a sudden the bodies by the sausage yeah and smell and the whole area was just terrible some of these guys have been dead for probably a month so Eisenhower sent word you know everybody and our our general to pat every guy we want you want him to see this want him to get into bone house and you gotta see it. We've taken the guards of the were either killed or they are now run off. So I went on a day right after liberation. I was interested to see it I want to you know, what are they? What was it like? Now this was different than a lot of them because, as I said the others were temporary Type buildings wouldn't buildings. But housing was stone because the stone came right out of the corner. And it was building stone. So you had walls like this. It was like seeing a federal prison there. I just went on my own. I mean, after a while we were just loose. Do we want to show that? The day after liberation, I said, Well, I want to see that. So we took our F track over. It just went down individually. All the prisoners were still there. Somewhere alive. The good share, we're dead. Yeah. And then we started hearing the stories. They had English speaking prisoners could talk to us. And I had a guy that was a I think he was with a newspaper. And I got a check newspaper. He could speak English good like that. And he took us around as I was with five other guys we wanted to see they had a gas chamber we run the gas chamber. They had a whatever you call it where they dissect the guys say we're not called a golden teeth out of them before they were burn them. But it's a bias by you know, there were so many dead bodies they couldn't dispose of them. I'm talking 10,000 dead bodies on there. We were shocked. We'd seen a lot of dead people during the war, but not that one a month that many that have just been shamed. Gunder whatever. by the hundreds. Yeah. And the smell. Some of those guys have been dead for a month I'm sure. I wanted to go in a modern house and said first there was a guy there. barbed wire fence to open area outside side fires by myself. I just went over I channel I'm going to see it. And there was a guy standing there stark naked. He was about 100 200 feet for me. So as I'm going to talk to Scott, I want to find out what's going on. He was a fairly tall guy didn't have any clothing on. And I walked up to him. You know, his eyes were open. I was going to talk to him. And I knew he couldn't see me. Huh. He was just a blank stare. And yet he was standing stark naked. His New Year's were like this. Down here was like this. Yeah, his hips were huge. Round as I could have put my fingers around his wished. Yeah, I mean, he was dead man. It was so alive. It was just a horrendous thing.
Pete Turner 1:00:06
But what are the experience the whole experience from Battle of the Bulge to the Holocaust camp concentration camps? What did you pull out of that like going forward for the rest of your life? I mean, you've been been around and seen a lot of things now.
chet rohn 1:00:20
The whole thing was more horrible. The Holocaust and I thought, okay, and when we when we heard a lot about the Holocaust, and you learn to believe So remember, we had a lot of propaganda today. Yeah. So, okay, we know that Jews were banned kill others are being killed, but not to the extent that we shown Yeah, our division couldn't handle it. We had a lot of doctors but there were so many dying people and luckily, some other infantry divisions got there. We took all of their medics. I don't think they clean out that place for a month. I was there for about a month. And then I moved on I was working at a risk capital I kind of saw, but I cannot I really don't have words tell you. It was the most horrible thing I ever saw.Andthey were everywhere, just dead people in piles and sometimes pile up against the wall sometimes lying over. You had to step over it and people went just to see the place. Well, listen, I've had you for over an hour, and I want to respect your guys's time. And Alec, thank you so much for facilitating What have you pulled out from you know your grandpa for your whole entire life and talking about this incredible man. What have you learned? You know, it's so funny. As a kid, I totally took it for granted. But then as I just met so many other American millennials who didn't have what I have, we didn't have I mean, they might have had veteran grandfathers who were in the war, but were maybe less talkative and bottled all of the memories of war or just sort of didn't overlap with their grandparents. I've just come to really, really treasure it and also understand the importance of engaging in the world and and just sort of staying active and, and really trying to ask ourselves, what were the conditions that produce that tragedy?
Pete Turner 1:02:24
Yeah.
chet rohn 1:02:24
And are they could they happen again? Are they happening again? So the awareness of that, we believe some of the stories we heard, we know there was propaganda. But I'm telling you, our guys were shooting down those German guards just for the song. Yeah. I'd sign in there. One time my squad leader and I were walking around the area and we saw a gang of people doing something we didn't know what so we went over there. They had ended obviously, one of the guards and they were at On fire escape that went off the side of the building. Show up on the second floor the guys up there now to chain around this guy's neck. They've pulled him up so he's almost dead. Then they let him down, pull up. We said, Look, we know how bad it is, but you don't murder people like that. We took him as a person or turn over the MPs. Yeah. If I caught somebody doing something, I would have shot him. But I didn't always catch him in the act. And I don't know what he did. Yeah, he was in German uniform scared as hell right. I wasn't gonna shoot him just like that I'm he get his day in court or whatever. But and a lot of them were executed afterward. And there was the SS with we kept the SS for a year. A whole year. Yeah. In person in person camp. Wehrmacht we shouldn't get out of here.
Pete Turner 1:04:02
Yeah.
chet rohn 1:04:03
Hey kids, there kids should know superheroes. 13 years old right but the end Yeah. I want to kind of just shoot him Sure. Kids were crying right in a uniform you know? They put these guys you know what a Pulitzer Foster's was like a German bazooka, okay only ever shot a huge grenade. And it shot it maybe 6070 feet. And you shot and it would knock down a house practically are over by daka tank. They give these kids a panzerfaust they said you get here and here at this intersection of highway you get the ditch and you you try to the shoots these American tanks. Well, they were so close their shots in the explosion of these things. Yeah, it was like a big bomb going on. Right. Thank you. I saw a lot of kids in uniform. They're just crying. Yeah. Really interesting young kids. And I said, geez, I think Well, I was at age. Yeah. I mean, we were young but not dead. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. 1415 years old. Tom Oh, and they put everybody in uniform. Right? They even put women in uniform. Now, I don't know how they use them in combat, but they were in our prison camps. In fact, my buddy and I met a couple girls when I was at the rush camp and they're still in German uniforms and we got a case of beer I'm I had to do the running the guys that were there as as guests. I was part of the the, what do you call it? staff. So I would run and motor Butch and I had a big French outboard motor and rollers. My picture they're running a lot more right hand picked I'm running it you can see the cashew in the background that was our home. Yeah, yeah and that was a rush camp where we were getting the best food you could imagine Finally we couldn't believe it you know
Pete Turner 1:06:11
so those good memories is when the G eyes were basically running Europe and he went from cold and not enough clothes too warm and comfortable and not wearing clothes.
chet rohn 1:06:22
Yeah, well, I knew where it was I would have Lauren as a challenge day which is another one of those long links.
And you know, that was I was had to motorboat All I had to do is got take the guys around a little bit. We had all the first food for the states all the beer all the ice cream. And we're engineer so we ran a motorboat. This is the one thing I volunteered for. That took a shell 14 feet long. And I one of the pictures from there. The kid I was what I couldn't get on the bridge. But he was small enough. One of those pictures right on the desk should be one of a. of a young guy. There's just Yeah, there is. I had met him. He's the one he told me said, hey, there's supposed to be a big cannon back in the woods. I said, Let's go find it. This is a month after wars over in Bavaria. I have never seen anything like that. That's the thing. I've read later the statistics on it. They could shoot up this big shell 14 foot long show. Yeah. 20 miles. Wow. And one of those things have not got a whole city blackout. Yeah. But whoever heard of artillery that big? Well, Hitler had to have the biggest Yeah, it's hard to see it was dark and afternoon in the woods, and I didn't have the best camera in the world. There are some the Russians we liberated and but one more invite one back to the rush Council. Rush camp was, yeah, we went back and I found the same spot that we were ended the first picture. That's the same spot on the deck. Yeah, brand new deck. This was a swimming camp at a restaurant and so on. And so I found a same location when we took that picture. How many years apart? A lot of years. Yeah, a lot is those who, that's my squads there. Plus the guy that took the picture. We're having drinks after. This is in California. Were you ever heard a istp? army specialized training? No, that's not a whole bunch of us that we've been in college. They sent us back to college. in uniform uniform.
