HomeMy WebLinkAboutDr. Paul Van Riper, Brazos Valley Heroone in a series of tributcS w II Iibe.rs of 11ic Grcaicst
Generation" who served our country during World War 11
Most of
good fortune to have been able to retire. But there is one,
Dr. Paul Van Riper, who at age 89 has on his identity Gard
with Texas A&M, "working retiree." If you want to sign up for
Political Science 340 this summer, Dr. Van Riper would be
your professor. As he said, "I still like to teach."
Before teaching, he had another job as an Army officer
during World War II. Van Riper grew up in Lebanon, Indiana,
and graduated from DePauw University in 1938.
"After I graduated, I entered graduate school at the
University of Chicago. With the German and Soviet invasion of
Poland, it became clear to me there would be a war in Europe.
I decided that if war were to break out, I would prefer to serve
with a commission. I began to take correspondence courses
and finished them and was commissioned just before I was
to be drafted.
"I was ordered to active duty on July 2, 1942, and sent
to Camp Lee, Virginia. I was assigned to a training regiment
giving basic infantry training to black troops. There were no
blacks in my hometown growing up and I had never received
any of this basic paining myself. I felt ill prepared for such
an assignment, but I had the good fortune to have a platoon
sergeant, also black, who was most capable. I told him to do
as he saw fit and I would try to keep out of his way and try tp
learn from him myself."
Van Riper must have stayed out of the way and learned,
because he became the company commander of a training
unit, training non - commissioned officers and officers
commissioned from civilian fife at the quartermasters school.
"Eventually, I was assigned to a newly activated
quartermaster depot for a major supply depot being deployed
to Europe. We sailed for England on June 21,1944. On August
12, we went over the Channel, landing on Normandy's Utah
Beach, where we began an assembly area for supplies. When
Patton broke through the German lines on his dash to Metz, he
requisitioned every truck we had, to keep his tanks and men
supplied. It created a lot of problems getting this material off
the beaches.
"On September 1, 1944, Paris was liberated and on
September 10 our unit entered Paris. ft was ajoyous occasion.
The French were thrilled to be liberated and the men received
pjenty of kisses from pretty French girls. We took over
warehouses the Germans had been using, which were the
property of a French company known as Magazin Genemux
de Paris. I was recently back in Paris and the company and
"Part of my job required me to set up an American post
exchange facility. One of our customers that caused quite a
stir was the actress Marten Dietrich. I still remember her big
hat and green suit she wore. She wanted a special perfume
which we didn't have. As she left, her response was'mercie
pour den.' I had studied French and knew that she had sail
'Thanks for nothing.'
"Our job was to supply all of our people all across the
European theatre, which was quite a task. One thing you
learned quickly was don't make a promise to a superior
that you can't keep. One day I had been away from our
headquarters on some task. When I returned my men were
all excited.
"General Eisenhower's aide, a major, had dropped by and
requested that a can of horseradish be placed on his train car
that was leaving at 6:30 that evening. My people had said
they would have it there but they found none in the entire
supply depot. You don't want to disappoint the Supreme Allied
Commander, so I found one of my French purchasers who
helped us purchase our vegetables and he found where some
horseradish was being grown outside of Paris. We went out,
dug it up, ground it up, put it in a bottle and put it on the train
at about 6:00 that evening."
Van Riper not only kept the Supreme Allied Commander
happy, but through his effort in assisting the French restore
Pads to a functioning city, the French government awarded
him their Croix de Guerre for his work.
"In 1946 1 had enough points to return home. That fall I
returned to the University of Chicago to finish my Ph.D. on
the first G.I. Bill."
Van Riper didn't give up his army career, remaining in the
fictive reserve until his retirement in 1976. But he seems just
as willing and just as capable of serving today as he is as
a "working refired" professor. One wonders what you would
call him, "alive duty retired" or just "active" - and hopefully
for a long time to come.
Paul Van Riper's name can be found on the Brazos Valley
Veterans Memorial. If you know of a World War II veteran
whose story needs to be told, contact Bill Youngkin at (979)
260 -7030. If you would like to add someone's name to the
Brazos Valley Veterans Memorial, names must be submitted
by August 15, 2006, in order to be engraved on the memorial
by this year's Veterans Day observance.
The E gle you
World War II Vet Eddie Thompson will be the guest on
"Veterans of the Valley" this week on KAMU -TV. i
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. ch =nom 51..a