John Schaffner’s WWII Path from the 106th Infantry to Parker’s Crossroads

8-10-2025 Heavy German Fire And the Battle of the Bulge Began- John Schaffner Re-Tells His Tale.mp3
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Announcer
00:01 – 00:21
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson.

Announcer
00:22 – 00:30
These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Monson.

Kim Monson
00:32 – 00:47
Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is americasveteranstories.com. The show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Kim Monson
00:48 – 01:05
We turned stateside realizing that we need to know these stories. We need to broadcast them and archive them. Hence, America’s Veteran Stories was born. But we have such a treasure trove of interviews that we thought it might be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear history from the men and women who lived it.

Kim Monson
01:05 – 01:15
I am thrilled to have on the line with me John Schaffner. John, how are you doing today? Yeah, still hitting on all eight, thank you. Well, I’m glad to hear that, that’s for sure.

Kim Monson
01:16 – 01:28
And John, you are a World War II veteran and you served in the 106th Infantry Division, right? That’s correct. Okay, can you break that down a little bit more for us? What makes up an infantry division?

John Shaffner
01:28 – 01:57
Sure. An infantry division comprised of about 14,000 men. It’s divided up into three infantry regiments, which are supported by four artillery battalions, and of course is comprised with engineers, medics, mechanics, other support people. So that’s the general makeup of the Infantry Division.

Kim Monson
02:07 – 02:15
and find John’s complete story. This is really, really fascinating. It’s extensive. So go to indianamilitary.org.

Kim Monson
02:16 – 02:30
And then where you see over, it says, let’s see, bios and all that kind of information. Click on that, and then all these guys’ stories come up, and you’ll see John’s story there, and you can click on that. So again, that’s indianamilitary.org. So let’s jump in here.

Kim Monson
02:30 – 02:34
John, where were you when you heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed?

John Shaffner
02:36 – 02:54
I was in a movie, as a matter of fact, that day. And they stopped the movie and the theater manager came out on the stage and announced that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and it certainly looked like we were going to be officially in the war.

Kim Monson
02:55 – 02:56
Were you surprised?

John Shaffner
02:58 – 03:25
I suppose so. I suppose I was surprised. I was still in high school. was Everybody realized that their lives were going to be changed.

John Shaffner
03:25 – 03:26
Yes, I registered. I turned 18 in my senior

Kim Monson
03:26 – 03:28
year and I of course registered for the draft.

John Shaffner
03:40 – 04:53
When you were drafted, did you indicate which branch of the service you would like to serve in? I I’m I at that time. No choice. So

Kim Monson
04:53 – 04:56
you ended up in the 106th Infantry Division then at that time?

John Shaffner
04:57 – 05:18
Yes, yes. We went through our basic indoctrination at Fort Meade, which was only about a couple days. And then a whole trainload of us mounted up and wound up in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where in March of 1943, the division was activated.

Kim Monson
05:19 – 05:24
Okay, and tell us, while you were at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, about your carbine.

John Shaffner
05:24 – 05:59
Oh, we were issued a carbine. The artillery had a lot of work to do with their hands, you might say. An M1 rifle was considerably heavier and would be in the way of what we were doing. There were cannoneers that had to hop around the howitzer all the time handling heavy ammunition and rifles like the M1 were not suitable.

John Shaffner
06:00 – 06:11
So the infantry guys were issued the M1 and of course other rifles, BAR, Thompson and so on. of the

Kim Monson
06:31 – 06:32
Well sure, you know.

John Shaffner
06:47 – 07:12
When we got into the war, hammer and tongs, all the manufacturing industry that was suitable was put to work making implements of war. And our carbines were made by Rockola Jukebox Company, Wurlitzer, Singer Sewing Machine, I can’t think of all the names.

Kim Monson
07:12 – 07:16
Any machine shop that was able to manufacture what was needed was given a defense contract.

John Shaffner
07:31 – 07:46
So, you know, we were turning out stuff. Almost impossible to think about. Liberty ships were being launched at the rate of one a day near the end of the war. One a day, a ship.

Kim Monson
07:46 – 07:47
That is astounding.

John Shaffner
07:47 – 07:57
It was all production line stuff, modular construction. All the pieces came together at the shipyard and the welders went to work putting it together.

Kim Monson
07:57 – 08:09
Wow, it is astounding. It was. Let’s talk a little bit more about training, though. You said, tell us about the war games that your battalion, you know, took part in as training.

