35th Engineer (Combat) Battalion
Northern France - Rhineland - Ardennes/Alsace - Central Europe
Captain Jack Dearinger (far left) receives the Bronze Star Medal, June 30, 1945.
First Lieutenant John A. Dearinger, Corps of Engineers, 35th Engineer Combat Battalion, United States Army, for heroic achievement in connection with military operations against the enemy from 15 March to 28 March 1945, in Germany. During this period Lieutenant Dearinger's battalion was given the missions of ferrying an Infantry Regiment across the Mosel and Rhine Rivers. Preceding both operations he worked tirelessly, preparing and instructing his company in every detail for these important missions. The outstanding devotion to duty and untiring physical energy displayed by Lieutenant Dearinger, and the skillful manner in which he handled difficult situations during critical moments, were instrumental in the successful crossings. Entered military service from Kentucky.
FROM ARMY ROTC THROUGH THE BATTLE FOR BREST
In the summer of 1941 I was 19 years old and had just finished my sophomore year in Civil Engineering at the University of Kentucky. I attended the required "summer surveying camp" in the Eastern Kentucky hills and thought I would enjoy a few weeks messing around at home before the fall semester. I ended up in Clarksville, Tennessee, running a survey crew of elderly farmers in a huge stretch of farm land that was to become Camp Campbell. The consultants for the project hired about a dozen of us. We stayed in a boarding house in Clarksville and, of course, had a ball. There were many fair, young Southern Belles available and a great dance hall in the mouth of Dunbar Cave; very large, noisy and air conditioned by nature.
In those days, two years of military training in ROTC were required of all male students at UK and at all land grant schools. We had the option of taking the advanced course over the junior and senior years, ending up with a second lieutenant commission; in the infantry. I opted out of the program mainly because I had to work to support myself through the rest of college. Some of my friends who were commissioned didn't make it through the war. An infantry platoon leader is a hazardous job.
In August of 1942, I joined something called the Enlisted Reserve; a program in which one would, of course, not be drafted and which afforded the chance to finish college. I was sworn into the Army, personally, by the aged colonel who ran the ROTC program at UK. He solemnly informed me that that would be the most binding oath I would ever take. Well, I can think of another one that's equally so; marriage!
As a member of the Enlisted Reserve, I had the option of requesting to be placed on active duty. For reasons that now seem a little hazy, I did just that at the end of the winter quarter at UK in March 1943. There was no hesitancy on the Army's part. I was placed on active duty and told to report for induction up at Fort Thomas, KY, on March 22nd. I spent an unheard of three weeks in that place before shipping out to an Infantry Replacement Training Center at Camp Wheeler, Georgia. Except for short trips to Cincinnati, I had never been out of Kentucky before, so the train ride to Wheeler was an adventure in itself. So, with 13 credits left for my degree, I became a private soldier.
I was assigned to a training battalion that prepared specialists for infantry units. We had future cooks, bakers, buglers, and "pioneers". I was classified in the latter category; I suppose because of my engineering background.
The weather was terrible in that place (hot and very humid), but I was in good shape and had no trouble with all the running hither and yon, and long hikes, etc.; just sweated gallons!
My near-sighted right eye that kept me out of other branches of the service forced me to shoot left handed (which I had done for years of hunting). The old M1 was meant to be fired right handed, but by doing the gymnastics required to insert the cartridge clip left-handed, I was able to fire "expert" with that weapon. I never could do better with the M1 carbine, the officer's personal weapon. I couldn't get passed "sharpshooter".
Near the end of the 13 weeks of basic, I had a number of options on what to do next. Openings were available at the new Ranger school at Fort Benning and the army specialized Training Program (ASTP). I could stay with the program and go to Shenango, Pennsylvania, the "repple depple" (replacement depot) and be sent off to the Pacific, or apply for Engineer Officer Candidate School. I "went before the board" and was accepted for the next class at Ft. Belvoir, the Engineer School as it was called.
There was a time lag before the next class opened. They would not let me go home, so I was promoted to corporal (minimum rank for OCS) and allowed to sleep in the non-com's room at the front of the barracks. Along with another guy who was assigned to the training cadre, I helped set up the explosives used in the infiltration course and acted as dumb soldiers getting blown up by anti-personnel mines.
Apparently, there was a shortage of engineer second lieutenants, so our class at Belvoir was quite large. Many of the "candidates" (as we were called) were ROTC graduates who were still required to do the OCS course before being commissioned. My long-time buddies in the 35th, like Norman Igo, were in that bunch.
OCS was like basic training with a lot of classroom work and constant harassment from the "tac officers". I trimmed down to 130 pounds before our graduation day, December 1, 1943, and learned to holler out commands in a loud, if youthful, voice.
