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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLamar Haines, Brazos Valley HeroesOne in a series Generation" wh Greatest our country during World War 11 At Lamar Haines' age, a lot of men wear hearing aids, but he has been wearing his for most of his life. They are a permanent reminds? of his job in World War 11. He was an artillery man. After graduating from Bryan High in 1940, he enrolled at A&M and became a member of the Field Artillery Band. "On December 6, 1941, 1 had borrowed my mother's car and had driven to Longview to visit a girlfriend. On my way back on Sunday, I had the radio on and heard the news Sash about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I still remember the song that had been playing, 'One Two Three, Kick and a Half'. Haven't heard it since but my thought was: 'Here we go.' "When I got back to A&M, we all began to prepare to join the war. In March of 1942 we were all put into the Army Reserve, so we wouldn't be drafted. We were called to active duty in March 1943. We came back to finish the semester, then headed to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma for OCS. I was commissioned in 1943 and got to be part of he school troops, helping train others. As a result, I got to do a heck of a lot of shooting. "One day, we were shooting some old French 75's using old shells. The noise was so bad it knocked my helmet off. That night my ear bled onto my pillow. I was diagnosed with 'artillery ear.' I've had it ever since. The eardrum healed, but the scar tissue will always be there." Haines headed overseas h June 1944, just after D -Day. A convoy of more than 100 ships left Boston headed for Scotland. In Scotland they were sent for special training in Southern England. ''We were the only artillery battalion there, and we practiced dismantling and loading our equipment aboard C47s and gliders. We were to be part of an airborne operation. We thought you had to volunteer to be part of the airborne. We found out that our colonel had volunteered for all of us. We were ready to go, sitting on the air strip for two days before the mission was scrubbed. We found out later that the tanks that were supposed to reach the field we were to land on never were able to make it to the site. That was how close we came to being part of Operation Market Garden. "We still weren't in the war. We finally headed across the English Channel on LSTs. The Channel was a rough... and it was a miserable voyage. We went up the Seine River to Rouen, France. We offloaded and headed to Germany. We were shipped to Manchuria, Belgium, arriving on December 13,1944. On December 16,1944, the Germans kicked off an offensive which later would be called the Battle of the Bulge. "We had our guns set up in just about the worst position you could locate - on the side of a hill in sight of the Germans. All we had for protection were foxholes and slip trenches, which seemed to get deeper each day. The Germans went right past us. We were now pointing our guns 180 degrees from our original position. "On Christmas Day I was transferred to the air section to be a spotter, or forward observer. I found out that a particular pilot had asked for me. it turned out to be A.L.'Lee' Smith Jr., a friend of mine from Bryan. He had named his Piper Cub 'College Stffiion.' it felt good to be with Lee, but what made us feel even better was that was the day the weather cleared. "The air, literally, was full of Allied planes. There were bombers and planes as far as you could see. It lasted from daylight till dark. You finally got fired of looking up. "The Germans had 881s, which were the best anti- aircraft guns in the world, and they knew how to use them. I remember counting 11 bombers falling out of the sky at the same time. I heard later that over 20,000 combat missions were flown that day. They couldn't stop us." The second part of Lamar Haines' story will appear next week. Lamar Haines' name can be found on the Brazos Vallev Veterans Memorial. For more information, to make a contribution, or 'd you know a Word War II Veteran whose story needs to be told, contact the BVVM at www. veteransmemohal.org or Bill Youngkin at (979) 260- 7030. The Eagle Here hen you need us. Former Navy Pilot Claude Mounce will be the guest on "Veterans of the Valley" Friday, April 14 at 8:30 p.m. on KAMU -TV. -• Veterans of the Valley, hosted by WTAW's Tom Turbiville, can be seen ®....tit Fridays at 8:30 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 6:30 p.m. "MUremued" Cha-1 r S/cm �bli - One in a series of tributes to nlembers of "The Greatest Generation" WllO served our country during World War II PART2QF2 After the Battle of the Bulge, lamar Haines became an aerial spotter, or forward observer, in