John Shaffner
08:10 – 08:37
Yes, we started out, you know, one, two, three, four, drilling for several weeks and learning the points of what our specialty was. And then the battery commander one day came out and said, well, fellas, we’re going out into the field for a week. And we thought, OK, we’re in South Carolina. The weather’s not too bad.

John Shaffner
08:37 – 09:14
It won’t be so hard. So we went out in the field for a week, and then we came back in and cleaned everything up and then went back out in the field for three And then for a month, well, come January, around the first of the year, we were transferred into the Tennessee Maneuver Area, which is up in the hills of Tennessee, and there’s no shelter there. And we performed maneuvers for January, February, and March out in the field the whole time.

Kim Monson
09:15 – 09:27
Well it was important training though to prepare you for what was coming up then, wasn’t it? Oh absolutely, absolutely. And so then from the Tennessee Field Maneuvers you went to Camp Atterbury in Indiana. Tell us just a little bit about that.

John Shaffner
09:28 – 09:45
Yes, Camp Atterbury. We wound up there around the first of March. No, near the end of March, I guess it was. Anyway, on the way, we had vehicles, and we all drove jeeps and trucks.

John Shaffner
09:46 – 10:18
And on the way, the weather got better, and I thought, man, by the time we get to Indiana, all I could think of was the Stephen Foster songs, you know. I thought, Indiana’s going to be neat. When we pulled into Camp Atterbury, the temperature was just above freezing and the wind was blowing hard enough to blow your mustache off. We were in for more bad weather, but it did get better.

John Shaffner
10:20 – 11:25
We trained further until June. And then when D-Day happened, apparently the Eisenhower’s staff and whoever was running the war decided that we were going to take a lot of casualties during the invasion so they reached out for trained troops for replacements and they transferred about half of our division to replacement depots in Europe and then filled in those slots with The troops that they thought were no longer necessary, like Coast Artillery, the threat of invasion had not materialized. The Air Force at that time had enough pilots in the pipeline, so anybody that was training to be a pilot was transferred out into the infantry.

John Shaffner
11:26 – 11:41
So the division was half trained and half untrained. But by the time we got to Europe around the first of December, everybody was pretty much on board I think. We were ready to go. When

Kim Monson
11:41 – 11:46
we got to England we were placed in a camp near the town of Gloucester.

John Shaffner
12:00 – 13:27
They call it the Gloucestershire Barracks, and it apparently had been a part of the British Army. They were typical small one-story buildings that were furnished with double-decker bunks, but no plumbing, just a little potbelly stove at the end of the big room. And what they called the Ablutions was of for If you And there was no artificial light. There was just no light at all.

John Shaffner
13:27 – 13:31
Wow. Anyway, we can handle that. Yeah.

Kim Monson
13:32 – 13:40
Now, we’re talking, is this December of 44 now? 44. Okay. And so you’re in England.

Kim Monson
13:41 – 13:44
And what happens after that, John Shafter?

John Shaffner
13:45 – 14:24
Well, about December the 6th, we were alerted to move. All of the equipment that we needed had been withdrawn from the dumps, that is, vehicles, howitzers, all the heavy stuff had preceded us there. So we grew our equipment and drove to the town of Weymouth, which is down on the coast. And it was one of the ports that the British were using to transfer troops from England across the Channel.

John Shaffner
14:25 – 15:09
So we crossed the Channel around, I guess, between the 1st and the 5th I’m bouncing up and down. This was an LST. And when it came our time to go up the Seine River, the ship got in line, and it was one ship after the other going up the Seine River. And they were close enough to where you could almost throw a baseball from one to the other, like circus elephants, one holding the tail of the one in front.

John Shaffner
15:13 – 15:59
went all the way to Ruan on the San River and beached the LSTs and drove off and the division assembled in a huge field somewhere just north of the town. And when everybody was there, we formed up a convoy and began driving east. went up through France, through Belgium, and 99% of us had no idea where we were going. And we wound up just inside the German border near a place called Herzfen.

John Shaffner
16:00 – 16:36
And this was a place where the 2nd Division had been in position for quite a long time. and was considered a rest area. However, nothing was happening there yet. And the line there, I call it the line, kind of paralleled the German border from Aachen in the north down to Switzerland in the south.