Pete Turner 1:08:48
Okay.
chet rohn 1:08:48
So we're all in uniform. And the guys came from all over the country. And they did it for several reasons. They wanted to have guys that could speak languages. We had language classes. And some other thing. And it was a big, big idea that didn't pan out because they needed bodies. Yeah. But for nine months, I was out of the war in Santa Clara University and uniform and going to San Francisco every weekend and have a ball. So here we are. Later when I was in back in the real army again. Now we're in the elements armor, division and camp. But we could get passes. And these golf clubs were still open, but nobody planned because there's no gasoline. Yeah. So here we are. We're getting our drinks at the bar, and we take them out and take a picture of us. So those are the guys that I was closest to. Plus the guy that took the picture. All during that as the army was training was cool. It was a big idea. That was Fine, didn't really work out because they needed bodies on the firing line. Sure. But I'll tell you what, it probably saved my life. And that's you were you were in that because you were an engineering student, and they put you in there or what, you know, I was engineering, they need your engineers and language people. It was a big idea, January and what they needed was bodies. body isn't behind a machine gun or something like, which is what I did.
Pete Turner 1:10:29
Well, Chet, thank you so much for sharing time with us. It's such a big story. And I just, I know everybody's gonna love hearing from you. And you know, it's just, it's great to be able to have time with you. Thank you, Alex for awesome. Yeah, thanks so much for doing the work. And uh, yeah, Associate Producer note from Mike man stories. My lifelong friends. set this up.
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of the breakdown show. We've got a hell of an episode for you guys today. My buddy Mike van stories, a co producer. He's a lifelong friend of mine. And he said, Hey, I know World War Two vet. And I think you should have him on the show. And so we did. His name is Chet round, and he was the 11th armor. That's part of the unit that helped break through at the Battle of the stone, and you're going to hear his memories as recollections. Chad is over 95 years old, and he is just such a delight to be around. He's just heard and seen everything. And I'm so proud to be able to share him as a liberator as a warrior, and just truly an American treasure. And there's a neat story that goes within all this. So Mike says, hey, let's get this guy chat. Of course, I say yes, as a world war two veteran, I'd be honored to tell this story. And it just so happens that Andy Biggio, the guy who's writing the book, The rifle and will definitely tell you more about Andy later on, but remember that name, Andy and Scott using he's an award winner. author and a producer on the show as well. They were having a trip with a bunch of world war two veterans back to the Battle of the Bulge for the 75th anniversary of the fight. And I asked Chet, I said, Chip, you were at the Battle of the Bulge, are you going on this trip and he said, I don't know about it. And so we were able to connect chat to Andrew Biggio and we got chats on an airplane right now coming back from that trip. at the Battle of the Bulge. We got to put his his feet on that battlefield one last time and it was it was a super exciting thing for him to do and we're awfully proud that all the pieces impossibly fell together to have that look. All these World War Two guys have incredible stories. Chad is among them. I mean, just the fact that they liberated concentration camps and you can see it still makes emotional and it's hard to have that conversation and not be emotional yourself. You guys are going to love Love, love this episode. Okay, so I'm going to really short you guys know what to do support the show. And listen, save the brave save the brave daughter We can always slow down and take time for charity. So let's do that. Do you if you're going to do your annual giving here at the end of the year, think about us. It can be a boat, it can be stock options. It can be cars, it can be land, whatever it is, we'll find a way to put that to use to help these veterans and save some lives. Save the brave, or do me a favor and join us in supporting Okay, here comes here comes Chet Rohn and you're about to hear a crazy story.
Joel Manzer 2:27
Lions rock productions
Unknown Speaker 2:32
This is Jay Mohr that group This is Jordan. Dexter from the offspring naked me Sebastian youngsters, Rick maronna Stewart Copeland Baxter,
Unknown Speaker 2:41
Gabby Reese, Rob Ellie,
Jon Leon Guerrero 2:42
this is Jon Leon Guerrero
Pete Turner 2:44
this is Pete a Turner.
chet rohn 2:48
This is Chet Rohn you're listening to the Break It Down Show
Niko Leon Guerrero 2:54
And now the break it down show with john Leon Guerrero and Pete a Turner.
Pete Turner 3:00
Chet is an American treasure. He's a liberator and He's my hero and I'm already getting emotional. Alec his grandson sitting here chat is one of the magical world war two people not magical improbable impossible that are still with us and have all these incredible tales to tell and your war least part of the world war two part of it. You probably to me, I think to all of humanity is the liberating of the concentration camps, you know, that you've got to participate in. So we'll for sure get into that. But just from all of us in humanity, thank you for what you've done. It's remarkable.
chet rohn 3:34
I don't know, man. roughly a million others you don't. Yeah,
Pete Turner 3:39
yeah. But I mean, you all play your own small part in something that you know, and a lot like we were talking about the Battle of the Bulge. You know, that barely goes our way. Two or three things don't break our way and that that's a different fight. different outcome.
chet rohn 3:52
biggest battle Americans have ever been in
Pete Turner 3:56
Yeah. And how close to become to losing that fight. Hey, this is Dave Turner from the break it down Show checking in real quick to ask you this, john Scott and I all support save the brave with our time, our location, our effort and our money each month we give a small amount. Do the same with us go to save the brave.org click on the donate tab, pick an amount that you want to come out each month and they will handle all the rest. I stand behind these folks. Thank you so much. Let's get back to the show. And how close to become to losing that fight. Very close.
chet rohn 4:27
Right. Very close. Yeah, you know, it was so damn cold.
Pete Turner 4:31
Yeah.
chet rohn 4:32
Oh my god. Not only did you have cold in Afghanistan or not. Oh, yeah.
Pete Turner 4:40
Well, yeah, both both. But I had the the horrible, coldest I ever have been was in Afghanistan. For sure. I lived on Hoth
chet rohn 4:48
we were we were well below zero. Yeah. for quite a while on the bone.
Pete Turner 4:53
Yeah. And then you outside the whole time or were they able to pull you back and warm you up anywhere?
chet rohn 4:58
I guess one Twice you had a little warmer. See, wikia couldn't dig. Okay. The frost line was five feet deep, right? There's no such thing as it was we're foxholes. If you blew. You throw grenade or something, right. You might be able to dig a little. But you're moving too much. We find some German holes. We lose. Yeah. But I have never been so cold for so long.
Pete Turner 5:26
Yeah.
chet rohn 5:27
And my life.
