War in Europe - Oklahoma WWII

“It’s the most difficult period of your life”

November 7th

Pendleton Woods remembers that he was in his dormitory at the University of Arkansas when somebody rushed down the hall and said that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. “We didn’t know what Pearl Harbor was,” he recalled, “and then we began listening to the radio, and that’s when it really hit us.”

Within hours the United States was entering World War II and by 1942 Woods had signed up for the Army Reserve. He remained stateside for about two years, but wound up in Germany, on the Belgian front, by October, 1944. Woods was there just in time for the Battle of the Bulge, but he missed most of the fighting.

On December 10, 1944, while on patrol behind German lines, Woods and seven others were cut off and surrounded by a German unit. Their squad leader was killed, another person was wounded, and the group of Americans was captured. So began Pen Woods’ 5-month ordeal as a prisoner of war.

The captives did what they could to stay warm, sharing one blanket to keep their feet warm, and huddling together in a boxcar on the way to a German prison camp. Woods spent 8 days on the boxcar, where he “celebrated” his 21st birthday. He spent Christmas of 1944 inside the walls of a German prison camp before being transported to a labor camp, where conditions were somewhat better.

Woods remembers that a soldier who had served time in a Pennsylvania penitentiary, Red Martin, taught him how to steal. “Red Martin and I had honest faces,” said Woods, “and when we’d steal stuff we’d blouse our trousers into our combat boots and put food there. The armpit is also good. You’d be surprised at how much food you can put under your armpit and get away with it.”

Martin gave Woods a nickname, “Steal ‘Em Blind Woods.” According to Woods, the name was a real compliment. “Don’t laugh,” he told me, “because that would be like Babe Ruth or Joe Louis calling you slugger, or in academic circles, it would be like an honorary degree. The nickname I got I got from a professional.”

(above) Corporal Pendleton Woods during World War II.

Woods finally escaped on Hitler’s birthday, April 20th, during Russian artillery fire that had the Germans pre-occupied. After five days, Woods and the others linked up with American soldiers near the Elbe River. Ironically, Woods’ prison bunkmate was Clarence Deal, who lives in Jones, Oklahoma. “Every day on April 20th, for some 60-odd years now,” said Woods, “I will call my prison bunkmate, or he will call me, wishing each other “Happy Hitler’s Birthday,” because that’s the day we got away from that prison camp.”

Woods believes that Germany’s biggest problem in the war was attacking Russia, because it forced the Nazis into a multi-front war. The Germans and Russians hated each other, he recalls, and Russian prisoners were treated ten times worse than Americans were treated in the prisoner-of-war camps.

Woods doesn’t watch many movies, but he has watched the famous prisoner-of-war movie, Stalag 17. “I thought it was phony,” Woods told me. “In Stalag 17 they made the Germans look stupid, but they weren’t stupid, they were smart. Stalag 17 was not real at all. If they do it real it doesn’t make much of a movie. It’s the most difficult period of your life.”

After the war, Woods returned to the University of Arkansas and got his degree in journalism. He became Public Information Officer for the 45th Infantry Division and served in that capacity during the Korean War. He achieved the rank of Colonel in the National Guard and worked for many years as Public Relations Specialist for OG&E. Woods was chosen the nation’s outstanding ex-POW of 2005.

Until next time, Dick Pryor

(above) Pen Woods with OETA’s Dick Pryor.

(Pen Woods was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on November 7, 2007. To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.”)

Posted in Battle of the Bulge, Concentration Camps, OETA, Oklahoma News Report, The War, War in Europe, World War II, Adolf Hitler, 45th Infantry Division, Army, The Oklahoman | No Comments »

“It was rather hazardous duty”

October 17th

Harry Furr wanted to be a pilot. With World War II expanding across the globe, the graduate of Central High School in Oklahoma City tried to join the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was disappointed by the response - his eyesight was not good enough. He was told only those with 20-20 vision need apply, and Harry Furr could only see that well with glasses.

But, Harry Furr persevered, and in a rather ironic twist, he got his chance to fly thanks to Adolph Hitler. You see, Hitler created a glider program when the Nazis came to power in 1933, and used engineless aircraft for the German invasion of Belgium in 1940. Despite heavy casualties suffered by Nazi glider infantry and paratroopers during invasions of Greece and Crete in 1941, gliders had been established as an affordable means of delivering troops and supplies in a war zone. The United States countered the Nazis by establishing its own glider program, reaching out to volunteer aviators like Harry Furr.

