HomeMy WebLinkAboutRaymond Gorzycki, Brazos Valley Heroes
( )t 1(' i 1 ,) series of trihutes 10 tnelnl HTS of 'The Greatest
( ;el H'rdlion" who served (Jur coulltry during \Vorlcl 'WIf II
Raymond C. "Ray" Gorzycki learned veri quickly
that in the Army, a general is always right. But
sometimes the general really is right, especially if he
is wearing four stars and his name is Patton.
Gorzycki, who was one of the 39 graduates of
A&M Consolidated High in 1940, had enrolled at
A&M when the war started his sophomore year.
"After the war started, my whole class was called
into active duty on March 26, 1943. My' outfit, a
quartermaster company, went by train to Ft. Sam
Houston, where we were sworn in, picked up duffel
bags of supplies and were sent back to A&M to
finish the semester. The day after the semester
ended, we were sent back to Ft. Sam."
Gorzycki eventually ended up in a Quartermaster
Company at Camp Lee, Va. From there he was sent
to New York City, crossing the Atlantic on the HMT
Mataroa, an English ship.
"We crossed in the roughest water I've personally
ever seen. On board ship, we bounced around like a
rubber ball. At times, depth changes were dropped,
attempting to hit the German subs chasing us and
you could, feel the explosives on board. But the
worst part of the trip was we were hauling American
beef but were fed lousy English food the whole way
- if you could eat it and then hold it down."
Gorzycki and his unit were soon in action in France
supporting the Allied offensive now taking place.
"We had set up a fuel depot at Soissons, France.
General Patton and his 3rd Army were coming up
from the south and had pushed so hard they ran
out of fuel. We were hauling fuel to the depot as fast
as we could with the Red Ball Express, and General
Patton's trucks would then load up and take the
fuel to their tanks. Apparently it wasn't going fast
enough for General Patton.
"He drove to our depot and when he saw what
we were doing, he immediately ordered his drivers
to get in the arriving trucks and the just-arriving
drivers to take General Patton's trucks back to
reload. It sure sped up the process, but it left trucks
belonging to various units all over Europe when the
war ended."
Gorzycki found himself at Liege, Belgium, the
most northern supply depot, when the Battle of the
Bulge started.
"It soon became obvious that our depot was a
destination of the German offensive so they could
refuel and seize our supplies. For a while it looked
like they might be successful, so we loaded all that
we could on barges on the river that ran through
Liege. The idea was if the Germans made it that far,
we would shove the barges off and let them float
away. That way the Germans might get some but
not all of the supplies they needed. The German
offensive stopped less than 10 miles from our
depot.
"During my whole time in the service, I only ra.,
into one person that I knew before the war and that
was Joe Holmgen, who was a pilot and a guy I grew
up with. We only had a short while to visit before he
flew off again, but it sure was good to see him. It
brought a little bit of home to me."
When the war in Europe was over, Gorzycki was
sent to Marseilles, France, where he boarded a ship
destined for Okinawa and the war against Japan.
"It took from July 21, 1945, until September 1,
1945 to travel the 14,876 miles to Okinawa. When
we got to Okinawa, we got caught in a typhoon that
had a wind force in excess of 130 miles per hour or
more. One hundred thirty miles per hour was when
the Navy's wind instrument broke.
When the war ended, Gorzycki was discharged at
Camp Fannin on January 17,1946. He immediately
started back to school at A&M. He graduated in
May 1947 with an accounting degree. He worked
as an accountant, in both the public and private
sectors, until his retirement.
"My memories of the war are the people. The
friends I made in the service. It was amazing how
well you got to know someone. The people were
the great experience for me."
Ray Gorzycki's name can be found on the Brazos
Valley Veteran's Memorial. For more information, to
make a contribution, or if you know a World War
II Veteran whose story needs to be told, contact
the BWM at www.veteransmemorial.org or Bill
Young kin at (979) 260-7030.
I!!~J~;!gle
World World War II veteran Tom Browning of Bryan will be the guest
on "Veterans of the Valley" Friday at 8:30 pm on KAMU- Tv.
Vete~ans of the Valley, hosted by WTAW's Tom Turbiville, can be seel'\
Fndays at 8:30 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 6:30 p.m.
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