Those of us assigned to the 35th sent a wire to the commanding officer out in Oregon (Camp White) asking for a five day "delay in route". It was granted and I got to go home for a few days.
Camp White was like many other camps built all across the country in those days; wooden buildings arranged in company sized units. (Little remains of these places today; I could find no trace of Camp Wheeler when we passed through Macon recently.)
I joined the 35th on December 10th and was assigned to Company A where I remained until all the old guys left Europe in July '45.
The 35th was in the midst of basic training refresher when I got there, so I went thru that again, this time as platoon leader, 1st platoon. When the 35th Regiment was formed in '41, the old colonel lined up the outfit and arranged the six companies by height, so Company A was the tallest. So I got to work with some really tall guys, which at my five foot, eight inches had me talking to their chests.
The 96th Infantry Division dominated things at Camp White. Their MP's "arrested" Igo and me in a local bistro for being "out of uniform", ie. no blouses. We had to "reply by endorsement" to the commanding officer. The letter and endorsement are still in my "201 file".
When basic training was finished we went thru "POM", preparation for overseas movement. This involved a great deal of inventory, inspection and various physical tests, including obstacle courses and forced marches. Since being first platoon leader put me at the front of the company, I was kind of a pace setter on marches and the first one to be hollered at by the staff officers at parade. "Lt. Dearinger, get in step with your platoon," happened at least once.
We finally left Camp White and, following typical army logic, rode a troop train clear across the country to the staging area at Camp Shanks, New York. The trip took five days with formation and calisthenics at nearly every stop.
At Shanks, we lost our identity and became "Unit 2966A". Our mailing address was an APO number so our families thought we had already left the country. The security was tight. We were slated to sail for England very soon, or so we thought. That did not happen. We were at the upstream end of the D-Day pipeline, but of course we didn't know that either. We stayed at Shanks for two and a half months, did a lot of engineer work on the post. We built ball fields, roads and such. Igo and I and about twenty GI's were sent up river to FDR's estate where we built a stretch of road through the woods so the FBI or Secret Service could patrol FDR's driving route through the woods and not be seen. I slept in a bedroom at the Vanderbilt Mansion; big deal!
The best thing about being stranded at Shanks was the chance to visit New York City, just a short train ride down the Hudson to the foot of 42nd Street. Nettle, Igo, Skinner, and I "flew" many missions to Gotham. I got to listen to jazz combos at well known bistros on 52nd St., hear a concert in Carnegie Hall by a very young Leonard Bernstein, see a play at the St. James, and do some general carousing.
All this ended about July 1st and we boarded the United States Army Transport "Thomas Barry", a former luxury liner, and sailed for England. Skinner, Igo, Nettle, and I occupied bunks in the psychiatric ward on that ship. It was considered by some to be quite appropriate!
The crossing was uneventful. It was a large convoy with many subchasers patrolling the sea around us. Junior officers were assigned to supervise the GI's below decks on a rotating basis. I looked after the black units and got to hear some really great music and watch some great crap-shooting with those guys. Bunks were stacked five high.
We landed at Greenock, Scotland, the port city of Glasgow, and rode the train south to Camp Merevale in the Midlands near the village of Atherstone. All along the way when we passed a crowd of Scots or Englishmen we were "given the finger" by some. By 1944 they described Americans as being "overpaid, overfed, oversexed, and over here."
Our advance party had been at Merevale for some time, so things were in pretty good shape at the camp. We were issued our new equipment, dozers, trucks, jeeps, etc., and started the inevitable training sessions. I did the instruction on land mines and booby traps since I was the "expert", having spent two weeks down in the California desert learning about such things (I still have my text books).
A couple of things happened that most of us still remember. Some of us were sitting on our bunks having a few beers in the BOQ and carrying on a little when the Battalion CO walked in and, unimpressed by our levity, tried to impress us with the serious fact that we were going into battle. So he says, "This is it men. Police up those bottle caps." We have said that to each other ever since.
One evening I was given the task of taking two or three truck loads of men over to Birmingham for an evening of pleasure. We got there alright, but it took a while to round them up when it was time to leave. It was quite late and we were under blackout conditions with only the little "cat eyes" on the trucks to light our way. Of course, there were no street lights and few road signs, so I got lost. We drove down dead end streets and had to turn around a number of times. We finally got back early the next morning. I don't remember anyone complaining about it, but I'm sure they haven't forgotten it (the ones that are left anyway).
We left Merevale on August 4th, convoyed to the marshalling area near Southampton and crossed the Channel to Omaha Beach on August 6-7 by various types of boats. The place was still a mess. The LST I crossed on had never been cleaned since D-Day; old life jackets and dried vomit all over the place.