Pete Turner 5:28
How did you take that? I mean, look, you're from Wisconsin. So you've got some cold stuff building out
chet rohn 5:35
here. But well, we didn't have the kind of footwear we should have had right. Now we had I don't know what it was. You call it was a shoe that came up? right around here and you flipped it over and your calf? Yeah, it's like a shoe board. But you know, when I went down at 20, or 30, below zero, yeah. from four days. You just didn't say Worm
Pete Turner 6:01
so surviving in that environment you guys have to you have to do all of the things you have to do you have to eat you have to make waste you have all these things but you're also moving Did you have warm food at all during the during the battle?
chet rohn 6:14
through st not very often, right? Not very often Most of it was a K rations. Yeah, you know stuff like
Pete Turner 6:22
tell the audience but k rations are
chet rohn 6:26
crap well everything everything was just concentrated food I guess I don't even remember what it was. Yeah, I mean somebody eat but it was very good. Yeah. And I'm see rush steering drivers have sees
Pete Turner 6:41
I've had c rations and you didn't want them.
chet rohn 6:46
Or worse. That was the point of getting that is you guys are living as hard as a human. Having been fed k rations. We didn't even Christmas. We didn't get anything. You know? It was crappy food all the time. Right? All the time. You know they were forced to fly and turkeys and we got all this stuff that we're going to do for Christmas. I think I had a cold turkey dinner or something. We're on the move all the time. Yeah, what an armored division you didn't sit, which was good. I didn't want to sit in one spot all the time. On the other hand at times in the boat. You know, I'd be on guard. One time for 24 hours without moving. Yeah, in zero weather. And my feet I found an old box to get my feet up because there was a slow on and I said Damn, hold the German whole right. And I sat on that whole luckily I had a buddy we go I was a machine gunner. So had my assistant gunner. Sure. And he's in some of these pictures here. But all I'm second was cold. I had one shower. In the middle of a field in sub zero as they pull they had put us sing like a tent open on top. Yeah, they just wrapped up material guy I'd be up on a stepladder with a with a big thing and he said, Okay, ready and boom. So you got that okay soap up. And 30 seconds later Okay, y'all ready? Here comes another warm water on you. And now you got out out of this tent, and you know the wind was blowing and everything it was 20 below zero. Yeah. And you're trying to dry yourself. Oh my god. Yeah,
Pete Turner 8:42
better not to have the shower.
chet rohn 8:43
We had tremendous number of frostbite. Yeah, people are just, they're freezing their feet. Freezing their fingers. You never saw him again.
Pete Turner 8:55
What unit were you in?
chet rohn 8:56
11th Armored Division
Pete Turner 8:57
11th Armored Division and when did you join them?
chet rohn 9:00
I joined, not in the States. We went to England first. And I guess that's where we must have joined him. But we spent three months in England.
Pete Turner 9:13
Okay.
chet rohn 9:14
We had no equipment, they took our equipment away. And we thought What's going on? And why? Why aren't we going on? You heard of the flesh gap?
Pete Turner 9:22
Yes.
chet rohn 9:24
I guess so many people died in that thing. Yeah. And so much material was was shot, right. They took all our tanks, they took all our trucks. took our peep show. Yeah, all the equipment. Already artillery. We actually had nothing. I didn't even have a rifle in England, sir. Three months. We sat there. I didn't mind it because I got to London every weekend on a pass. Yeah. The rest of it. We were sat in a Quonset hut gambling right now. hundred miles north of London. I was mad about it because I got to go to London a short weekend. Yeah, just get on the train on kind of a history. So I knew what I wanted to see. Sure. And I wasn't gonna play cards or shoot craps all day. Yeah. But I went almost every weekend. Fact I even bought a bike. Each two of us who bike one bike. We were going to we're going to bike in London, could you add these crane cars for bikes? Right, put a line and gets there. I got to London I said too often will here's what we want first. Where's that? Bill at 15 miles over this way. Say? Okay, where's the other? Well, that's 20 miles over that way.
Pete Turner 10:43
Yeah,
chet rohn 10:44
London is probably the biggest city in area in the world. Not up.
Pete Turner 10:50
Yeah. Why? Yeah.
chet rohn 10:52
Well, I never took a bike back to London. I wasn't gonna spend all my time male pedaling, pedaling. There the underground there. Yeah. So I could get from one place to another
Pete Turner 11:04
so when you know history you don't want to shoot dice and play cards. What did you want to see in London when you were there and what impressed you that you maybe were surprised?
chet rohn 11:13
I mean, a changing of the guard. Yeah, madam to show waxwork old castles. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I'm just kind of a history buff right? I knew about all the places I wanted to go there I read a bottom but of course remember Minar
Pete Turner 11:33
So did you land at Normandy then? D day?
chet rohn 11:36
Let's see. Yes, we landed at the same place where the invasion that we landed after the invasion, okay. I want some time.
Pete Turner 11:46
Normandy or where I don't know is it little town there. Same same place, same place, same part. But you so you didn't go with the initial wave. You were like D day plus two or something like that. That they pushed you guys through
chet rohn 12:01
D day plus two, three months. Okay 60 or something? I didn't you're there till December. Okay. DJ was one May June Yeah, yeah. We were in London all the time that we thought we couldn't understand why we had an over it was they didn't have the equipment Yeah, yeah, they had shut up so much of our armor right that we had nothing left I guess it looked general had a peep to run around and but we had no tanks that we I was on a half track during the war. No half track, right. I wasn't veteran I wasn't sure when I knew what was happening over in there and no,
Pete Turner 12:48
in my right and thinking in that so December you come across the channel and you catch up at the unit and basically you catch up at the Battle of the Bulge. Again, yeah. Okay. Yep. Like welcome. We have no food.
chet rohn 13:01
Well, here's what happened without there being an armored division. We were going to crack the German fork in German and placements along the channel, okay? They were surfacing all their submarines or infantry divisions could not crack those. So they said, Okay, we're going to use murder. And I forgot the names of the towns where all the Germans were, even after the front head move, right? There were still thousands of Germans along the channel, right other places. That's what we thought we were going to do. And then one day, that's a couple weeks after we hit the beach. There's some trouble over in Belgium, all WhatsApp? Yeah, we ran it took us three days and three nights to get from coast to Belgium, whatever they say. Now we're of course very outfitted with all the equipment and We moved my day. But you've only go as fast as the slowest vehicle. So it was one long, cold ride. We got into the barge at about midnight
Pete Turner 14:15
on that ride. Yeah. Were you sitting in the back of a truck? Were you Where were you sitting?
chet rohn 14:21
there? I have a half track. I remember marine gunner. Okay. Pushed Mars. Yeah. Okay. And we on the front mile we had a 50 right? I had a world war one or two. What do you call it hills? type tube? Water. Yeah, never put water and I voted for a soft
Pete Turner 14:41
Yes. It's too cold
chet rohn 14:42
for a water so I had to learn to shoot past burps Uh huh. Because the barrel was only as big as a rifle barrel right shooting gun. Yeah. And that thing could you know if you held that? Shoot, maybe 30 rounds didn't freeze up. Yeah. So all the shooting Identity bird bird bird yeah most of which there's not a German troops although we did shoot up a number German true but our awful lot of shooting at airplanes
Pete Turner 15:12
okay
chet rohn 15:13
when we were moving in column there's me one or nine would come over right and are flying fool so flow between the trees wow those guys were when they come over me they were no more than 15 feet above my head
Pete Turner 15:31
Good grief that is low
chet rohn 15:33
and I get get maybe one or two second burst so I had to learn to watch yeah the tracers from our guys back and we know they were coming we get here are the machine guns that you know 234 miles away and we can see treasures even though the day yeah and I watched the trician when the tracer started coming back I started shooting yeah cuz I When I was got my two seconds in yeah and it worked that way because they had a fly through my mind Yeah. And I knew if I'm hitting I'm because my tracers would bump would jump off it on. Didn't penetrate, but they bounce off the German planes right then I know my, I used armor piercing. I loaded all my own belts. Okay. Okay. So I had a lot of practice shooting and planes. And the Germans once in a while, our column will shoot him down that way. Yeah, I know. I hit Come on those plans, but I never never knew if I hit one, you know, vital spot because they're gone. Yeah, they're coming at 300 miles an hour. Yeah. 15 feet above you.