John Shaffner
16:38 – 16:59
The three divisions were in the front, 99th in the north, 106th in the middle, 28th in the south. 99th and 106th were both green divisions, never heard a shot fired in anger. and

Kim Monson
17:18 – 17:31
Okay, sounds great. We’re going to go to break. And a sponsor that I greatly appreciate for America’s Veteran Stories is Hooters Restaurants. They have locations in Loveland, Westminster and in Aurora on Parker Road and great specials Monday through Friday for lunch and for happy hour.

Kim Monson
17:32 – 17:47
Great place to get together with your friends to watch the sporting events and just have some great food. In particular, their fish and chips and their nachos are delicious. I hear that their fish tacos are quite good as well. So again, thank you to Hooters Restaurants for their sponsorship of the show.

Kim Monson
17:47 – 18:23
And the official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado in Golden at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977 and it is time for a facelift and the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently to raise funds to make that happen and a great way that you can honor our military to say thank you to those people who put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation and you can do that by going to USMCMemorialFoundation.org. The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk and it was founded for several reasons.

Kim Monson
18:23 – 18:50
One, to honor our Medal of Honor recipients and they do that through Over 160 Portraits of Valor of Medal of Honor recipients, but additionally they are teaching these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism through many of their educational programs and also their On Values presentations. So for more information about the Center, go to AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.org. This is Kim Monson with the World War II Project.

Kim Monson
18:50 – 18:53
We’re talking with World War II veteran John Shafter. We will be right back.

Speaker 4
18:54 – 19:21
Remax Realtor Karen Levine helps bring to life the individual stories of our servicemen and women. With her sponsorship of America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson, Karen honors the sacrifices of our military and is grateful for our freedom. As a member of the National Association of Realtors Board of Directors, Karen works to protect private property rights for all of us. Karen has a heart for our active duty military and veterans and is honored to help you buy or sell your home.

Speaker 4
19:22 – 19:25
Call Karen Levine at 303-877-7516 to help you navigate buying or selling your home. That’s 303-877-7516.

Speaker 8
19:34 – 19:52
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of the Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, KimMonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.

Kim Monson
19:53 – 20:18
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past, because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history, because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.

Kim Monson
20:22 – 20:44
Hey, welcome back to the Americhicks World War II project with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out my website americhicks.com and check out my Facebook, I’m americhicks, as well as that’s where I am on Twitter also. Talking with World War II veteran John Shafter with the 106th Infantry Division. We’re talking about his experience in the European theater in World War II.

Kim Monson
20:45 – 20:47
So John, it is such an honor to get to talk with you.

John Shaffner
20:50 – 21:20
I started to talk about the front that we were assigned to defend and it was about a 65 mile long stretch that was divided up between the three divisions. Normally an infantry division would have four miles, maybe maximum five miles up front. and wound up with these three divisions having about 20 miles each to defend. Very thin, very thin.

John Shaffner
21:21 – 21:54
And what made it even worse was that the Germans had been there, they knew where we were, and they knew that we didn’t have the facility to defend if they attacked. with a rifle and a shovel. We didn’t know anything. Word never seems to get down to that level, which is probably good.

John Shaffner
21:54 – 22:35
I don’t know. Anyway, we had two green divisions and one beat up division, and none of us were able to mount an effective defensive line. So on December 16th, when the Germans attacked, it was not a difficult thing for them to mass their troops in front of us and surround our positions, which were disciplinely defended. So they came through us like water through a sieve, you might say.

John Shaffner
22:38 – 23:11
The 106th being right in the center took the brunt of the attack. A lot of their positions were surrounded by the Germans and they could only hold out as long as they had ammunition and food and that ran out in about two days. So essentially two regiments of the 106th were surrendered. And that amounted to about 6,000 that were made prisoners.

John Shaffner
23:12 – 23:28
There’s about 500 and some were killed during the battle. Don’t have really accurate numbers. So you have to excuse me for that. It seems like every time you pick up a different book, statistics are different anyway.

John Shaffner
23:28 – 23:58
But anyway, as I can close as I can tell you, it was a chaotic experience. Being in the artillery, we were behind the infantry line and I kind of figured we were relatively safe, but then the infantry line collapsed and that left the artillery next in line and we had to scramble. So

Kim Monson
23:58 – 24:00
what happened exactly then, John?

John Shaffner
24:01 – 24:34
The 589th Field Artillery Battalion was made up of three firing batteries, A, B, and C, a headquarters battery. And when the Germans came into our position, they surrounded C battery, and I captured almost all those people intact. There were some casualties. The battery commander was killed and several of the enlisted men before they surrendered.