a Piper Cub. What once had been a handicap for him now became an asset. "When you are an aerial spotter, your job is to direct artillery fire to targets you spot from your plane. You try to keep your plane over your combat lines and locate targets in or behind the enemy's combat line. That also makes you a slow-moving target, as a Piper Cub's speed was about 70 miles per hour. "I found that I was naturally suited to be an aerial spotter. I was born color blind and colors were always a mystery to me. But I found that.1 could locate targets that people with normal vision could not detect because camouflage didn't mean a thing to me. "A lot of the time my pilot, Lee Smith, my life long friend from home, couldn't see what I called in as a target. But when you have a secondary explosion, you know you hit the target. Smith soon quit Questioning my spotting. "One day we got a call to help an infantry company thaf had been pinned down by a German tank. The weather was terrible - so bad that 1 thought we couldn't fly. Smith just said, 'That's what they are paying us for: so we attempted to take off. We got off the ground in nothing flat because we were flying into the wind, but we were hit by a downdraft and we went down like a pancake. "The landing gear sheared off, the wing struts broke, the plywood floor was knocked out and I remember my feet scraping along the ground. Smith had been ab!e to keep us from nosing in. I immediately shut off the ignition switch so we wouldn't blOW up. We both managed to walk away without any injuries to speak of, thanks to Smith's piloting skills. "Since we were now without a plane, I was sent to the company that we originally sef out to help, C Company, 121 st Regiment, 8th Infantry Division. I stayed with them for three days and two of the nights we were on patrol behind enemy lines. "The first night we met resistance, running into one of their patrols. Soon thereafter, we heard a German tank approaching. We had met their patrol on this hilltop and we were just over the side of that hill at a ditch when the tank and German troops arrived. The tank had stopped about 100 yards away and fired some rounds over our heads to the top of the hill. He didn't know we were in the ditch. "I took my radio operator up the hill so we could get line- of-sight communication, threw my coat over my head and our.-. ?\ ~ . radio, and called in the location of the tank, trying to make sure' the shells muld land behind the fan~ All they had were 25- pounders available, which were not able to take out a tank but could help against foot soldiers. In the shell bursts I could see the tank and was able to adjust fire to it. We kept that up until about daybreak. The tank and the German soldiers backed away. When I left the company, we had penetrated a mile behind the German lines, captured a crossroad and captured 120 German soldiers. After those three days, I was sure glad to get back with Smith and our plane. "Just before we crossed the Reer River, my older brother Paut Haines, MM class of '41, found Smith and me. He commanded a tank company that would cross the river. My brother, Smith and I were able to spend an afternoon together before my brother and his tank company headed over that night. "The next day, Smith and I were spotting targets and noticed a line of our tanks under attack. The lead ta,nk and two others had been hit. We located the German tank thaI had hit them. It was well hidden, but we knocked it out as well as another one in some woods, also well hidden. About that time, Smith noticed 20mm anti-aircraft fire frem tracers just ahead of our plane. He immediately dropped the nose to get as near the ground as we could. "The fact that we were flying so slow is probably the reason they didn't shoot us down. We located the anti-aircraft gun that had fired on us and knocked it out. Before the mission was over we located and knocked out several more targets. It was the best day of spotting targets and helping our guys that Smith and I ever had. But when we got back on the ground, I was infonned thaI my brother Paul had been killed that day in his tank. I wish he had been with the tanks we helped that day, but he wasn't" Lamar Haines retumed home after the war and went to work. In 1951 he was recalled for the Korean War. "Korea was just 100 cold. I got out in 1953 and went to work in the oilfields in Texas, Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming. I started my own company, then retired and came back to College Station in 1997, looking back, now 50-plus years later, I reaiize that my time in the service made me realize what a great country we have." lamar Haines' name can be found on the Brazos Valley Veterans 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 YQungkin at (979) 260-7030. Th,. Ffulp