The American glider program relaxed the usual vision requirements. Harry Furr eagerly applied, and was quickly accepted. “I was able to get in, and I was very happy about it,” he told me. “I had no idea what I was going to fly, or when or where, but I would be flying,” Furr proudly said.

Furr enlisted in July of 1942 and began two years of pilot training. He learned to fly at the old Wiley Post Airport in Oklahoma City on the corner of May Avenue and Britton Road. He trained on gliders in Vinita, Oklahoma and Spencer, Iowa and Louisville, Kentucky and Dalhart, Texas before heading to Europe in January, 1944.

The beauty of gliders was their low cost - less than $25,000 - and their ability to fly, quietly and undetected, into enemy territory. Made of plywood and canvas, American gliders were towed to altitude by a C-47. Once near the target the gliders cut free from their towing cable and let gravity and the pilot’s skill do the rest. Furr remembered, “they were clumsy, difficult to land, came down pretty fast. They were difficult to manage and weren’t a lot of fun to fly.” Many gliders, quite simply, crashed. The gliders, and their pilots, were important to the Allied war effort, but they clearly were expendable.

Gliders were usually cut free at around 5,000 feet, leaving the pilots little time to seek a landing spot. Pilots were not briefed in advance about where to land, or what they might encounter. Without an engine, lights, parachutes, radio communication or armaments, the gliders had one chance to land, in the dark. Once on the ground, the pilots used the glider’s brakes or skidded into something to stop and unloaded its cargo of men and supplies. The men aboard, and the pilots, then turned-infantry soldier, forced to fend for themselves behind enemy lines.

The first major American glider mission came during Operation Husky, the more than a month-long battle for Sicily in 1943. Harry Furr saw his first combat action in an even bigger invasion: Operation Overlord, at Normandy, on D-Day.

Early in the evening of June 6, 1944, Harry Furr flew a heavy British Horsa across the English Channel to Utah Beach. With 15 men, a Jeep, trailer, medical supplies and co-pilot on-board, Furr’s glider was cut loose at 500 feet. The Horsa brushed the tops of trees as it made its landing in a field. “I smashed the whole front end of that glider out, landing,” Furr said, “but no one was hurt, we got down safe, got the load out OK and we made it out OK. We had to go through maching gun nests to get out of the field. The Germans were throwing in mortars on this field, so it was very intense until we got out of that field.”

Harry Furr flew two more missions in the glider program - Operation Market Garden (Holland) and Operation Varsity (Rhine River Crossing). Market Garden was the single largest glider operation of the war; Varsity was the deadliest, with more than 70 paradrop and gliding towing planes shot down. Seventy glider pilots were killed during Varsity, and another 114 were wounded or injured, but Harry Furr escaped unscathed. “The Germans were expecting us, the enemy fire was horrific at Varsity,” Furr recalled.

(above) Harry Furr, center, and friends pose in front of a captured Nazi flag.

Late in the war, Furr returned to the United States to train for the impending invasion of Japan, when the war came to an abrupt, and welcome, end. Furr was not looking forward to invading Japan, but he wishes the war had ended in a different way than it did. He has reservations about the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Truman had a chance to take some of those officials out to an atoll in the Pacific and show them what we had, and see whether they wanted to continue,” Furr said. “But he didn’t do that. They could have dropped the bomb out in the Pacific and showed them what a horrific bomb it was and maybe the war would have ended then. I’m not proud of our doing that. We destroyed hundreds of thousands of people, which we might not have had to do, but that was the way to end it, so that’s what we did.”

Harry Furr thinks World War II was necessary because “we were tired of what the Germans were doing to the world - they did a lot of things they should not have done.” But, his experience in World War II leads Furr to provide sobering advice to future generations contemplating war. ”Think very carefully about what you are about to do, resolve every available issue before you go to war,” he warned. “Try everything before you pull the trigger. Something might just work.”

(above) Harry Furr with Dick Pryor at Furr’s Oklahoma City home on August 14, 2007.

Until next time, Dick Pryor

(Harry Furr was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on October 17, 2007. To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.”)