John Shaffner
24:35 – 26:21
But then A and B batteries were able to extricate their howitzers and vehicles and move back. several miles and before these two batteries could get set up the Germans were on us again and we had to move again and when that happened we lost all the howitzers from B battery and only three howitzers from A battery got on the road We wound up with about 125 or 130 men and 3 howitzers out of about 500 men and 12 howitzers at that point. I’m I’m Take the weapons and go to this place where there’s a crossroads and defend the crossroads.

John Shaffner
26:21 – 26:41
And the other half of the troops were to go to some area further back where they would be in reserve. I was a lucky one. I happened to be in the group that went to defend the crossroads. That

Kim Monson
26:41 – 26:44
doesn’t sound lucky. That sounds like the more dangerous thing.

John Shaffner
26:46 – 27:08
It was. It turned out to be what was later written up as an Alamo defense. If I heard anybody say Alamo at that time, I don’t know what I’ve done. But anyway, we found ourselves at this crossroads that later on I found out it ran between Bastogne and Liège.

John Shaffner
27:09 – 27:47
and it was the main road that the Germans had to acquire to continue their advance. So, anyway, I don’t think any of us realized the precarious position we were in. But we set up with the three howitzers defending three of the roads to this place that was known as Rack der Pratschauer. later to be called Parker’s Crossroads, and that was for Major Arthur Parker, who was our commander at the time.

John Shaffner
27:47 – 28:09
We had gone through a couple commanders. Anyway, we set up there on the 17th, 18th, on the 19th of December. The Germans were held up down at Bastogne, but finally they decided to bypass that and come north. And when they did, we were in the way.

John Shaffner
28:11 – 28:32
So it was all quiet on the day of the 19th, but that evening I find myself in a foxhole. on the road where the Germans are going to come up. And I had no idea. I didn’t know where I was.

John Shaffner
28:32 – 28:51
Didn’t know north from south. Didn’t know anything. Except the captain said, you two go down there and get that foxhole. And keep us informed if the Germans attack.

John Shaffner
28:53 – 29:14
We had a telephone and a wire back to the command post. And about midnight, it was very, very quiet. Myself and this other fella, we hear this strange noise, like a swishing sound. And it turned out to be about a dozen German soldiers on bicycles.

John Shaffner
29:15 – 29:41
And the swishing sound was made by them coming up this wet road with a little dust of snow on it. And we had a string of mines across the road in front of us to stop any vehicles. Well, when the bicycles got to those mines, these guys stopped and began talking about what to do. Of course, they didn’t know where they were either.

John Shaffner
29:44 – 30:24
So, I picked up our telephone and I gave the crank just a little twist. and the captain came on the phone and he says, what do you have? We have about a dozen Germans at the road right in front of us. Well, he says, I’ll fire my .45 and you guys just get down as low as you can in the hole and we’ll open up with this M16 half-track that had four .50 caliber machine guns on it and we’ll sweep the road And then when we stop that, I’ll

John Shaffner
30:24 – 30:31
fire my .45 again, and that’ll be a signal for you to get out of the hold, come back to the command post as fast as you can.

Speaker 10
30:32 – 30:33
Wow.

John Shaffner
30:34 – 31:11
Yeah, that’s basically what happened. When they stopped firing those machine guns, the other guy and myself got out of the hold, and we ran back to the command post. and of course on the way back it didn’t all go well. I approached one of the howitzer physicians, a guy took a shot at me and I was calling the password out but it didn’t seem to matter so I used some other language and and then he realized I was an American.

John Shaffner
31:11 – 31:14
I just stopped firing. Anyway, he

Speaker 10
31:14 – 31:16
missed me.

John Shaffner
31:17 – 31:27
So anyway, that was my first experience being shot at and missed.

Kim Monson
31:28 – 31:42
John Schaffner, I’m thinking that you’re just this young American kid. Here you are across the big blue ocean. You’re in a foxhole. Why did you do this?

John Shaffner
31:43 – 31:58
Good question. I think all of us had the attitude that it had to be done. And we were going to take our chances. At that age, I guess you think you’re bulletproof.

John Shaffner
31:59 – 32:20
I don’t know. I don’t think anybody that I encountered was worried about being killed. It was happening, but I guess you think it’s never going to happen to you. I

Kim Monson
32:20 – 32:29
don’t know. Okay, let’s continue on. So you have gotten back to, was it the command where you were headed back to? You got back there.