Pete Turner 16:49
And you're what you're 10 feet out. Your head is 10 feet off the ground to the back of that half track. So that planes 25 feet off the ground, going 300 pounds. Yeah. So those guys must be They didn't,
chet rohn 17:01
you know, we never sat on the seats of abstraction sat on the edges, right. And the edge was about this wide, your feet from the seat, and then all your belongings were down your feet with normally be. And I kept a couple extra machine guns down there. We would read things. You know, I had maybe three machine guns back there. Yeah, they weren't ready. But in case something happened to mine, I had another one, right, we usually carry at least 100 or 200 pounds of TMT. And so if we'd ever been hit, there would have been a big hole in the road.
Pete Turner 17:37
Boom. Yeah, yeah. And when you guys are on this movement to catch up to the unit, you're going through three days, three nights. I'm familiar with all this. It is mind numbingly boring, you know, to sitting there and driving 10 miles an hour, 15 miles an hour because that's about a fastest week ago. I don't know about you guys, but
chet rohn 17:55
well, we could go on and fast.
Pete Turner 17:58
Right? And how fast was that that vehicle Broken usually and like it was an awful lot of
chet rohn 18:02
stop and go. Yeah. And of course, you had to keep your intervals. We were always 100 feet from the interview for the next vehicle in front of us, and 100 feet from the one behind us. Right. So that's, you know, not to get wiped out maybe I didn't like the fact that we have that all engine T and because there's just been a hole in the roads that are going on. Yeah, yeah. But that's what we're doing. Yeah. And boys as Germans are flying are fools. Yeah. Once in a while, we'll get them. my body and my squad. We got one plan. We were in a big, big U turn that went for a couple miles like that. And there were a lot of open spaces. And this guy flew right into that. He evidently didn't realize how many guns were going to be on him because that across back there were 20 or 30 adversity. Gun zone
Pete Turner 19:00
Did you guys worry about friendly fire by shooting like following your tracers and or was it casually?
chet rohn 19:06
Yeah, I mean we had our char artillery going over our heads all the time. And currently Welcome. I'm sure that could help but yeah, but if you had a short round and it could be bad
Pete Turner 19:20
Yeah. Did you guys were hearing protection at all? No. Yeah, I don't know how any of you guys can hear
chet rohn 19:28
it so bad. Oh, I'm saying I did we're and I'll show you and of course we had to keep our steel helmets on right but I found this worked I could get my my she'll Helmet nice German reissue. So he's
Pete Turner 19:43
pulling out a rabbit fur your I think
chet rohn 19:46
it is yeah rabbit for feeling. That's for Yeah, I think it was rabbits for and of course, this is a very my color. Right? We were if I word like this, I can just jam my my helmet on I would not have survived that winter. Yeah, I found a somewhere in the bones. Yeah, and I'm glad we weren't captured because Scotland German and German stuff on.
Pete Turner 20:20
Yeah, it looks like Lobos hat from Hogan's Heroes if you remember that but but
chet rohn 20:25
kinda kind of smelly.
Pete Turner 20:28
It's getting kind of smelly. You've got a German emblem with everything. So this kept your head warm. Which is my ears to your ears too. Yeah, because
chet rohn 20:37
the metal helmet didn't didn't
Pete Turner 20:40
really cover your ears and that in that helmet is it just straps?
chet rohn 20:44
No, we never could use the straps. Okay, we haven't even had an inner element. Okay. And another one. The inner helmet use a chin strap went over the lip of this week. And then the other strap went over that way. Yeah. So you had to get these two helmets strapped together so, but you didn't wear them because if you're in a bigger explosion Marissa could break your neck if you had a strap, right? We never worn more, but it stayed on.
Pete Turner 21:15
You found this along the road or whatever, like at a stop or something like that and just
chet rohn 21:21
Well, you know, William we were looters. Yeah, yeah, gotta be and if there was ever a house, we all ran into see what's they got what good is. Yeah, I am. I got a German rifle here. And got shot guns from castles. We took Yeah, winners anything in his first term first. Sure we got and I've got a whole German uniform. And so I've used that fact I tried to go to military ball and when University Wisconsin Yeah, after the war, we thought well, let'sWhere we could wear our army uniform, but one guy on 1812 uniform, he put that on, he got an available, but I had a German uniform and I got as far as the door.
Pete Turner 22:13
They said No thanks.
chet rohn 22:15
Yeah, that's funny.
Pete Turner 22:16
So, okay, you move for 36 hours you catch up at the Battle of the Bulge. And then like what's your what's your in brief and no, like, all right, glad that you guys are here. Head over that way or like, you know did like when did you know the situation you were getting into? I can how dire it was,
chet rohn 22:35
I guess it was just because of what we did. We didn't know what was going to happen. But I had to spend almost every night trying to get to our minds. as engineers I was our job right. So as a tax we're going to use such and such a road to in the morning. We go there, one squad at a time. And we were not allowed to build The mines we had a turn take them off. Wow. And we could hear that German trucker two blocks ahead of us yeah. throwing these out what the snow? Yeah. But that's what we did a lot of taken out mines and it's just a scary job. Yeah When hear the German patrols going by sometimes can be talking you know they might have been 15 feet away. We didn't move right and no talking right or with your whisper to somebody and we had intervals of 15 feet usually hoping they didn't find on we had rifles.
Pete Turner 23:37
You guys are on your you're on foot on your own with rifles with rifle no
chet rohn 23:42
mounted machine gun, right, right. But we would have to take let's say a mile or two inch crack and and they have other engineers do the other. did an awful lot of them. You couldn't bury them. I mean everything We're so thick and the frost line so deep and there was no digger. Yeah, they just put on snow and half the time, right? So, German teller mining in front of you see no Yeah, they're about this big and that's thick. Yeah, like a big Pete So they had it all had to handle this, we'd find them. Only thing we did we gradually get under we want to make sure there's not attached to a second mind. German is dead dead right there was a well in the bottom was they could put a firing device and so there was no firing device. We very generally pull those things off. And we weren't allowed to do because supposedly the Germans didn't know where we were
Pete Turner 24:45
right. When we know where the Germans were I think they knew where we were pretty good idea right? And then did I know that job is dangerous and scary but did the blinds go off at times or were you guys so you guys were pretty fortunate with that
chet rohn 24:59
one. We were fortunate Yes, there were some guys I got blown up. Supposedly you could stand on a teller line. I wasn't going to try it. They told us you know your waiter is not enough to do it. Yeah and that's probably true that's not test this is made for a tank going over a truck or yeah some heavy but I wasn't going to test them. Yeah, yeah.