Posted in The War, OETA, Oklahoma News Report, Normandy Invasion, War in Europe, World War II, Army Air Corps, Adolf Hitler, The Oklahoman | 1 Comment »

“I was just doing what I had always dreamed of doing”

October 1st

By late 1944, the end was nearing for the Nazi army. The best Luftwaffe pilots were mostly gone; men and equipment were diminishing as Hitler and the Axis fought on the eastern and western fronts. The Battle of the Bulge, in the winter of 1944-45, was the turning point in Europe.

During those final months, Stanley F.H. Newman was a fighter pilot, patrolling the skies over western Europe. By the time he finished his sophomore year at the University of Illniois, the Army Air Corps dropped its requirement of two years of college, so Newman signed up in November, 1942. After two years of intensive training, he was off to Europe.

Newman flew the P-51 Mustang, doing reconnaisance, visual intelligence, flying support for bombers like the P-47’s and leading them to their targets. Newman flew 57 missions in Europe, sometimes two in one day, piloting a plane he said was truly “a wild horse.” Newman said, “you had to treat it with respect.”

Newman’s plane was equipped with a camera, yet the pilot could not see very well. “The P-51 had these long noses,” Newman said, “and in landing or taking off, when you taxied, it was hard to see out. In the air, you couldn’t see under anything. You did have that blind spot directly underneath the wing and, of course, behind you. That’s why we always flew in pairs…each to protect the others.”

Newman and other pilots were prohibited by the rules of engagement from shooting on German planes except in self-defense. So, the American saying was, “to go out and get attacked,” he said. “We wanted to get attacked, so we could shoot back.”

On the final day of the war in Europe, Newman forced down two German planes and fired on another one, forcing it into a crash landing. His actions achieved great notoriety, including front page treatment in the Chicago newspapers. He was grateful for the press coverage, because that is how his parents learned he was still alive. It was not until many years later that Newman learned that two more German planes were shot down around sundown that same day.

Newman’s flying career was far from over. He received his degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Illinois, but returned to the skies as a fighter pilot during the Korean War. He flew more than 100 missions. Newman also flew cargo missions into Southeast Asia during the war in Vietnam. Stanley Newman worked for NASA and rose to Major General in the Oklahoma Air National Guard. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame in 2003.

Newman admits the war had a generally positive impact on him. “I grew up a lot,” he told me. “I went in as a 19-year old student and came out as a 22-year old. After the war I knew exactly what I wanted to do. The G.I. Bill enabled us to build our first home. I was always patriotic, from cub scouts on up, but the war made you even more appreciative of what we have in this country. I’ve gotten to see my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and that’s more than my friends got to do,” he said.

(above) Major General Stanley F.H. Newman looks over his scrapbook from World War II.

Until next time, Dick Pryor

(Stanley F.H. Newman was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on October 1, 2007. To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’S Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.)

Posted in The War, Concentration Camps, OETA, Oklahoma News Report, War in Europe, Army, World War II, Army Air Corps, Adolf Hitler, The Oklahoman | No Comments »

“We wanted to see how the devil lived”

September 28th

Emmett Steeds entered the National Guard in 1936, served for a year, and got out. He was working for a hardware store and remembers he was eating lunch when he heard that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt had declared war.

I recently visited with Steeds at the 45th Infantry Division Museum in Oklahoma City. He told me, “We had no choice. They jumped on us without provacation, so when they bombed Pearl Harbor there was no question about going into war.”

Steeds’ unit was still in Abilene, Texas, so he went home, told his wife, packed up his things and got on the bus to Fort Barkley, Texas to rejoin his outfit. “Within a few days,” he said, “practically everybody that had gotten out had come back to the unit.”

So began World War II for U.S. Army Platoon Sergeant Emmett Steeds. Steeds spent more than a year in training before sailing out of New York, across the North Atlantic, to North Africa, which was already under American control. After landing at Oran, Steeds and the others in the 45th Division, 179th Infantry headed to Sicily, then Italy, where they landed at Salerno. He received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant from General George S. Patton for his service in the Italian campaign.

The 45th marched across western Europe and Steeds reached the Dachau concentration camp within hours after it had been liberated. He remembers the dead he found there, bodies stacked in boxcars, and finding a lot of people barely alive. It was an experience that haunted him for months.