Being on a LST, "Egghead" Larsen and I drove our jeep, "Voulez Vous", off the ramp, onto the beach and up the steep hill to our bivouac area just like in the movies. I spent my first night in France in a pup tent on top of the hill above the village of St. Laurent sur Mer. When I revisited the place in 1979, it seemed much the same, just quieter and cleaner.
We arrived in France shortly after the Allied breakout from the beach at Avranches at the base of the Cherbourg Peninsula. There were many thousands of Allied troops in that tiny area, so finding a good bivouac was difficult. The 35th ended up about halfway up the peninsula near the village of Briquebec. Our CO thought that this might be a good place to try out our weaponry. This demo made so much noise that panic ensued in some nearby troops and earned our CO a reprimand from VIII Corps HQ.
The Allies were in desperate need of a deep water port. Until the fall of Cherbourg, everything had to come over the landing beaches in Normandy. Recalling that in WWI most of the troops and supplies came thru the deep water port of Brest, someone had the idea of liberating that place as well as Lorient and St. Nazaire along the same coast. So our part in WWII began with the mission to do this. Actually, we went one way while nearly everyone else went the other.
We were part of Task Force "A", composed mainly of one infantry battalion, very little artillery and an armored cavalry group. My experience was being "attached" the the latter, a free wheeling, lightly armed (carbines) bunch who never walked when they could ride- jeeps instead of horses.
One of our continuing duties was to do mine sweeping and recon on the road system. The situation was unstable because the Germans left behind manned road blocks as they retreated. This resulted in our first casualties. Ole Skinner was wounded (lightly) as were two of his men. Similarly, Lt. White, another OCS classmate, was badly wounded. He was sent back to England and we never heard from him again.
My first encounter with a shooting war came about when a cavalry colonel ran over a Teller mine (11 pounds of TNT) and was blown to bits. So they asked the 35th to come up and do some mine detection. Why we furnished an entire platoon, I don't know. Anyway, we became "attached" to the cavalry and stayed with them for some time. We passed the place where the colonel was killed. His uniform was blown up into a tree and was still hanging there when we arrived.
Somehow, my platoon's mission evolved into infantry support for the cavalry, so we spent our first night on what was loosely defined as the frontline. I started digging my hole, buy only got down a foot or so when I thought, "To hell with it." I pulled my raincoat over my face and fell into a fitful sleep. One of my guys dug all night long.
Next day we advanced toward the end of the Daolas Peninsula, just to the south of the port of Brest. I remember taking my platoon across an open field toward some woods using the "advance and fall down" procedure we had practiced in training. There was some scattered sniper fire at first, then a heavy mortar barrage which certainly qualified as a "baptism". We took refuge behind some hedgerows and no one was hurt. The cavalry was not so lucky. They had just received a group of replacements, mostly young kids. I found one of them with a piece of shrapnel right between his eyes. I called for a medic, but the kid was dead; his combat time measured in minutes.
We hung out with the cavalry so long they even invited me to go on patrol with them, which I did just to see what it was like. We pussy-footed thru the woods for what seemed like a long time. The object of the patrol was to try to persuade a group of Russian/Polish guys impressed into the Wehrmacht to give up. We found them. Our Russian speaker convinced them to quit. The German "schoolboy" (SS) with them also quit, so the patrol was worthwhile.
Some time later my platoon rejoined the company and we got back to our engineer duties. We removed a great number of Teller mines- very carefully. These things were often booby-trapped so if you manually pulled one out of the ground it would explode. We used a very long rope to pull them out. Next thing was to remove the detonator which was also a bit tricky. One time we had collected nearly a hundred nines and for lack of a more mature head, decided to blow them all up at once. It made a most satisfactory noise and caused me to be chewed out by a cavalry staff officer passing by about a half mile away who mistook the noise for an incoming, large caliber shell and got his dignity hurt by hitting the ground. He took my "name, rank, and serial number", but I never heard anymore about it.
The battle for Brest turned out to be a lot more than was planned for. The German resistance was intense thanks to the fierce defense. The U.S. VIII Corps, of which the 35th was a part of throughout the war, finally used two infantry divisions (the 8th and 28th) plus the 6th Armored Division and our Task Force. We were, by the way, part of Patton's Third Army at that time. He sent his other two corps the other direction toward Germany. Most impressive was the corps artillery with their 8" and 240mm big guns. The Germans also somehow turned their coastal defense guns around and fired on us. I don't think they did a lot of damage, but I remember one piece of shrapnel that came in whining like a boomerang and hit the ground nearby. It was about two feet long and sharp enough to cut a person in two.