Kim Monson
32:29 – 32:30
What happened after that?

John Shaffner
32:30 – 33:03
Yeah, well, we’re all in position around this crossroads, you know, with a string of foxholes. And we were armed with three howitzers. There were three anti-aircraft M16 halftracks, which I just described having four .50 caliber machine guns on them. There was a scout car with a 37mm little cannon on it.

John Shaffner
33:05 – 33:40
And that and all the small arms is what we had. And we had no means of resupply. So what we had to defend with was ammunition. When the ammunition was gone, of They captured most of the guys that were there.

John Shaffner
33:40 – 33:52
A lot of them were wounded. I think a few were killed. Some were killed. I was in a position where I could get away.

John Shaffner
33:54 – 34:30
Myself and another guy were in this little stone farmhouse and trying to get warm when When the wall came in on top of us, it was hit by an artillery shell, I guess. Anyway, we didn’t wait to find out if they were going to send another one. We went out the door. It was about, almost getting dark, and there was about 12 cows in the road between us and the woods.

John Shaffner
34:31 – 34:46
So we ducked between these cows. and started down across this field. My buddy was hit. I still don’t know what happened to him.

John Shaffner
34:47 – 35:15
Probably a mortar shell went off too close to him and he went down. I went over to see what was going on with him. I had no idea what I was going to do. He was too heavy for me to carry and I just happened to look down in the woods and there comes a couple of American soldiers out of the woods and I motioned to them to come up and which they did.

John Shaffner
35:15 – 35:41
Turned out they were from a patrol of guys from the 82nd Airborne Division and between the three of us we got our buddy out of danger. He was pretty badly wounded. So the 82nd guys put him on a jeep and took him out. And he wound up in a hospital and never got back to us.

John Shaffner
35:41 – 36:02
I never saw him again until 1986. We had a reunion in South Carolina and he showed up. And that was the next time I saw him. And of course we’ve developed a friendship over the years.

John Shaffner
36:03 – 36:13
He’s still alive. Although he’s still, he’s walking with a walker now. Not as good a shape as

Kim Monson
36:14 – 36:20
I am. You’re doing an awesome, awesome job John Schaffner. So what happens after that then?

John Shaffner
36:22 – 36:49
Okay, now we have no more 589th Field Artillery Battalion. They’re all gone. The few of us that got away from the crossroads before we were captured or killed or wounded wound up in other units. And I found the 592nd Field Artillery Battalion the next day.

John Shaffner
36:52 – 37:31
I didn’t sign anything or anything, but I was accepted into their unit and wound up being an observer and worked in their, what they called, their Far Direction Control Center, which was a job where I received target information from an observer and transposed that into directions for the howitzer’s to fire. Gave them the coordinates and

Kim Monson
37:40 – 37:53
John, let’s go to break. When we come back, let’s continue on with your story. And I think there’s kind of an interesting personal story with the 592nd and a shower or bath or something. So let’s go to go to break and we’ll be right back.

Kim Monson
37:53 – 37:55
This is Kim Monson with the Americhicks World War II Project.

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Speaker 2
39:32 – 39:41
To learn more, reach out to Kim at Kim at KimMonson.com Kim would love to talk with you. Again, that’s Kim at KimMonson.com

Kim Monson
39:42 – 40:07
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier and thank you for listening.

Kim Monson
40:11 – 40:23
Hey, welcome back to the AmeriChicks World War II Project. I’m Kim Monson. I’m talking with World War II veteran John Schaffner about his experience in European theatre in World War II. These are just fascinating stories.

Kim Monson
40:23 – 40:27
John, first of all, thank you. Thank you so much for granting this interview.

John Shaffner
40:29 – 40:30
Okay, I’m glad I can do

Kim Monson
40:30 – 40:37
it. Okay. And so there was no longer any of the 589th because it had taken significant losses.

John Shaffner
40:37 – 40:57
No, the two of us left were scattered around to other outfits. So I had a pretty easy compared to what had gone through. And so one of the things was kind of interesting. Could have been a tragedy, I guess, but it wasn’t.

John Shaffner
40:58 – 41:32
I was on an observation post with a lieutenant and a radio operator, and we were in the attic of a house where we could oversee the area where we thought the Germans were. We had a radio hookup back to the command post. The weapon that he referred to was called a grease gun. It was officially an M3 submachine gun.

