My Father, George S. Gehr, is a World War II Veteran. He was enlisted into the U. S. Army on
December 12, 1942 and served until the end of the war in 1945. Dad served in the 82nd Airborne Division
- the famed "All Americans" - as a member of the 312th Glider
Infantry Regiment.
This humble, simple country boy from Ephrata Township,
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania had no idea what he was about to get into when
he left the family farm at the age of 21.
He was led to believe he would be a desk clerk State side, but it never
came to pass. After Boot Camp at Fort
Dix he was sent across the Atlantic. The
rich farmlands of Lancaster County must have seemed like heaven compared to the
African Desert where he was first deployed.
As hot as the climate in Africa was, Dad's unit remained
distanced from the heat of combat on the European continent until they were
moved to Sicily. There in the Italian
campaign the 82nd Airborne lost 206 lives, with an additional 810
wounded and 12 missing in action. Dad
escaped unscathed. Things were about to
change dramatically, however.
Dad soon found himself in England preparing to embark in one
of history's greatest conflicts. The
Allied Command, under the leadership of General Dwight Eisenhower, was
carefully planning the Invasion of Normandy.
As a member of the 82nd Airborne's Glider Infantry, dad's role
was to fly over the Nazi encampments, land behind enemy lines completely cut
off from the rest of the Allied troops, and thus trap the German troops by
attacking on two fronts.
Understand that the Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR) was not
exactly a textbook war strategy. Glider warfare had never before been utilized
and only lasted about 5 years. In a
sense it was an early test run for what would become known as stealth weapons
in modern warfare. It involved a large
cargo glider, the CG-4A, being towed by another plane, typically the Douglas
C-47d, until it achieved sufficient altitude and speed so as to be cut loose
and glide silently through the sky above the enemy and then crash land wherever
possible. Some 12,000 CG-4A's were used
during WWII. Those soldiers who survived
the landing were then expected to enter combat with minimal support. Unfortunately, more glidermen were injured in
the landing than in the ensuing battle.
A full 12 % of these soldiers died in the crash landings alone. It is little wonder that these were sometimes
referred to as "suicide missions".
One third of these brave men never survived D-Day.
The CG-4A glider was a remarkably fragile craft. It was constructed of a wood and metal
skeletal frame covered by a canvas fabric.
It was literally a flying tent. Dad
told how they were always instructed to carefully hold onto their rifle,
complete with a bayonet, so as to be sure it did not poke a hole through the
canvas while in flight. The CG-4A was
capable of transporting 13 glidermen plus a pilot and co-pilot. In its belly the glider could haul a jeep, a
¾ ton truck, or a 75mm Howitzer. The number
of potential troop passengers almost appears to be an ominous warning of these missions'
doomed fate.
George was one of the lucky ones, in that sense. Though he was injured in combat during the
Normandy Invasion, he survived. After
his recovery in an Army Hospital in England, George returned to combat. His next major assignment was the Battle of
the Bulge, where he suffered his second injury and earned a return trip to the
hospital. For his efforts dad received
the Purple Heart and a body that is still riddled with shrapnel.
My father entered the Army totally ignorant of how to use a
gun and has never touched one since. He was one of four brothers who served their
country during World War II. Only one,
Paul, failed to return home alive. He
was killed in the Battle of Saipan in the Pacific Theatre on June 15, 1944. Dad says that while he was in the hospital
recovering from his D-Day injury he was awakened with a start one night. Something told him in that moment that his
brother Paul was dead. Later he learned
in a letter from his mother that at that exact hour Paul had in fact died in
Saipan.
Today, at the age of 91, George Gehr continues to live
independently in his home in Ephrata PA, just a few short miles from the stone farmhouse
where he was born. Of fourteen brothers
and sisters only he and his younger sister, Kathryn, survive. He and his wife Margaret will celebrate their
sixty-fourth wedding anniversary this summer.
My father served his country with pride during this
incredible time in history. I often
wonder how he felt fighting the Germans when he himself was of pure German
descent. Did his fellow soldiers know
this about him? Was his loyalty ever
questioned? All I can say is he never
talked much about the war except to say that it was something he never wants to
see again. He taught me that war is
wrong and that the Church of the Brethren is right in following the peaceful
teachings of Jesus and biblical pacifism.
Its all part of the complexity that makes up this man whom I
admire. He is my hero, in part because
he stepped way out of character to serve as a WWII gliderman for three years,
risking life and limb every day even if he wasn't sure why. As a member of the Lutheran Church (at that
time in his life) he never heard of the Christian Doctrine of
Nonresistance. Nor was he aware that
there was an option to enlist as a Conscientious Objector. He simply did as he was told and he did it well.
Yet there remains the other side of my father, the side that
defined him for the great majority of his life.
I am referring to the post-war
man, the one who saw the evil and the horror of war and lived to denounce
it. This is the man I know. This is the one he chose to reveal to
me. And while I highly respect the
former it is the latter that I wish to honor today. Isn't this the true meaning of Memorial
Day? Let us not look back and tell
ourselves that we are great because we have killed more people of
"theirs" than "they" killed of ours. Let us not consider ourselves superior
because we won and they lost. Good
grief, today Germany and Japan are among our strongest friends. No we need not look back to find meaning for
Memorial Day in the present. We need to
look forward. We must remember that no
cause is worth the loss of human life.
There are options. There are
alternatives. We can and must find ways
to live together and work out our differences less we discover that our
principles are more fragile than the canvas shell of a CG-4A glider! Only then can we honestly say Happy Memorial Day.
So let me say it here and now: Happy Memorial Dad, Dad, and
thank you for the lessons of life you instilled in me. I pray I may somehow find the courage to live
according to them.
BY George Douglas Gehr
In Honor of George Showers Gehr
May 26, 2013
