Descendants of WWII Rangers Newsletter

FUNDING NEEDED FOR A NEW MEMORIAL FOR FALLEN RANGERS

Groundbreaking scheduled for March, 2012.

Dedication target date is June 6: To be confirmed at a later date

Most of you know Kathy Brown, former Secretary to RTB, and Linda Davis, Secretary to Ranger Regiment, but do you know Shelia Dudley, Secretary to lst Battalion? Shelia has been with the Ranger Family for 25 years and continues to receive awards and accolades for her efforts in the Ranger Family. One award she is most proud of is the one involved in obtaining the funding for the lst Battalion Memorial. Her dedication and selfless energy was one of the reasons the Memorial at lst Battalion has been completed and dedicated to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our Country and our freedoms. Shelia has now turned her energy to assisting 2^nd Battalion’s funding for its Memorial. Shelia said: This is not just a 2/75 Memorial, it is a “Ranger” Memorial and we are all in this together. We are all eager to see a 2/75 Memorial befitting of the sacrifices of our Rangers killed in action and training. I can only relate to my experience at 1/75 about what a healing place the Memorial can be. It is a reminder to our Families that we will not forget and the Memorial will always be a place for them to come and celebrate their loved one’s memory. It is also a healing place for our current Rangers as they remember their battle buddies.

With the completion of the 2^nd Battalion Memorial, all three Ranger Battalions will have a newly built memorial honoring Fallen Rangers; a place where their Ranger Brothers, family members and friends have a place to heal, see and know that their loved one will never be forgotten, but always honored and remembered for the sacrifices made for us.

As the Ranger Memorial at Ft. Benning, lst Battalion at Ft. Stewart, 3^rd Battalion at Ft. Benning, or the Military History Institute at Carlisle, PA, the walkways are paved with bricks purchased by Rangers, family members or friends memorializing a Ranger and their battalion. Please consider purchasing a brick or making a direct donation towards the funding to build the new Memorial for 2^nd Ranger Battalion. To purchase a brick, go to the website of the Foundation: www.pointeduhocfoundation.com and click on Ranger Stone. You can also donate directly by making a contribution to The Pointe du Hoc Foundation either on the website or mail to The Pointe Du Hoc Foundation, PO BOX 562, Dupont, WA 98327. Contributions are tax deductible.

I once asked my father for his most vivid recollection of North Africa. While I expected something about invading Arzew, being wounded or maybe being captured in Tunisia, he replied, “The smell of oranges and figs.” Having spent considerable time listening to WWII Rangers since the New Orleans Reunion in 2001, I have determined they were speed marching if not galloping gourmets, with definite likes and dislikes as it pertained to war fighting cuisine. As to dislikes, growing up under my father’s roof, I do not recall ever seeing a turnip, nor lamb, nor—to be sure—mutton. Such were verboten. And when I sent him smoked fish from Alaska (quite expensive!), he fed it to the dog.

Ranger Dick Hubbard offered the following story that explains the mutton antipathy as well as the 2^nd Battalion’s disdain of chicken: During the battalions second day in Bude, England, and then later while training at Swanage, England, the battalion was introduced to mutton and disliked but accepted on occasions. Mutton not to be confused with lamb. The sheep aging process affects the flavor and odor of the meat. Americans as a majority eat beef or pork. Mutton has a distinct odor rather unpleasant to G.I.’s. The battalion was sent to Swanage to train for cliff climbing that included chalk cliffs, which presented different obstacles and climbing techniques. Somehow the meat ration was changed to mutton instead of beef. Rudder had a rebellion on his hands that was rather serious. More than half the battalion threatened to volunteer out if we got any more sheep meat. Rudder called a meeting of all personnel to discuss alternatives for our diet. Chicken was offered as an alternative and roundly accepted. (How naïve we were.) So we got chicken three times a day for several months and to this day chicken is repulsive to men of the 2^nd Battalion. However, time has mellowed the distaste to be acceptable, but not a preferred menu item. At a recent (by recent I mean several years ago) Ohio chapter meeting, someone suggested chicken as an alternative to the beef menu. He was one of our new guys who had not known of our chicken rebellion. To say the least, he was admonished roundly for that grievous error in his training.