John Shaffner
41:32 – 42:00
And it looked like a grease gun. I had never seen one before, but I picked it up. And I said to the radio operator, I said, I wonder how you operate this thing. It had a little crank on the side.

John Shaffner
42:00 – 42:12
So, I got dumb and happy. I pulled the crank back, and when I let it go, it fired a bullet. Bang! Fortunately, it went out the window.

John Shaffner
42:13 – 42:34
When the lieutenant came back, I thought I was going to catch it. He says, what’s going on up here? That’s probably good advice John Schaffner, that’s for sure. Now, personal stories, I find this interesting about this shower, this bath.

John Shaffner
42:34 – 43:07
Tell us a little bit about that. Oh yeah. First of all, I’ll tell you about the first pass I got after the battle. The sergeant went around, he was looking sober, and he says, you, you, you, and you.

John Shaffner
43:08 – 43:51
And he picked out about a dozen of us. He says, get on a truck and take along a towel and a change of underwear. is a So we lined up in front of this building and like everything else you stand in line and you wait and finally it becomes my turn. I’m first in line and this door opens, this woman comes and she speaks French and I don’t speak anything but English.

John Shaffner
43:52 – 44:31
So she points at me and clicks her fingers and says, come on. and uh… it’s a bathrooms on both sides of the hall they’re just kind of sparse just a big tub in the middle and I think one chair in the corner so she directs me into this bathroom and uh… goes over to the tub and turns the taps on and walks out well I stand there and I watch the tub filling up and it’s getting pretty high and I thought well she’s not coming back So I go over to turn the taps off, well first of all

John Shaffner
44:32 – 45:14
I take off all my clothes to get in the tub and then go over to turn the taps off and she walked back in the room and you know that’s the first time that a woman has seen me bare naked since my mother gave me a bath in the sink. So that was a new thing for me. But later on when positions were kind of static, the engineers would put a pump in a stream or a river and pump the water out through a filter and into a heater.

John Shaffner
45:16 – 45:35
They had constructed a web of pipes with shower heads. They would get the water moving and get it warmed up and start pumping it. We would get in there under the AC shower heads and soap up and clean off.

Kim Monson
45:44 – 45:54
I was always wondering, John Schaffner, as I’ve done these interviews, and you guys didn’t get to shower very often. I’m kind of like wondering, could the Germans not smell you guys?

John Shaffner
46:04 – 46:15
We were pretty cruddy, but it was day in and day out. You just live it one day at a time and not worry about it.

Kim Monson
46:17 – 46:30
Let’s move on just a little bit. That’s for sure. Let’s talk about, and again, I’m taking a look at, these are your memoirs that you have on IndianaMilitary.org. This is John Schaffner.

Kim Monson
46:31 – 46:43
And certainly, I mean, there’s all kinds of history here, but this is your personal story. So we’ve got, you know, maybe a couple more stories left. Where, what should we hit? Should we hit rebuilding the 106th or what, where would you like to go?

John Shaffner
46:45 – 47:17
Yes, that’s a good plan. The war was actually over on May the 8th. Prior to that, we had been in action up in Germany. and had not been filled in where the casualties were incurred.

John Shaffner
47:17 – 47:45
We were not up to strength, is what I mean to say. So we began to take in replacements. They pulled us out of Germany and sent us back to France to a place that became known as Camp Jones. There was an area that was allocated to artillery firing to train the howitzers crews.

John Shaffner
47:51 – 48:43
One day they sent the unit out to fire the howitzers on this range, and for whatever reason I didn’t go. I don’t know why, but anyway, I was still in camp, and the first sergeant said, to me to go over to the motor pool and get a truck and a driver and then go out to the German POW camp, which was not far, and get a truckload of German prisoners and take them out to the firing range. The commander out there wants them to do some menial tests, dig a little crane trench and So he gave me a little piece of paper with a sketch on it about the roads to take.

John Shaffner
48:43 – 48:57
And I was not familiar with the area at all. So I got over to the motor pool and arranged for the truck and the driver. I gave the driver the piece of paper. I said, you know where this is?

John Shaffner
48:58 – 49:38
He says, oh yeah, I know where it is. He says, OK, let’s go. We went to the POW pen and checked out about a dozen German prisoners and put them in the back of the truck. I think shot up village is just wreckage.

John Shaffner
49:39 – 49:54
There’s a stone wall around the edge of the road where it made a curve. And we proceed on up through the woods and finally I hear some artillery shells. Boom, boom. I said, well, we’re getting close.