The 45th continued on to Munich, to become part of the occupation force. The regiment’s headquarters was set up in a rather unlikely place: an apartment where Adolph Hitler had lived. Steeds remembers it was a big house in Munich, and some of the officers from the U.S. Headquarters of the 179th stayed in the building. A famous picture at the 45th Infantry Division Museum shows another Oklahoma soldier from the 45th, Sgt. Arthur E. Peters, reclining on Hitler’s bed, reading a copy of Mein Kampf. The picture made it onto the cover of the May 14, 1945 edition of Life magazine, with the caption, “Get your feet off my bed.”

Steeds stayed in the military after World War II and served in Korea, where he rose to the rank of Captain. The Blair, Oklahoma native worked for the postal service in Oklahoma City for 30 years. He’s long since retired, but at the age of 90, still volunteers at the 45th Infantry Division Museum on weekends.

You can see two of his prized possessions at the museum: a Nazi medallion and personal stationery of Adolph Hitler that Steeds “liberated” from the Fuehrer’s Munich Apartment.

If you have a chance to visit the museum, I encourage you to go - but plan to spend some time. There is a lot to take in, and you might get to visit with Emmett Steeds. If you see him, tell him, “Thanks.”

Until next time, Dick Pryor

(Emmett Steeds was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on September 29, 2007. To see the story, click on the “Videos” link on this website and go to “OETA’S Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.”)

Posted in Concentration Camps, OETA, Oklahoma News Report, Oklahoma History Center, The War, War in Europe, World War II, Adolf Hitler, 45th Infantry Division, Army, The Oklahoman | 1 Comment »

“We were unbeatable”

September 26th

Anybody who knows Fred Norman will tell you he is a “character.” Quick with a quip, with a warm and easy smile, Fred Norman is someone you will never forget.

I attended Norman High School with his daughter, Nancy, so of course I proudly watched Fred as he presented the weather on KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City. Fred would tell it to you straight, with that mischievous grin, and a lot more often than not he was right about the weather. As we all know, that’s saying something in Oklahoma.

But he’s a lot more than Fred Norman, TV meteorologist. Fred Norman is a real hero; he didn’t just play one on TV. Long before he stood in front of the camera, Fred was a navigator on heavy bombers that flew into enemy territory on more than 35 missions during World War II.

It was inevitable that Fred Norman would serve during the war. Norman’s father fought against the Germans in World War I. He had lived in Hawaii for a while, so he was familiar with Pearl Harbor. His grandparents and parents were from England, so he knew about the war of aggression being fought in Europe. He was attracted to flying by reading “Flying Aces” magazine. Only one problem: Fred was born in Canada.

“Well, it did present a little problem,” said Fred. “As you know, we didn’t have the Air Force, we had the Army Air Corps. But, I took all the tests and got selected, and then they called me up and said I couldn’t get into the flying cadet program because I wasn’t a citizen, although my parents were naturalized. Fortunately, they got it all straightened out before I joined the Canadian RAF.”

After less than six months of training, Norman was on his way to England. He enjoyed the time he spent there, especially the nights at Piccadilly Circus, where young Americans would enjoy the social life and get to know the young women (much to the chagrin of British guys).

Flying at 30,000 feet, he saw a different war than did those on the ground, although he admits the weather in Europe sometimes made work difficult. Not to mention the Nazi flak. The flak hit him once, but the flak jacket he wore saved him. After that, Norman became one of the Army Air Corps’ biggest proponents of flak jackets.

Norman says pilots had to swerve to the target to keep from getting hit, but the B-17 could take it. “We brought one plane home with 400 holes in it,” he said. “No other plane could take that punishment and keep going, but the B-17 did.”

“Air power,” Norman said, “is what won the war. ” Norman added, “He who does not have air power domination is going to lose. We had the power, and we used it. How could it have come out any other way? We were unbeatable.”

After the war ended, Norman returned to the United States and became an instructor. He is especially pleased that he was able to help train the famed black fliers, the Tuskegee Airmen. Norman said, “I was very impressed. They were more disciplined. We were kind of cocky. They were courageous and willing and rearing to go, but the group I taught never got into battle, because the war abruptly ended, and within a week I was on my way home.”

Fred Norman used the G.I. Bill to get his college degree, went to work for the National Weather Bureau and never looked back. After stints as a TV meteorologist in Tampa, Amarillo and Denver, he settled in Oklahoma City.

Norman spent 16 years at KOCO. That’s where I got to know him, for real. By the mid-1980’s I was anchoring and reporting sports at KOCO, and Fred and I worked together on the weekend news, weather and sports team for a couple of years. Now, about twenty years later, it’s been a real honor to tell “the rest of the story” of Fred Norman, the aviator.