When the Daolas Peninsula was cleared, or nearly so, we moved south to the base of the Crozon Peninsula, a long piece of country that resembles a bird's head on the map. At the base of the Crozon there is a high hill (330m) called "Menez Hom". Again, for no reason I can think of, my platoon was selected to accompany a unit of French partisans, called in that part of France the "Maqui" or "FFI", in an attempt to "take that hill." It was not certain whether it was defended. Good thing it wasn't. Our motely crew toiled up the hill in a more or less orderly fashion toward what was probably a radar station. The installation was devoid of life, but was surrounded by a maze of trip wires attached to AP mines. We stopped short of the first trip wire and I disarmed one of the mines, very carefully. It was a "Stock" mine, a piece of concrete and steel shrapnel with a core of explosive and a detonator on top so formed that it fit over a round wooden stake driven in the ground. Those things had been in place a long time. The trip wires were rusty, but the brass detonators were in good shape. I disarmed one with a pin and we proceeded to the top of the hill without incident. How we got away with walking through that mess, I'll never know.
Hill 330, unfortunately, did claim two victims in my platoon. Our CO wanted the mines removed, so we went back up there the next day and I demonstrated the disarming process. I went back down the hill for some reason. When I returned, I found that one GI was killed and my platoon sergeant, Jasper Cherry, seriously wounded by one of those Stock mines. The fellow who was killed had a brother in A Co. I had to tell him, of course, a very difficult thing for a 22 year old. He took the news quite stoically. I saw him at a reunion many years later and he told me his brother was somewhat leery about going back up that hill. We blew up the rest of the mines with blocks of TNT and never again did we attempt hand removal unless there was no other choice. (By the way, when my wife and I flew from Nice to New York City in 1978, we flew directly over Brittany and I picked out the Crozon Peninsula and Hill 330 as we flew over.)
Clearing the Crozon proceeded much as it did on the other peninsula with a polyglot of units. My platoon was attached briefly to the famous 2nd Ranger Battalion, the unit that fought their way up the 100 foot cliff, Pointe du Hoc, on D-Day. That was quite a different outfit. The men were allowed to choose their own weapons. There were "Tommy guns" (Thompson sub-machine gun), sawed off shotguns, sabers, etc. We walked with them quite a way out the peninsula with little or no opposition. I think that was the time our CO, Captain Day, became worried about us because we were gone so long (our 25 year old father).
We lost the CO of Company C and the battalion dentist, Phil Stark and "Speedy" Levine, when our P-47's attacked the village of Telgruc. Why such a mistake was made, we never found out. "Speedy", of course, had no business being there, but he and Phil were inseparable buddies. That afternoon we sat around in Captain Day's tent and disposed of his liquor ration, one bottle of Scotch, in memory of our lost friends.
Our last peninsula in Brittany was the Douarnenez. I don't remember all the details, but we ended up in the small coastal town of Audierne where our German speaking guys in C Co. again talked a bunch of very bedraggled Wehrmacht into giving up the fight. It was the locale, however, of my closest encounter with the Purple Heart. We were proceeding down this blacktop road, supported by a couple of light tanks, when some firing commenced from our front. As is my wont in such circumstances, I hit the ground, in this case the blacktop. A few rounds from somewhere hit the roadway in front of me and I got hit in the nose (which in my case is a reasonably large target). I wiped off the blood with my handkerchief and proceeded down the road to the outskirts of town.
We ran out of peninsulas. The plan to proceed down the coast to Lorient and St. Nazaire was abandoned. The Germans held those cities until the end of the war.
There was a final gathering of Task Force A, with a speech by the CO, General Ernest, and our reverting to our 1102nd Engineer Combat Group.
We spent a few days at a "rest camp", H'opital, between the Daolas and Crozon peninsulas, then took off to join the rest of the war. The trip across France was educational for me. Most impressive was our view of Chartres Cathedral. It sits in an open field at a high elevation and can be seen for miles. My wife and I toured the place back in the '70s.
The Parisians were glad to see us and they still lined the streets even though it had been over a month since Liberation Day.
We arrived in Luxembourg about the same time that the army decided we could move out of our pup tents and into "billets", which meant taking over civilian homes and other facilities. Company A ended up in Tarchamps, then moved a few days later to Eschweiler.
Cpt. Jack Dearinger (standing far right) and the men of Headquarters Platoon, Company A, 35th ECB.
Left to right: Lt. Goodchild, Cpt. Dearinger, and Lt. Joyce, Company A, 35th ECB.
Jack Dearinger (passenger seat) while still a platoon leader with the men of 1st Plt, Co. A.
Cpt. John "Jack" Dearinger: Company A
