Originally printed in The McKenzie Banner July 4, 2001
Four-time
wounded WWII veteran Vernon Bobo with medals he received over 5
campaigns, including the silver star, the bronze star with 2 oak
clusters, and the purple heart with 3 oak clusters, among many more.Vernon Bobo was inducted into the Army on January 26, 1943, on his 20th birthday. His friend, Gene Brockman, who lived just down the road from him in Trezevant, was inducted the same day. "We went in together and we stayed together," Bobo says. He left his young sweetheart, Jewell Arrington, behind in Trezevant. When he was able to come home on furlough, the couple married on August 30.
Jewell says they didn't mean to get married so soon: "I had my ring, I was just a kid but I did have my ring. We didn't mean to get married until he got out of the service, but he came home on furlough and we got married."
After about six months of training, the young men were transferred to the 83rd Infantry Division. In time, they were lucky enough to be stationed at Fort Breckenridge, Kentucky and Bobo could go home every other weekend.
By the time the 83rd, along with Bobo and Brockman, set out for England on the 19th of April, 1944, Jewell was expecting their first child. In his pocket, Bobo carried a small photo of his young wife, a picture that today is displayed along with his medals and other mementos of the war. "I carried that in my pocket all through the war," Bobo says strongly, as if the photo had somehow given him strength to endure.
From England, the troops set sail for Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, arriving on June 18, 1944, just days after D-Day's June 6th invasion had filled the same beach with vast numbers of American, British and Canadian troops.
For five days, however, the men of the 83rd remained aboard the Liberty ships that rocked stormy waters off the coast of Normandy, bashing docks set up to receive the troops. Finally LCI and LST landing crafts were able to run alongside the ships and receive the passengers and transport them to land.
The secured beach nonetheless held its dangers, with German artillery able to deliver shells miles from their points of origin. Wounded soldiers from the front were carried in stretchers along the beach for transport to hospitals in England. The men of the 83rd had trained for about sixteen months for the trials they were about to encounter, but neither their training nor the scene that lay before them on the beach of Omaha could prepare them for what would soon ensue.
The Division moved toward Carentan where on the 26th day of June it relieved the 502nd Parachute Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division in what some have said "at that time, was probably the toughest in the American sector of the Normandy front."
Bobo was an assistant squad-leader in his platoon, which fell under Company I of the Third Battalion in the 331st Regiment of the 83rd Division.
Ironically, it was Independence Day - the 4th of July, 1944 - that the 83rd commenced their first offensive in an effort to gain the high ground near Periers, France. Despite the massive artillery preparation that preceded the advance of the 2nd and 3rd battalions, enemy resistance and counterattacks proved overwhelming. It was in this battle that Bobo lost his friend, Gene Brockman. In fact, losses among both enlisted men and officers were severe, with even the regimental commander, Col. Martin Barndollar, killed by sniper fire at Company I's frontline.
The men were forced to fight among endless hedgerows and in marshes, encountering the enemy at every turn. They grew to fear the "88", the fierce German tanks that appeared out of nowhere. As the more highly trained American soldiers died, they were replaced with fresh troops who had received little more than basic training - soldiers who just weeks ago were students, farmers, factory and office workers. These men were pitted against hardened German SS and Panzer divisions - elite German infantry and tank teams that traveled seemingly unmolested along sunken roads while surrounding fields were riddled with mines and other snares. The American troops were assailed in a constant struggle - day and night - against forces that seemed invincible.
In eight days, Bobo rose from assistant squad leader to platoon sergeant as men before him lost their lives in battle, although he protested greatly against the assignment to his commander, Captain Marion B. Cooper, who at a reunion many years later joked, "It didn't do you any good, did it?"
Other changes were taking place in rapid succession as the division faltered, in eight days going through five or six regimental commanders, two of whom were killed, two who were relieved of duty and at least one who was replaced, the most recent with Col. Robert H. York. The Division had also lost three battalion commanders and at least five or six company commanders. 800 enlisted men and 75 officers had been killed. The few gains made were overshadowed by unparalleled misery. Said Leo Schneider, a soldier of the 83rd, in memorial of their leader, "How can I explain to anybody who does not know the horror, the fear, the weariness, and distress of infantry combat, just how we, the troops, felt - how depressed and low we were - at the time Colonel York took command."
Vernon Bobo knows full well what Col. York's assignment as regimental commander meant to him and other troops who survived the war, his fingers fairly caressing the pages of a publication in which he took pen in hand to mark special paragraphs relating to the commander.