(above) Dick Pryor with Fred Norman at his Duncan home. Norman worked with Dick, Gerry Bonds and Ross Dixon at KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City.

Until next time, Dick Pryor

(Fred Norman was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on September 26, 2007. To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.)

Posted in OETA, Oklahoma News Report, The War, Normandy Invasion, Army Air Corps, War in Europe, World War II | No Comments »

Rave Reviews for “The War”

September 20th

“A riveting experience.” “Outstanding.” “Well-done.” “Strong.” “The war as I remembered it.” “I can’t wait to see the entire documentary.”

Those were some of the comments heard Wednesday night at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art after the screening of an hour-long preview of the Ken Burns documentary, “The War.”

Several veterans were in attendance to watch excerpts from the 7-part, 15-hour television event that begins on OETA Sunday night at 7:00. Following the screening Dr. Robert Griswold, Chair of the History Department at the University of Oklahoma, WWII Veteran Paul Wilson of the 17th Airborne Division and Roger Harris, oral historian at the Oklahoma History Center, answered questions about the film, the war, and its impact.

Wilson emphasized the sense of duty that Americans felt during the war, and how young men everywhere wanted to get involved to serve the country and their families. He, like so many soldiers who fought in the bleak winter conditions during the Battle of the Bulge, suffered from the effects of the bitterly cold temperatures. “Medics,” Wilson said, “were the real heroes of the war. And, I wouldn’t be here today without help from the man above.”

Harris said many veterans are now coming forward to talk about their experiences, ending years of trauma-induced silence. Griswold said such stories are important to help future generations understand the scope and gravity of the war. He teaches about World War II at the University of Oklahoma. Griswold is hopeful that programs such as “The War” will help students of today better appreciate the sacrifices involved in World War II and its impact on history.

SEEN and HEARD: Among those at the event on Wednesday night were OETA Station Manager Bill Thrash, Scott Horton and Paige Lessly of NewsOK (Scott designed the fabulous Oklahoma World War II Stories website), and World War II veteran Zee Howell, who will be featured on Friday night in the Oklahoma News Report. For more on the event, be sure to read the September 20th front page story in The Oklahoman.

Until next time, Dick Pryor

(above) Moderator Dick Pryor with Don Wright of Oklahoma City, a veteran of Guadalcanal who attended the screening event at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

(below) Panel member Paul Wilson, a paratrooper in the 17th Airborne Division, visits with members of the audience about his experiences in World War II following the screening event at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

(below) A crowd of more than 235 people watched the pre-screening of The War and the panel discussion at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Our thanks to Film Curator Brian Hearn and our friends at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art for their support of “The War”!

(below) Dr. Robert Griswold discusses the impact of World War II. Oral Historian Roger Harris of the Oklahoma History Center is on his right.

Posted in The War, War in Europe, Battle of the Bulge, OETA, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Army, Navy, Marines, World War II, Army Air Corps, 45th Infantry Division, South Pacific, The Oklahoman | 2 Comments »

Tulsans Pack Circle Cinema for “The War” Preview Screening

September 19th

A standing room crowd watched the first hour-long preview of Ken Burns’ important, new documentary, “The War,” Tuesday at the Circle Cinema Theatre in Tulsa. Several veterans attended the pre-screening event and they seemed to appreciate the approach used by Burns to tell the story of the “greatest generation” at home and in the theaters of war. The film presents the horrors and heartbreak of war in the riveting and personal style that has made Burns America’s most prominent producer of historical documentaries.

Following the screening, OETA’s Dick Pryor moderated a panel discussion with WWII veteran Kenneth Renberg, a German who trained American troops and fought with the 45th Infantry Division; Dr. Brad Agnew, Professor of History at Northeastern State University and an expert on military history; and Eva Unterman, a survivor of the holocaust who spent most of the war in Nazi concentration camps. OETA’s Lori Holliday showed the dynamic, new Oklahoma World War II Stories website (including this blog) and encouraged everyone attending to participate in the story collection project using the website’s “Share a Story” module. To-date, more than 700 people have shared a story - an overwhelming response!

Special thanks to Clark Wiens and Amberla Tepe of the Circle Cinema Theatre for hosting such a great event to begin the march toward “The War.” Ken Burns’ 15-hour epic, “The War,” debuts Sunday night at 7:00 on OETA.