Pete Turner 25:26
So okay Battle of the Bulge. Terrifying and you guys finally are able to break through. What happened? Where'd you guys go next? What happened?
chet rohn 25:34
Well, she the bone lasted I think it was five weeks. But how much sleep Did you get on a day? During the Battle of the Bulge? I don't remember. Yeah. I mean, you slept for 10 minutes for 20 minutes Erica, if you if you're lucky enough, you know right and just curl up on the ground right like you weren't caught or anything on the ground. Couldn't dig So we would look for brush something like that. Yeah, that's her. There's my old sleeping bag. Not the Army or shoe. I bought this at a px. I don't know if you ever saw what's the Army or sure you? Yeah, you went into interesting no gyptian mommy's Yeah, yeah. You went to LA set from in side. Can you imagine trying to get out of that now? I would throw hours away whenever to come overseas. So I bought this, but didn't get much help. I could get an army blanket within one in it. But, and I had a sleep with my rifle inside. Yeah. And my boat's inside. Yes, they would freeze up. Yeah. So you were just jammed in this thing's Yeah. And always cold, cold, cold, cold. Yeah,
Pete Turner 26:52
I know. When I slept. In those cold environments. All of my clothes would go up towards my face hole would be and I cry. off like a cat inside just so that my own bad breath would heat me up and already want Murray in this just a regular army sleeping bag you know, but it's kind of a mommy sack but a little innovation probably had better one that they gave us at first we wouldn't go in with a new one has when I was in the newest one was a thin summer and then a fatter second bag of
chet rohn 27:23
a zipper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No more late zippers. Yeah. Can you imagine? Yeah, NASA had a snaps
Pete Turner 27:29
so you could snap it up if you wanted. That was the fast version and 20 minutes you could get out of it. Yeah, no way. No numbers left and there are three parts to the bag that I said there was the summer bag, the winter bag that would go around that and then there was an outer waterproof layer.
chet rohn 27:46
That's all I had and I bought it. Yeah. Wow. Well, Coach good. First thing we do is look for evergreens. Yeah, and when you use our banner, only way we use a banner every night. Get as many pine branches as you could. Because you gotta get the cold off get underground. Yeah, that frost line was so deep. Yeah, it's just sleeping on ice.
Pete Turner 28:13
So you would get little catnap So for the most part,
chet rohn 28:15
you took your boots off, but you left them in there because if you left him outside for you never get them on in the morning they'd be frozen. So, so Right, right. There wasn't much room after you get your army boots. Yeah. And there and your rifle. Yeah, right. Right. We're all afraid and the moving parts should freeze. Yeah, I mean, I'll could freeze You know, I'm sure. I saw you know, I don't want my rifle to freeze up. Yeah, I might need it.
Pete Turner 28:44
He would need it. Soon as she and then how often do you get to change socks? Because I know like, you know, as long as I kept changing my socks, my feet stayed pretty good.
chet rohn 28:54
Well, we change our but not often enough. Okay. Did I didn't have enough sex. Never had clean one to put dirty one shirt. Yeah. rotative Yeah, I know I've slept with a boot shine in my in man. But on the other hand, I didn't want any more because if we were overrun by the Germans, I didn't want to be running naked through the fields when it's 20 below zero. Yeah, yeah. So I might have had to run in bare feet. I hope I didn't. I didn't. Yeah, I've never been so cold. And I mean, I'm used to cold Yeah. escaped to school and in Wisconsin, right. The roads wherever upload middle. And when is all the time so I was used to skating I don't know when. But try and operate. And then it's gone in one place. It got to 40 below. She's lost one ours was 20. Yeah. But it is cold, cold, cold. Yeah. Your fingers, you know, they gave us. I don't know if you ever saw the original German Army, Mitch. Yeah. Okay. That's what they were like, yeah, you get one finger and a big heavy, you know? Yeah, these two fingers are going this one. And then your thumb. He's showing a
Pete Turner 30:20
three fingered glove and the pinky sticks out and the thumb sticks out and then you have the other three together.
chet rohn 30:25
I could not get this through the trigger housing on my rifle. So what I did is I did I just hand was out the cold all the time, right? Because I'm right handed. And the other one I did have my big mitten. Yeah, we had to massage her hand massage or feet all the time. Yeah. Cold trench foot. Yeah. And I don't know if had was like frozen feet or what but a lot of guys went to the hospital fast. Yeah, they froze her feet. was miserable it's just just miserable conditions. I mean finally and I change the change but for December in January in February hard living Good lord Yeah, I mean wasn't set out to be in a battle of the boat first closing.
Pete Turner 31:21
So okay Battle of the Bulge happens. You guys say nuts you're not going to give up you keep fighting and then you ultimately win the battle of the bulge and that's in January Is that right? end of January end of January start no started in December 16. In the last week of January, we finally got him on the run and kicked him out of there.
chet rohn 31:46
But never want to be that cold again. I was just guys tend to the hospital you never saw him against frozen, frozen fingers truth man's. You kept massaging him every night. Well, they made you do it to take your boots off besides your feet. Yeah. Get the circulation going. Yeah. I don't remember ever being warm. Right? I remember being not quite as cold. Yeah, if I had enough junk in there no way would put pine boughs over us sometime.
Pete Turner 32:21
Yeah. So when I was in Afghanistan, I was on a very cold camp. There was ice everywhere, right? We stayed on a camp. So when it would snow, we'd all walk on the snow and pack it into ice. And so what would happen is is it was like, like an ocean almost. So there was no flat surface. And so you'd walk. And then you had the longest winner, the Battle of the vault. Yes. Nice stone ice. We fell down all the time. It's what I'm getting at. Like you walk slowly and carefully but the ice was such that you would just slip BAM and fall all the time. Did you guys have a lot of that where you were just constantly getting sleep.
chet rohn 33:00
Yours are here wading through snow snow. Okay, seaside Stanley is down below. Yeah, sure we fell, I'm sure. But what you can do is keep moving. Yeah. Or your circulation.
Pete Turner 33:16
Oh yeah, Siegfried Line.
chet rohn 33:20
We were so short handed. We just, you know, no army plans for something like the Battle of the Bulge. Right. So everybody who's on that guard all the time. Yeah. You never got to sleep. Now at least I had a buddy. Yeah, my on my system gunner said froze next to me. Yeah, so I had somebody to talk to right. But one night they put us on the perimeter well they gave us many too many yards for a one platoon to handle. Yeah, we were anywhere close to our next guys Sergeant says, look, sorry, I'll get back to you when I can. That was 330 or something in the afternoon. We weren't relieved until four next morning or something for a long time. So you sat there. I had an old old box or something was a German. Yeah. I didn't know to carve it. But my feet were up on that wooden box. And you didn't move for 24 hours.
Pete Turner 34:30
Yeah, I know. You're on guard. So you're alert. But how scared how tense are you when you're on guard in that situation? Well, you're always tense
chet rohn 34:40
there. Yeah. I mean, the Germans were during good fighters, right. And they would attack at night, as well as during the day when we did too. But you never knew if they were crawling up at night. The first thing you did was make sure you knew where each tree was because Later on i'd tree was a moving thing Yeah,
Pete Turner 35:04
yeah. Do you take out your iPhone and take a picture of the tree line? Let's just joke so you your assistant gunner there you know you know your fields of fire you memorize the trees and all that kind of thing. What are you guys talking about? How do you pass the time?
chet rohn 35:22
Food girls girls yes family yeah you exhausted every subject you could right because you're trying to stay away yeah when you don't have any any money relieving you're scared Oh yeah. Well we didn't know the next guy his words I we knew there were somewhere within 100 feet bro. Yeah, couldn't hear him or anything. Right. And guys were you know the Germans were devilfish sneak up with grenades or something. And I'm telling you, I know those trees removing their UC Santa Cruz.