John Shaffner
49:55 – 50:15
And we went a little bit further and then there was four shells exploded right out in front of us about 200 yards away. Blam, blam, blam. We found the range, but we were at the wrong end. We were on the receiving end.

John Shaffner
50:15 – 50:38
And the driver says, let’s get the hell out of here. So he put us in reverse, backing up into the woods, crunching little trees, turned around, started down the road again to get out of there. And when we come to this little curve in the road, there was a stone wall about 30 inches high, maybe, and just stone. We’re like farmers, you know, just laying stone.

John Shaffner
50:40 – 50:51
The truck wasn’t going to make the curve. We were going too fast. It started to slide and it hit that stone wall and rocks threw everywhere. And we stopped.

John Shaffner
50:53 – 51:11
The driver put the truck back and reversed it back off and the wheels turned but we didn’t move. We got out and we found out that all ten wheels of that truck were off the ground. They were sitting on stones. We were able to back off.

John Shaffner
51:25 – 51:40
So everybody got back in the truck and said, let’s go on back. And we went back to the POW pen, checked in the prisoners, went back to the motor pool, checked in the truck and the driver. I went back to the battery position and I said to the sergeant,

Kim Monson
51:49 – 52:00
Oh my gosh, John, that is quite a story. We probably have time for one more story. Occupation of Germany, where do you want to go with the next story?

John Shaffner
52:00 – 52:36
Well, how about… Yes, we did occupation of Germany. We were notified one day that we were going to participate in a in operation and it had a name but I can’t think of it right now. But what we were going to do was to get up in the middle of the night and about two or three in the morning we were going to occupy this village where the Germans had moved back in.

John Shaffner
52:37 – 52:57
But the mission was to search for and confiscate any Nazi materials of any kind. So that’s what we did. Everybody piled in their trucks and we went into this little village. Wasn’t too many houses.

John Shaffner
52:57 – 53:54
There is, middle of the night, we bang on doors and we run all the civilians out into the street and we invade their houses. It was a lot like what the Nazis did, but not near as severe. We didn’t hurt anybody and we didn’t arrest anybody, but we did find metals, and armbands, like you see on TV, and small things like that. As far as I know, we didn’t find any weapons.

John Shaffner
53:55 – 53:58
And that was interesting. The

Kim Monson
53:58 – 54:01
people that you pulled out of their homes, how did they react to all this?

John Shaffner
54:03 – 54:25
I think I have a medal that was awarded to the German women for

Kim Monson
54:26 – 54:28
having children for the Third Reich.

John Shaffner
54:55 – 55:20
in a gold finish to a woman who had eight children for the Third Reich. It was in silver for one that had six children and in bronze for one who had four. And it’s rather attractive and engraved on the back with a Hitler. and that’s what they were doing.

John Shaffner
55:20 – 55:21
So I have that and I have

Kim Monson
55:21 – 55:23
an armband like the ones they wore around their upper arm with the Nazi swastika on it.

John Shaffner
55:43 – 56:23
I have an Iron Cross which is a German model which was given for just about anything in various values. The one I have is actually a replica. While there on one of my visits I was escorted around by a Belgian fellow And we were in this town where they were having a yard sale of all military memorabilia. You could buy anything from a bullet to a two and a half ton truck.

John Shaffner
56:23 – 56:38
It was one of those. Anyway, this one fella had a display of medals. And I was looking at this one, the Iron Cross, and this fella, Henry. He said, you have one of those?

John Shaffner
56:38 – 56:53
I said, no I don’t. He said, I’ll give you one. And when we got back to his house, he gave me this iron cross medal. And he said that his wife doesn’t like having that stuff hang around.

John Shaffner
56:54 – 57:10
Because during the Nazi occupation, her family lost about nine people. Thank you Kim for your interest. We don’t want anyone to forget

Kim Monson
57:29 – 57:46
Thank you for joining us for this episode of America’s Veteran Stories. While some of the details may be a bit dated, the courage, sacrifice and stories of our veterans never go out of style. For more incredible stories, past and present, check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com or catch new episodes each week.

Kim Monson
57:47 – 57:55
Until next time, thank you for listening and for honoring those who served. We indeed stand on the shoulders of giants. God bless you and God bless America.

Announcer
57:55 – 58:14
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7. The views

Speaker 3
58:14 – 58:27
and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ Management employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and Country station.