While chicken may have been welcomed in other battalions, I think all Rangers had their fill of turnips, either those cast aside as garbage, or pulled—not quite ready to eat—directly from the earth, as Lynn Towne’s father, Ranger Maurice Jackson, once told her. Ranger Zelly Dineen recalls dining on turnips and horsemeat at a POW camp in Italy. There also appears to be general agreement that if the Rangers wanted food, they stole it, or came into possession by other nefarious methods. Darby’s 1^st Rangers, while in Scotland, were chastised, fined and indeed infamous for thinning out an already thin population of “Royal” deer.

David Williams, nephew of Ranger Jim Lyle, relates another instance of Ranger thievery that graced the pages of Barrel Land Dance Hall Rangers: Andy Arnbal records a story about the Rangers, battle hardened in Tunisia, raiding a U.S. military warehouse while on a train ride from Tunisia back to Western Algeria. The train stopped for some reason in front of the warehouses. Andy reported that the entire battalion of Rangers emptied the train, wire cutters in hand, opened holes in the barbed wire, and raced past armed guards to help themselves to whatever they could grab. Not until they got back on the train and opened the boxes did they know what they had. Andy’s men had grabbed tomato juice and all ended up with severe indigestion. Capt. Jim Lyle’s men had grabbed beer and canned condensed milk, with the same disastrous result from having had little to eat for several days while cooped up on the train.

Ranger Red Gilbert’s thievery, however, had more positive results (Red told me this story down at Ft. Benning). During the invasion of Sicily, prior to landing, Red and other Rangers broke into the ship’s galley stores. The stock was in a wire cage, but Red had wire cutters to be used once ashore. Once in, they found ice cream and had just polished off a five gallon bucket of the sweet, culinary delight when the ship’s loudspeakers announced, “Attention on deck! First boat team, man your boat!” Being in the first boat, Red made for the landing craft, but not before grabbing another bucket and balancing it on the stack of mortar tubes than hung at his midsection. On the way to shore, the bucket was passed and each Ranger scooped a handful. Red said that he was later asked if he was scared during the invasion. He replied, “No, I was eating ice cream.”

Red also showed me a recipe for Black Bread Broat that the Germans “rationed” out to the POWs. The best mixture was given as, 50% bruised rye grain, 20% sliced sugar beets, 20% tree flour (saw dust), and 10% minced leaves and straw. Now, that’s good eatin’. Ken Markham and Jim Brennan were foxhole buddies, both in 1F, and both captured at Cisterna. In a letter, dated December 30, 1945, Ken asked Jim, “Ranger, how would you like to have a bowl of grass soup with your bread ration? Do you ever think about those days anymore? I think of them quite often.”

On the other side of the world in the South Pacific, Leo Strausbaugh, of the 6^th Rangers, ate so much rice that he refused to touch it for years after the war. In New Guinea, Leo said the Mule Packers dined on, “buggy oatmeal, powdered eggs, powdered milk, dehydrated potatoes, canned spam and canned Australian rabbit including some hair.” On Homonhon Island, when the Rangers ran out of C rations, Leo bought a pig from a Filipino with his signed IOU. The verbal contract stipulated that the pig be roasted. Years after the war, Leo’s IOU was submitted to the Defense Department and was paid in full. Unfortunately, on Homonhon, Leo got sick from eating the greasy pork.

At a recent BBQ at Sergeant Major Arlie Nethken’s house in Fairbanks, Alaska, Sergeant Major Lester Cook was heard to say that since 1942 in Scotland, being repeatedly served half-raw fish in a milky gruel for breakfast, he—now at 88—has not been able to stomach fish, not even shrimp. Arlie, accustomed to chowing down on snake, gator and opossum while running the training program at Camp Rudder, has progressed to bear, moose and caribou since moving to Alaska.

For many years, I’ve had the honor of chairing the RBA reunion hospitality suite. The snacks provided have been, at best, a nice gesture, but I have never heard a Ranger complain, nor have I heard Ranger wives complain, who experienced wartime rationing and the great depression. I imagine they figured, “Well, it’s not much, but it’s better than raw fish, rabbit hair, mutton, horsemeat or turnips.”