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HomeMy WebLinkAboutOda L. Pate, Brazos Valley Heroes One in a series of tributes to m atest Generation" who served our country during World War II 3 Firslof_Parls By Bill Youngkln Special to The fagla Oda L Pate of the Kurtan community has a 16t of souvenirs from World War II, and with each there is an interesting story. The souvenirs he doesn't have are two medais that he should have received'- Purple Hearts. But-as he puts it: "I'm just glad Ill)ade it home. I was sacred, one time. That was when we hit Omaha:aeach and I stayed scared everyday thereafter until the war ended." Pate was born in 1918 in the Pledmont Community of Grimes County but spent most of his Childhood on the family 'farm in the Harvey Community in Brazos County. In the middle of the Depression, he left A&M Consolidated at the age of 15 to go to work. "I worked on the farm and at an~,otI1ertype J~ I could get and hunted <and fished as often as I was able. My huntil1g~llS would 1 serve me well in the war a few years late[Hltler had come. tOp0w8r and Iknewwarwas-coming,_so on October 16, 1'940, I enl~ in the regular Army.lended up at Dodd Field in San Antonio, where I became part of the 9Ih InfantIy Regiment, Second Infantry Division, ~e.traIOOdo.n .all kjil$~weapQf1S,iin~.f shl)t:expert In ~rything except the .45wcaliber sidearm. I had learned to drI~ a vehicle ~rsbefore, so. I became the company commander's and first sergeant's driver. ' "While driving them, I ovemeardthem talking about the need for a radio operator for our newly fOrmed antiwtank company. I asked if I could go and they ~greed. f was sent to Ft. Bragg, N~C., for radio communication traimng. While I was there at radio school, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The, next morning we were sent back to our units. "In 1942 we were sent to Camp McCOy, Wisconsin, for cold weather training. I remember one night the tElmperaturedipped to 42 degrees below zero. We were wondertng why we were receiving this training, but during the Battle of the Bulge we found out why. "In early October 1943, we boarded the troop ship Susan B. Anthony in New York Harbor. On the 16th of October we were in the middle of the Atlantic on ouf way to Ireland. I informed my CO that my enlistment was up that day. He said O.K., he would get me my separation papers but I would have to swim back or walk on water to get back home, I decided tore~enlist. The CO told me that was a good idea." Pate and the men of the 9th 'Regiment trained In Ireland and England. Around the first of June lQM. ttJ8y boarded a Uberty Ship named the Wilson W. Pearl to cross the English Chanl')el to France, landing on D-Day, June a, 1944. "I rlirln't knnw 1tlArl! wl!n~ thilt mlmv !::hin!:: in thA wnrlrl Vnll \1 j I ] .~ j I I I I <] j ,I J j I I I French coast, we had six or seven batueshlps on either side firing:l;~,' at the German positions as well as rocket barges firing on and to '. the back of the beach. I didn't see how anyone could live through that, but when we hit Omaha Beach we found out that the Germans :11 had made itthrough that shelling. , ul was in a landing barge in my radio jeep when we headed tol the beach. They wanted us ashore in the second wave becausej ttJay were concerned the Germans were going to counterattack ' with tanks and o,ur anti-tank company would be needed. Before We '~ left for shore, one of the neighboring ships hit a mine and sank. It was the Susan B. Anthony, the ship that I sailed on to Ireland. :1 'I "When our landing barge hit the beach, the ramp dropped right j on dry land and I drove off. When I drove off, there were dead Gis;' everywhere. I remember thinking to myself: 'This is no place for a '1 Texas farm boy.' I haalanded on French soil without even getting. 'I:~ my feet \Vet and didn't have a shot fired at my jeeP-I'm sorry to say:, that wasn't the case for thousands of other Glsth~t day., . .' "I ~~~~E~E:t~~~;:;.!gl us on the other and'pot able to see, only hear each other. It wasij aiJolJt 1his time that. I traded tha AS-caliber ~dearm they issued j me,the only weapon. I never qUalIfi8d eXpert on, for a Tommy gun. :1 That Tommy gunwas,my.companion for the rest of the war. I "We had stopped bya house that my CO was going to use"~ when! heard some planes coming our way. I grabbed our m~~\06 ;1 gun, which we had mounted in thejeep, and all of a sudden to my ill right were four German planes just abovetree~top level. I started shooting and hit the lead plane. He turned to his .Ieftand made a", belly landing. The second plane went down 'some distance from us ~ and the third and fourth planes left with their engines smoking. ......~. "I went. over to the plane that had belly landed. Th\Gennan..! pilot was getting out when I got there, with his hands up~Hehad a .~ German Iron cross around his neck. I pointed to It and held out my ~ hand. He shook his he.ad no, so ! flipped the satety'O!finy Tommyi gun. He nanded that medal over real fast, and that!s how I got that ~ particular Souvenir. The CO said they were headed to the beaches ~ and Would have strafed our guys coming on and off tile beaches. U ..