World War II Enemies Meet Again

The most recent episode of War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It was about Bob Levine, who recently passed away at the age of 97. It was Bob who said to me, "If you want stories, you've got to interview prisoners of war," and that's what got me started doing just that. Today I'd like you to meet Hal Mapes, one of those POWs.

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Bob Levine was among the first replacements in the 90th Infantry Division in Normandy. He was wounded and captured in the battle for Hill 122, and had a leg amputated by a German doctor. Decades later, with the help of historian Henri Levaufre of Perier, Bob was able to meet the family of the German physician.

Bob's interview is included in my collection of prisoner of war interviews, and his story is in my book They Were All Young Kids, about Lieutenant Jim Flowers and Hill 122, which also is the subject of several earlier episodes of the podcast.

Thank you for listening to War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It. I hope you will consider supporting the podcast by purchasing one of my books or audiobooks at amazon, eBay or aaronelson.com. Or you could buy me a cuppa coffee at buymeacoffee.com. Thanks a latte for your support.

   George Noorigian is one of the fliers featured in my new book, "Up Above the Clouds to Die," about the most spectacular air battle you've probably never heard of.

   Read an excerpt from the book at aaronelson.com or check out the "Look Inside the Book" feature at amazon.

   This episode is my full interview with Noorigian, which is excerpted in the book.

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Thank you for sticking with War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It for the past three months while I was rewriting and expanding my first book, Tanks for the Memories, now available at aaronelson.com, ebay and amazon. War As My Father's Tank Battalion is about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in particular. Bob Hamant was a Marine who spent a year on the island of Tinian.

First off, I want to thank all of the listeners who stuck with Myfatherstankbattalion through a three month hiatus while I worked on the greatly expanded third edition of Tanks for the Memories, which is now available at Amazon in paperback, hardcover and for Kindle and will soon be available on my web site. As War As My Father’s Tank Battalion approaches its 100th episode, there will be some changes in the format, where I will be interviewing historians and authors about their work, in addition to adding great audio clips from my conversations with veterans.

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In this episode, we meet Ed Hays, a B17 tail gunner who in 1998 traveled to Germany to meet the German fighter pilot who shot his plane down and who, in turn, was shot down by Ed's crew. But first a couple of announcements. I'll be exhibiting at the Greenwood Lake 2021 Air Show August 13 to 15, which is always a spectacular event. If you attend, be sure to stop by and say hello. And over the Labor Day Weekend, September 3 thru 6, I'll be exhibiting at the Naval Air Station Wildwood Museum Air Fest in Wildwood, New Jersey. Also, please check out the new Myfatherstankbattalion page on Facebook and give it a like. Now, back to Ed Hays and his amazing story.

War has a way a producing iconic sayings, from "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" at Bunker Hill in the American Revolution, to "I've not yet begun to fight" in the War of 1812, to "Retreat Hell! We just got here" at Belleau Wood in World War I, to "By the grace of god and a few Marines MacArthur returned to the Philippines" in World War II. Part 2 of my 2000 interview with Karnig Thomasian features another iconic phrase from World War II: Extract Digit, the meaning of which I'll let Karnig explain during the interview.

War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It is a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. I'm Aaron Elson. Where I used to live in New Jersey there was a remarkable group of ex-prisoners of war. There was Ed Hays of Ridgewood, who traveled with his family to Berlin to meet the German fighter pilot who shot down his B-17. There was Tim Dyas, also of Ridgewood, who parachuted into the middle of the Herman Goering Panzer Division. There was Hal Mapes, the only survivor of the crew of his B-17. Across the street from me in Hackensack was Bernie Levine, who took part in what likely was the only Jewish prayer service in a Nazi prison camp. There was Bob Levine of River Edge, who would one day meet the family of the German doctor who amputated his leg. Also in River Edge there was Karnig Thomasian, a B-29 veteran of the China-Burma-India theater who became a prisoner of the Japanese.

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Thank you for listening to War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It, a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. I'd like to give a shoutout to Naval Air Station Wildwood, which invited me to exhibit at their recent Wings & Things event, and also to the Reading, Pennsylvania World War II Weekend. Which brings me to today's episode. At Wildwood, a visitor to my display asked if any of the episodes were about the Great Depression. I said no, but the next episode will be. So today you'll hear from Dan Diel, the son of a sharecropper  who earned a battlefield commission despite having only an eighth grade education; Tim Dyas, a prisoner of war who credited the Great Depression with helping him survive the starvation of prison camp; Dona Schmidt, who traveled with her family from Texas to California at the height of the Dust Bowl; Kay Brainard Hutchins, who was in Florida when the real estate Boom went bust; John Ray Lemons, whose family had to move every 30 days when the rent was due; John Knox, who couldn't afford a Monopoly set so he borrowed a friend's set, got some cardboard and made his own; and Bob Rossi, who flashed back to a tragic fire in Jersey City when he saw a friend at an intersection during the Battle of the Bulge.

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War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It