Pete Turner 36:00
Yeah. So Battle of the Bulge ends, you guys are going towards, you know, towards the end of the war, but how many more big fights did you get in because it doesn't take that long. Yeah,
chet rohn 36:10
they were all nine fights and all that. No more than platoon strength and most of time squads right? It'd be quick and older was, you know, yeah. You did a lot of praying. Yeah. You just had at least I had a guy to talk to, right. Some of the poor guy was sitting by themselves for 24 hours. Wow. I mean, you got brandy. Yeah. And everything. You swear smooth or after a while? Sure. You look and you know, it was at a tree. No, it looks like somebody's sneaking up. Yeah. You couldn't sleep.
Pete Turner 36:50
And I know for me. If I'm awake for say, 25 hours. I start to hallucinate and I don't know that I'm hallucinating. Right. away, and then I go Okay, I've any anything I think I see. And when I say hosting it, I've seen someone walk in front of me. I waved at them and they wave back and my friends like, what are you doing? Who you waving at? And I'm I know a guy didn't just walk by. So it's fully you don't know you're hallucinating at first,
chet rohn 37:17
you swerve tree or a bush was moving. Yeah. I said Who is he? You see that? Yeah. Well, sure we had a machining. We weren't supposed to fire. If you can imagine. Yeah, I wouldn't give away what we're doing or where we were. I was the most miserable time in my army was was that just as horrible? Yeah. There were no saving features. You're always cold. You were always hungry. You didn't have hot food, right? You mean try and eat. You know some of the food was so tough. It was frozen bottle, your water bottle with fruit. It was Just absolute misery everybody just hated every minute of it.
Pete Turner 38:05
After the battle and you're on the road you have these small skirmishes, how often are you getting warm child during that time? Are you ever getting warm rations at all?
chet rohn 38:16
Well, you didn't do much travels. If you did, it was usually during the day. Okay. When you could see. And you knew I was going on. We had a Technicolor force helping us you know? Yeah. If our plans for coming our guys could get some plans for us. Yeah. Not in the middle of the night. But during the day, once or more and I didn't bother me too much. We were always cold. Everybody was gone. I didn't have long jobs. My mother sent me some long guns. And I warm so long and I rubbed on the capital my legs trying Big sores that went right through the underwear. Yeah. And the scab would be on the outside of that damn underwear. Cuz his rubber on you? Yeah. And I have that I end. Once I say I had one shower in the Battle of the Bulge. The next time I had a bath was in a house alongside the Rhine River. Yeah. And that's all for the whole damn war. We were too dirty. Yeah, we were. Our faces were just black. Yeah, but you know, we're all in the same boat. Yeah, for sure. They're all complaining but
Pete Turner 39:42
what can you do? I we lived on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan for a while with a big platoon. Yeah, no heavy platoon. And water was rationed because we're running off of a well, and you know, just there wasn't enough water. Yeah. And so you didn't bathe very often. But the moment you did, you could smell How bad everybody else smelled. I saw you like I'm just not gonna shower because it's didn't. You're already
chet rohn 40:06
together. I didn't have a shower for see we got into the boat in December. Yeah. You know my I didn't have a shower, except what they gave us in the snow. Yeah. Nice. Okay until till we found a bath on the Rhine River. We were a long way from the Rhine River. Sure. It took us a couple of months just to get to the Rhine River. And we lucked out. We found a house that had running water, which was unbelievable.
Pete Turner 40:45
Could you pick up that house today? If you saw it? Do you think?
chet rohn 40:48
Would I know it? Yeah. It was a little old house right next to the river. Yeah, we couldn't cross because we only had so many bridges across. Okay, we're Germans blue. All right. bridges so we had floating bridges but when you get 10,000 men that want to cross at one point yeah takes a long time with all our equipment Yeah. So we were there for least two or three days before earned a vision got it. Okay. Yeah, but I don't think that best set was ever empty water to be black yeah luckily we get new water we had a fire going I mean we had to keep the water hot yeah we had a fire going on the system. Here's what heater for water heater. Yeah. But I know if I haven't.
Pete Turner 41:41
Were any of the businesses opened as you guys moved, like the businesses like the bakeries and the butcher shops. Were any of those things open at all or is all all closed down?
chet rohn 41:51
Every can we went through everything but nothing up. The civilians are hiding in the basement. Yeah. They took it on the chin too, because sure one of their houses were destroyed all right over them death and their bathtub ruined. But there were just no stores.
Pete Turner 42:10
When did it start to occur to you that the Germans were exterminating Jews?
chet rohn 42:16
Well, I guess we got the stars and stripes, maybe once every two weeks or three weeks. And you read a little about it and that Yeah, no other papers. Army paper. You heard stuff. You aren't sure if it was true, right. And,
Pete Turner 42:36
and what you heard was it like was it impossible to even believe like, okay, yeah, maybe it's true maybe it's not but like, what was what you were reading? Was it horrific?
chet rohn 42:46
It was gradual until you You didn't believe everything in the beginning. Yeah. And but we came across a lot of plan. wouldn't kill them. Yeah. Why were they Why were they did? Yeah. Women children, men weren't many men. They were all in German Army, right? The families they were either bombed on or machine gun or something. I think the internet remember these were different countries so the Germans were killing civilians. I'm sure we must have killed some. Yeah, we shot artillery certainly kill some people. They had stone houses in Belgium. Some of them were five 600 years old. The same families. Yeah, had those houses for five or 600. They were made made of stone, which was great until our jewelry shattered. Yeah, anything else that could burn? They burned the barns burned. dead animals. Dead Horses everywhere. Yeah, we never saw service. Any extent except if we hidden our basements once in a while that family I think the civilians and the men were gone. They were drug going into the German army was very were German or not. Yeah. What about the Holocaust? Okay was the first time you you learned about it really when you were at Mauthausen or did you have some? I think it was a slow thing you read about it. Sometimes you said oh, I couldn't be that bad yet right? You didn't see it right away. Occasionally you would see dead civilians but they got we killed a lot of civilians. What are her turi Yeah, I don't know. I can't place because we saw in our civilians but what were they so were they killed by shells? Fire. I remember. I don't know, but could have been killed by ours. Yeah. No. Show of our guys. Number one place on the side of a burn. There were guys maybe 10. Guys, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They weren't just killer haphazardly. Yeah. They're lined up on every machine gun by the Germans. Right? We know that. You heard horror stories. You didn't know if you could believe all Yeah. We heard about concentration camp, heard about those before we even left the states. Right. But you didn't realize To what extent it was and how bad it was.
Pete Turner 45:35
When you guys got to mount housing area and you were going to liberate those, you know, the people that were in the concentration camp. Did you know that was going to happen, or do you just kind of drive up? Oh, no, we knew
chet rohn 45:47
it was a long, long way from where we were sure, Jim? Yeah, mon hosen was down in Australia, right? Four or 500 miles away to the south. And we got to our eventually, but
Pete Turner 46:00
Why were you guys headed that way? Was that just your divisions now?
chet rohn 46:04
You know, whatever the front was. That's the way you went, Okay, we thought we're going to Berlin. So we turn right instead of left, right. We're not going to Berlin, we're going down into Austria, which was called automark. by the Germans would capture prisoners and say, Where are you from? Is that was smart. I said as right. Yeah, they're still calling. Or smark, which was the eastern province of Germany. Yeah, that's what it meant post market and a strike meant the kingdom of Australia. Right? Germany wouldn't have that they are now like a stage in Germany, Austria. So, we captured a lot of Australians who were in the German army. We captured a lot of polls or in the German army. Right. We captured just abroad from every little country. Yeah. But they were serving Germany, not by choice, but they were dragged going in. Right.