~ For this action, Pate would be awarded a medal of his own, the 'I Br":7~::==:;':d':7J~;:.;:..1 Memorial. For fflOfl1laformalion, to _. a _. or ":I yOu know a WOrld IIlir " Ve/8/an wIws8 story needs to be toId,! r.nntantthR BWM atwww.lIRtRmmwRmDrlaforoor81llYmmakln ':i vuc III CI scuc� vt uwutc� io members of "I is GYCatcsl Generation" who served our country during World War 11 Second of Three Parts By Bill Youngkyr Special to The Eagle Oda L. Pate of the Kurten Community was part of the 2nd Infantry Division that went ashore at Omaha Beach on D -Day. After several days of fighting, his unit reached the hedgerow country of France. "We were pulled out of the fight going on in the hedgerows and were sent to Brest, France, to remove the Germans garrisoned there," he said. "I was the radio man for our anti-tank company. My job was W be out on the leading edge of our company and locate the German tanks. Most of the time if you couldn't see them, you could hear them. "Wpen we arrived at Brest, I had my driver stop at the end of a runway to check things out. I got out and walked around to the front of the jeep when I heard the explosion of mortar rounds going off. One round landed right beside us, tearing up my combat boot and damaging the back of my leg. The medic came up to treat me and said I should go back to the beach. The problem was I was the only radio man. Since it wasn't hurting so bad I couldn't function, he bandaged me up. I changed bandages each day thereafter until it healed. I was told later that our medic had been killed and no report was ever made, so I never got a Purple Heart for that wound. "By November 1944 our unit had moved to the vicinity of the Siegfried Line. We made an attack through there, taking out the pillboxes. After we broke through the Siegfried Line, the Germans began a counter - attack. It was to be called the Battle of the Bulge. As a result of their attack, we had to withdraw and reform our lines. "My CO had me and my jeep hang back so we cold listen for tank movement and prevent any surprises for our guys. At one of the stops I was standing up in the jeep to listen when a shell came in and exploded to the right rear of the jeep, hitting me In the back and knocking me out of the jeep. I was knocked into a ditch full of freezing water. If my driver hadn't pulled me out, I probably would have drowned. He got me back into the jeep, which would still run, and we headed for our lines. "When I got there, our medic fixed me up and told me to head to the aid station. The only problem was no one knew where it was, so I stayed. My CO wanted me to leave but I told him I was the only radio man we had and I needed to stay. That night they sent our only other jeep out. They ran over a mine and both men were killed. The shell that hit me earlier in the day probably saved my life. "The next day, my CO sent my jeep to find a place we could stay. We went about two miles down the road and found a house with a basement. About that fine the Germans started firing rockets. I told my driver that if they started landing nearby to head for the basement. They did and he made a dash for the basement. Because of what had happened to me earlier. I couldn't move as fast. "About the time he made the basement, a rocket came in through the window of the house, went through the Boor and exploded in the basement, killing my driver. I felt real bad about that, because he and I had been together since D -Day and I was the one that told him to run for the basement. He probably saved my life the day before, and now what I had told him to do had cost him his life. But that is war. "The CO got me a new driver and I had traded for a.50-caliber machine gun to mount in the jeep. The weather was still terrible, and we couldn't get any air support from our guys. We had set our gun positions on a ridge when out of the weather came a German plane. When he saw our gun positions, he banked to line up on our gun positions. When he did, I opened up with our.50- caliber machine gun. He went down and exploded. I was told I would get another medal, but I didn't. But I bet I'm the only guy in the 2nd Infantry Division to shoot down three German planes. "After the weather cleared, the Germans began to reheat with us following. I was sent by the CO about three miles to an intersection and told to waft for the company. While waiting there, we got word that Germans left behind our lines were using uniforms from dead American GIs to get through our lines. "Shortly after hearing this, a jeep came down the road real slow with four guys in ft. Most Americans drove their jeeps like they were In a race, They pulled up at the intersection, which was manned by MPs. When one MP asked the driver where he was from he replied 'New York', but when he asked the guy next to him, he started looking at the guy who had answered. h seemed he didn't understand the question. I saw one of the guys in the back of the jeep start to raise his rifle, and that Is when I warned the MP because ft was a German rifle. We all opened up, killing all four of the guys in the jeep. "I was almost sick because I was worried that we had killed American GIs. When the MP checked out the bodies, they all had German dog tags and German uniforms under the American uniforms." Next week, the push into Germany and the end of the war in Europe. Oda L. Pate's name can be found on the Brews Valley Veterans Memorial. For more information, to make a conldbubon, or if you know a World War /I Veteran whose story needs to be told, contact the BWM at wwwv veteransmemonal.org or Bill Youngkin at (979) 260 -7030. The "E ale Paul Stephens, WW II vet, will be the guest on "Veterans of the Valley" this week orr KAMU Veterans of the Valley, hosted by WTAW's Tom Turbiville, can be seen Fridays at 8:30 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 6:30 p.m. ® "' `° xAMU.tnmu.eeu [nannei ssrco. Darr cane to a series of truoutes to memaers of °rne vreatest Generation" who served our country during World War u Oda L. Pate Last of Three Parts By Bill Youngkln Special to The Eagle Oda L. Pate was a mounted radio operator in an anti -tank company In the 2nd Infantry Division. During the Battle of the Bulge, his and - tank company was trying to stop the German tanks headed through the American lines. The battle, which started on December 16, 1944, would claim more than 81,000 American casualties, including almost 20,000 killed and almost 24,000 captured by the