Pete Turner 47:09
So talk to me about the concentration camp and tell me about that day.
chet rohn 47:13
Well, I was a long way away, I'm sure. We started seeing dead for bed dead people that we knew it was different. It wasn't dead soldiers. It was dead civilians. And they're awful lot of we have no they couldn't all then kill. First for you when they saw him in a line. Yeah, they weren't just killed by artillery. So we gradually new in as the Germans were executing people in other countries, right? Their decks were dead. Everybody from countries all over the world. And we read a lot. I mean, no army was reading some way to know how much was true or not. Yeah. Oh yeah. A lot of Stuff that wasn't true either thing fed to us, but it was a gradual thing. We are hosting a shortwave radio from our Signal Corps. We stole it, put it in our cat or half track. We could get a BBC in London on it. We want to for the music. Yeah. Glenn Miller Hello, rush, right. Glenn Miller who was killed course. But his drummer became the head of his orchestra. Right. And he followed us all the way across Europe. And so we're listening to swing music on our half track. Yeah, but what about when you approached when you approach mount house and what what was different about that as you're entering Mauthausen? Well, 30 miles before we got to mount homes, we started seeing shred people in the ditch did we go over and look at it to add on my concentration camp prison in the back of his head? Yeah. They were marching these guys from Poland Halloween Austria over 400 miles Yeah. Well these guys died from freezing they died from malnutrition from everything you can imagine was a digested a German shot and right so we know we're getting into a bad situation and we've read about know the army published stuff and but I'll tell you this and say you got to it and saw it and smell it were a different story. I mean, I've thrown a lot of dead soldiers everywhere. We saw dead Americans everywhere in dead German soldiers everywhere and got to be that you know, you sit next to him and eat your lunch. very grave registration did not find all the guys are dead, right? In fact, we've seen what might because as engineers, we ought to do a lot of night work. These guys were taken dead Americans, you know, my feet, my neck 123 throwing off the top of a big truck. Yeah. And when should you do that again? I'm going to kill you. Yeah. You're not going to do that to American soldier, right? I'm sure as soon as we left, they did it again. But we almost shot some of our own soldiers as they are in graves registration. And we, you know, if I'm killed, I don't want to be handled the way they're doing it. So, all they've seen you learn gradually now. We started the active war in December. But the war was over to me. So I mean, there was a lot of war in between. Most of our war was against armored troops. Tanks. Hopefully we had our tanks there to help protect us tillery I remember one time we were building a bridge on Little River. And for some reason I had a crow cross this river. There was a broken bridge here. You could walk on it, but you couldn't drive a show. We were going to put up a Bailey bridge. I think it was Uriona Bailey. Yeah. big, heavy range. Take 20 guys to haul the members together. It was most of our bridges were little tread with Yeah, you know, for 15 foot bridge or something like that. So for some reason, I went over on the broken Old Bridge, and I was over there by myself. Maybe 500 yards away a tiger tank came over a hill and looks to me as big as a house. I mean, they're Tigers were up in the 80,000 tons. Just I mean, just huge. Our little own Sherman's at 3200. Yeah. And finally, some are bigger ones. The We started getting the they named after our general after it was a t 45. Or something would look to us really huge. Then you saw a tiger their tracks their tracks for this wide tires. Well, maybe this was 18 this is what Yeah. And he sees lucky when I saw this thing on the move. They weren't going to worry. They weren't gonna waste on me. Yeah, right. But when you were alone and you see this damn thing come over a hill. Yeah. I got back across your old bridge. Past Thrashers. I could, I didn't know what they were gonna do. We got into a lot of middle of tank battles cuz we've fought with the tanks right? And we had to act not as engineers but as infantry. We're very short handed in some cases Yeah. Very very. So when you're on foot any tank looks great big. Not yours. Yeah, I don't care what tank it if you're on here by yourself and the rest of your buddies on the other side of a creek and something comes over a hill 500 yards away. You take off
Pete Turner 53:26
on what? You guys liberate the camp, the concentration camp, talk to me about that experience. What did what did you see what did you feel? Hey, this is Pete Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here and if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show calm. Let me help. I want to hear about it. You guys liberate the camp, the concentration camp Talk to me about that experience. What did what did you see? What did you feel we got there? We knew by this time there must have been camps which had seen a lot of dead prisoners, stripey
chet rohn 54:12
as for the last 20 30 miles. And we know, we've read about camps and things we should Holy mackerel, this is, yeah, worse than we thought. We got down to Lynch and that was Hitler's favorite city. After the war. He was going to move government down there who Lynch was now part of Germany, right. And he was gonna have his government buildings and online. We saw so many dead people in these uniforms. We knew what the uniforms were the striped uniforms. And we'd go and look at them in the ditches, you know, first rather dozens and then by the hundreds and find them by almost 1000. These were people a move from Poland. Yeah, those guys walking from Poland all the way down 450 miles Yeah. And to that area and off for maybe half of them died on the way or were killed. They couldn't keep up they miss out on now. So we saw an awful lot of dead stripe with stripe uniforms on. Then I had never heard about hosen till we got down there some guys said, hey, there's a big camp here. Some guys, you've been over there. And so we found out about it. And so the next day I was able to get into my house. I can't describe it. I remember seeing so many dead people in one place, right? Some of them stacked up like that. Others I'm in railroad cars was the doors open? You'd see the dead bodies in there I don't know what they were doing with them. I mean first it was bodies by the hundreds Yeah. Then all of a sudden the bodies by the sausage yeah and smell and the whole area was just terrible some of these guys have been dead for probably a month so Eisenhower sent word you know everybody and our our general to pat every guy we want you want him to see this want him to get into bone house and you gotta see it. We've taken the guards of the were either killed or they are now run off. So I went on a day right after liberation. I was interested to see it I want to you know, what are they? What was it like? Now this was different than a lot of them because, as I said the others were temporary Type buildings wouldn't buildings. But housing was stone because the stone came right out of the corner. And it was building stone. So you had walls like this. It was like seeing a federal prison there. I just went on my own. I mean, after a while we were just loose. Do we want to show that? The day after liberation, I said, Well, I want to see that. So we took our F track over. It just went down individually. All the prisoners were still there. Somewhere alive. The good share, we're dead. Yeah. And then we started hearing the stories. They had English speaking prisoners could talk to us. And I had a guy that was a I think he was with a newspaper. And I got a check newspaper. He could speak English good like that. And he took us around as I was with five other guys we wanted to see they had a gas chamber we run the gas chamber. They had a whatever you call it where they dissect the guys say we're not called a golden teeth out of them before they were burn them. But it's a bias by you know, there were so many dead bodies they couldn't dispose of them. I'm talking 10,000 dead bodies on there. We were shocked. We'd seen a lot of dead people during the war, but not that one a month that many that have just been shamed. Gunder whatever. by the hundreds. Yeah. And the smell. Some of those guys have been dead for a month I'm sure. I wanted to go in a modern house and said first there was a guy there. barbed wire fence to open area outside side fires by myself. I just went over I channel I'm going to see it. And there was a guy standing there stark naked. He was about 100 200 feet for me. So as I'm going to talk to Scott, I want to find out what's going on. He was a fairly tall guy didn't have any clothing on. And I walked up to him. You know, his eyes were open. I was going to talk to him. And I knew he couldn't see me. Huh. He was just a blank stare. And yet he was standing stark naked. His New Year's were like this. Down here was like this. Yeah, his hips were huge. Round as I could have put my fingers around his wished. Yeah, I mean, he was dead man. It was so alive. It was just a horrendous thing.