Germain. "On Christmas Eve we were regrouping at Camp Elsenbom, Belgium, and I received a large Christmas package from home. How Santa Claus was able to make it there that day I'll never know. It was full of all kinds of homemade cookies and candy," he said. "One of the fellas found a small tree, and he put everything he could find that would shine on it for decoration. it didn't look so bad, and it sure made us feel a lot closer. Several guys got together and sang Christmas carols, and just about everyone had a tear in their eye. We were all thinking of home and family and hoping we would make B back home and that it would be a better word when the war was over, it was a Christmas I'll never forget" With the German offensive hatted, the Germans began their retreat back into Germany with American forces In pursult "The Germans were moving east fast, and so were we. Our unit got orders to hold up in a small village. The village was supposed to be cleared, and the CO sent me to find a house to set up our C.P. We found a house and I went to check the basement. When I stepped inside, I turned my flashlight on and the first thing I saw was a pair of German boots. I started to bring the light up on the guy thinking he had a gun pointed at me and I didn't have my Tommy gun in Bring position. "When the light reached his head, he was standing with his hands on his head and didn't have a gun. He just wanted to give up. From the time my Ilght hit his boots to his head, d seemed to me he must have been 10 feet tall. Later I told everyone I had captured the only 1 0-foot German in the engm German Army. "We hit the Rhine River in March and we crossed at Remagan on a pontoon bridge. We set our guns on the upper bank to prevent Germans from floating barges downstream to blow up our pontoon bridges. They tried, but none got past our guns. It was there I saw my first German jet plane. I shot at it, but R was too high and moving too fast "On our way through Germany we got ward to move our guns, as we were expecting a large tank attack. We moved through a small German village on a road that ran right through the village. The road was narrow, with the stone houses on each side. After we moved through, our riflemen filled one - gallon wine jugs with gasoline and waited on the upper floors of the houses. "Thirteen German Tiger tanks tried to come though. When the last one was between the buildings, they dropped the gas jugs on the tanks and the tanks' heat ignited the gas. Three tanks had cleared the village and our guns took care of them. Each tank had a small triangular German swastika flag on ds aerial. I kept two of those flags as souvenirs. "Around the that of May 1945 we reached Czechoslovakia, where we stopped. We were told the Germans were going to surrender, which was great news. But we also gat the sad news of President Roosevelt's death. "While the Germans did surrender, we got word that about eight miles from us were 200 SS troops in a village. When we got mere, we asked for their surrender, which they refused. We gave them 15 minutes to think about it and then we began bring. Our gun crews began taking off the roofs of the buildings. After that they changed their minds and surrendered. "One of the SS officers had a black scars around his neck with a woven leather holder that the scarf slipped through. I held out my hand and pointed to it with my Tommy gun. He shook his head no, so I slipped the safety off on my Tommy gun. He handed it over real quick. That was my last souvenir tram the war." Pate was one of the first soldiers sent home, as he had accumulated the most points in his court by the and of the war. "Before i left to go home, a colonel from HO came by to talk to me. He told me the war was all going on in the Pacific and that a radio operator with my experience would be a real asset. He also told me B I volunteered he would make me a master sergeant on the spot. What I wanted to tell him was It they had offered to make me a brigadier general, I wasn't going to volunteer. But you're not supposed to say things like that to a colonel, so I said, 'No, thank you, sir. I want to go home. "' Pate flew home on a war -weary B -17 from France to Africa to South America, to Puerto Rico and then Florida, where he got a large chicken -reed steak and a hot shower The next day he left for Texas, arriving back at Dodd Field In San Antonio, the place he had started his Army tour and where he was discharged. "I got to Bryan about 10 p.m. on August 6,1945. No one knew I was coming home, so I walked over to the taxi stand to get a ride home. He took me to the front gate of our place at Harvey and wouldn't take any money. It was the last leg of a long trip home. Waiting for me at the gate was my Did dog. When I walked to the house. my Dad told me that old dog had been whining and walking to the gate all day, like he knew I was coming home." Pate worked at Bryan Air Force Base for many years as a fireman and also farmed. In 1980 he helped form the Kurten VFD and retired as its chief In 1986. He still has his warsouvenirs, the medals he won and his memories. What he doesn't have are the two Purple Hearts he should have received. But as he said: "I made it home, and a lot of boys didn't" Oda L. Pate's name can be found on the Brazos Valley Veterans Memorial. Formom informaffon, to make a contribution, orifyou know a Word Warll Veteran whose story needs to be told, contact the BWM at www. veteransmemodalory or 01111bungkin at (979) 280 -7030. The E gle Here when you need us. Thomas Darling Pt i, Viet Nam vet, will be the guest on "Veterans of the Valley" this week on KAMU Veterans of the Valley, hosted by WTAW's Tom Turbiville, can be seen Fridays at 8:30 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 6:30 p.m. °""' xAMV.camu.edu Channel 6 /ox cablN