Pete Turner 1:00:06
But what are the experience the whole experience from Battle of the Bulge to the Holocaust camp concentration camps? What did you pull out of that like going forward for the rest of your life? I mean, you've been been around and seen a lot of things now.
chet rohn 1:00:20
The whole thing was more horrible. The Holocaust and I thought, okay, and when we when we heard a lot about the Holocaust, and you learn to believe So remember, we had a lot of propaganda today. Yeah. So, okay, we know that Jews were banned kill others are being killed, but not to the extent that we shown Yeah, our division couldn't handle it. We had a lot of doctors but there were so many dying people and luckily, some other infantry divisions got there. We took all of their medics. I don't think they clean out that place for a month. I was there for about a month. And then I moved on I was working at a risk capital I kind of saw, but I cannot I really don't have words tell you. It was the most horrible thing I ever saw.Andthey were everywhere, just dead people in piles and sometimes pile up against the wall sometimes lying over. You had to step over it and people went just to see the place. Well, listen, I've had you for over an hour, and I want to respect your guys's time. And Alec, thank you so much for facilitating What have you pulled out from you know your grandpa for your whole entire life and talking about this incredible man. What have you learned? You know, it's so funny. As a kid, I totally took it for granted. But then as I just met so many other American millennials who didn't have what I have, we didn't have I mean, they might have had veteran grandfathers who were in the war, but were maybe less talkative and bottled all of the memories of war or just sort of didn't overlap with their grandparents. I've just come to really, really treasure it and also understand the importance of engaging in the world and and just sort of staying active and, and really trying to ask ourselves, what were the conditions that produce that tragedy?
Pete Turner 1:02:24
Yeah.
chet rohn 1:02:24
And are they could they happen again? Are they happening again? So the awareness of that, we believe some of the stories we heard, we know there was propaganda. But I'm telling you, our guys were shooting down those German guards just for the song. Yeah. I'd sign in there. One time my squad leader and I were walking around the area and we saw a gang of people doing something we didn't know what so we went over there. They had ended obviously, one of the guards and they were at On fire escape that went off the side of the building. Show up on the second floor the guys up there now to chain around this guy's neck. They've pulled him up so he's almost dead. Then they let him down, pull up. We said, Look, we know how bad it is, but you don't murder people like that. We took him as a person or turn over the MPs. Yeah. If I caught somebody doing something, I would have shot him. But I didn't always catch him in the act. And I don't know what he did. Yeah, he was in German uniform scared as hell right. I wasn't gonna shoot him just like that I'm he get his day in court or whatever. But and a lot of them were executed afterward. And there was the SS with we kept the SS for a year. A whole year. Yeah. In person in person camp. Wehrmacht we shouldn't get out of here.
Pete Turner 1:04:02
Yeah.
chet rohn 1:04:03
Hey kids, there kids should know superheroes. 13 years old right but the end Yeah. I want to kind of just shoot him Sure. Kids were crying right in a uniform you know? They put these guys you know what a Pulitzer Foster's was like a German bazooka, okay only ever shot a huge grenade. And it shot it maybe 6070 feet. And you shot and it would knock down a house practically are over by daka tank. They give these kids a panzerfaust they said you get here and here at this intersection of highway you get the ditch and you you try to the shoots these American tanks. Well, they were so close their shots in the explosion of these things. Yeah, it was like a big bomb going on. Right. Thank you. I saw a lot of kids in uniform. They're just crying. Yeah. Really interesting young kids. And I said, geez, I think Well, I was at age. Yeah. I mean, we were young but not dead. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. 1415 years old. Tom Oh, and they put everybody in uniform. Right? They even put women in uniform. Now, I don't know how they use them in combat, but they were in our prison camps. In fact, my buddy and I met a couple girls when I was at the rush camp and they're still in German uniforms and we got a case of beer I'm I had to do the running the guys that were there as as guests. I was part of the the, what do you call it? staff. So I would run and motor Butch and I had a big French outboard motor and rollers. My picture they're running a lot more right hand picked I'm running it you can see the cashew in the background that was our home. Yeah, yeah and that was a rush camp where we were getting the best food you could imagine Finally we couldn't believe it you know
Pete Turner 1:06:11
so those good memories is when the G eyes were basically running Europe and he went from cold and not enough clothes too warm and comfortable and not wearing clothes.
chet rohn 1:06:22
Yeah, well, I knew where it was I would have Lauren as a challenge day which is another one of those long links.
And you know, that was I was had to motorboat All I had to do is got take the guys around a little bit. We had all the first food for the states all the beer all the ice cream. And we're engineer so we ran a motorboat. This is the one thing I volunteered for. That took a shell 14 feet long. And I one of the pictures from there. The kid I was what I couldn't get on the bridge. But he was small enough. One of those pictures right on the desk should be one of a. of a young guy. There's just Yeah, there is. I had met him. He's the one he told me said, hey, there's supposed to be a big cannon back in the woods. I said, Let's go find it. This is a month after wars over in Bavaria. I have never seen anything like that. That's the thing. I've read later the statistics on it. They could shoot up this big shell 14 foot long show. Yeah. 20 miles. Wow. And one of those things have not got a whole city blackout. Yeah. But whoever heard of artillery that big? Well, Hitler had to have the biggest Yeah, it's hard to see it was dark and afternoon in the woods, and I didn't have the best camera in the world. There are some the Russians we liberated and but one more invite one back to the rush Council. Rush camp was, yeah, we went back and I found the same spot that we were ended the first picture. That's the same spot on the deck. Yeah, brand new deck. This was a swimming camp at a restaurant and so on. And so I found a same location when we took that picture. How many years apart? A lot of years. Yeah, a lot is those who, that's my squads there. Plus the guy that took the picture. We're having drinks after. This is in California. Were you ever heard a istp? army specialized training? No, that's not a whole bunch of us that we've been in college. They sent us back to college. in uniform uniform.
Pete Turner 1:08:48
Okay.
chet rohn 1:08:48
So we're all in uniform. And the guys came from all over the country. And they did it for several reasons. They wanted to have guys that could speak languages. We had language classes. And some other thing. And it was a big, big idea that didn't pan out because they needed bodies. Yeah. But for nine months, I was out of the war in Santa Clara University and uniform and going to San Francisco every weekend and have a ball. So here we are. Later when I was in back in the real army again. Now we're in the elements armor, division and camp. But we could get passes. And these golf clubs were still open, but nobody planned because there's no gasoline. Yeah. So here we are. We're getting our drinks at the bar, and we take them out and take a picture of us. So those are the guys that I was closest to. Plus the guy that took the picture. All during that as the army was training was cool. It was a big idea. That was Fine, didn't really work out because they needed bodies on the firing line. Sure. But I'll tell you what, it probably saved my life. And that's you were you were in that because you were an engineering student, and they put you in there or what, you know, I was engineering, they need your engineers and language people. It was a big idea, January and what they needed was bodies. body isn't behind a machine gun or something like, which is what I did.
Pete Turner 1:10:29
Well, Chet, thank you so much for sharing time with us. It's such a big story. And I just, I know everybody's gonna love hearing from you. And you know, it's just, it's great to be able to have time with you. Thank you, Alex for awesome. Yeah, thanks so much for doing the work. And uh, yeah, Associate Producer note from Mike man stories. My lifelong friends. set this up.