No sooner had the Colonel assumed command than he was ordered to attack. In a display of great wisdom, York persuaded the division commander to postpone any offensive action by the 331st. He then ordered rest for his people while he visited every company and reorganized each combat element within the division.
The following day, the 2nd and 3rd battalions attacked with the Taute River as their objective. In the fierce fighting that took place that day, Bobo was wounded when shrapnel found its mark in his leg. Before he was wounded, however, he found the courage that comes to certain men in desperate times, courage that one wonders whether he possesses until that instant thet action is required. According to documentation in Bobo's possession, he was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action on 13 July, 1944 near Chateau d'Auxais, France. The narrative of his actions reads as follows: "When his company was subjected to intense machine gun fire from an enemy tank placed in the line of its advance, Private Bobo, completely disregarding his own safety, took an anti-tank launcher and an extra round of ammunition and advanced toward the tank line along a hedgerow which was being regularly sprayed with machine gun fire and artillery bursts. Reaching an effective range, he stood up in direct view of the tank and fired. As it began to turn he again fired, secured a direct hit on the turret and knocked it out."
For Bobo, the worst was yet to come. Again and again, American forces had tried to cross a small river, the crossing made more difficult by mile-wide swampy conditions on either side of the waterway, caused by the German's flooding of the area. Engineers had constructed a Bailey Bridge (a truss bridge connected manually by connecting panels end to end) with demolition charges strategically placed in case it was necessary to blow up the bridge to prevent aiding the enemy.
The Germans turned the tables, however, setting the charges off before American troops could cross. Finally, on the 19th day of July, after daytime advances by other groups had been repulsed, the 3rd battalion crossed the river in the dark of night, catching the German troops unawares.
Says Bobo, "We were overrun on the LaVerde Peninsula and my platoon had 33 killed." Of 35 men in his platoon, only he and another soldier survived, both wounded in the fray.
By the end of July, the battle-weary troops had succeeded in their efforts and, after 23 days of non-stop combat through days darkened by smoke, dust and dread and nights illuminated by artillery fire and absolute terror, the troops were allowed to rest.
After only a day or two, the soldiers of the 83rd moved into Brittany where, in August, the supposedly invincible Citadel of St. Malo was breached and the Nazi commander, Colonel Von Aulock, forced to surrender. Meanwhile, other components of the 83rd advanced upon Dinard, St. Lunaire, and St. Brieue, each falling under the might of the American soldiers' assaults. The Isle de Cezembre proved more difficult an objective, holding out despite intense air and artillery bombardment until the 3rd of September. The soldiers of the 83rd captured over 13,000 Germans during the offensive at Brittany.
For the next month, the 83rd assumed responsibility of the protection of the entire right flank of the Third U.S. Army as it proceeded across France. In the midst of this period of time, on September 17, 1944, approximately 20,000 Nazi troops surrendered to the 83rd as they attempted to return to Germany, aware of the hopelessness of continued struggle.
It was at Wormeldange in Luxembourg that Bobo was again wounded on November 19th, 1944.
Less than a month later, on December 12th he was again wounded during an offensive against Nazi forces in Gey, Germany, located at the edge of the Hurtgen Forest. The town was superbly reinforced with each house acting as a well-supplied fortress. The American forces, in contrast, fought without water to quench their thirst and many without food, still emerging victorious after five days of fighting, on the 10th of December.
After the German assault in the Ardennes began on December 16th, creating the huge bulge in the Allied lines that initiated the Battle of the Bulge, Bobo and other wounded soldiers were sorely needed in their units. Bobo was sent back to his platoon from his wheelchair.
In a rude twist of fate, soldiers contemplating a peaceful Christmas day were advised they would be moving out the following day. They fought through the bitter cold German winter, with temperatures at night falling as low as 27 below zero. Where formerly trench foot was a common fear because of marshy terrain, frostbite became a major threat to the health of the soldiers.
The battle raged for ten days and nights, the troops gaining little in the way of rest or rations, yet again their efforts proved fruitful as they did again and again as the war wound down through battles in the Rhineland and Central Europe.
In all, Bobo fought in five major battles with the 83rd - Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge), Rhineland and Central Europe. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with 2 oak leaf clusters, the Purple Heart with 3 oak leaf clusters, the European Theatre of Operations Medal with five battle stars, the Victory Medal, Good Conduct Medal, Combat Infantry Badge, American Defense Medal and the American Campaign Medal.
He came back to the States from Holland on March 25, 1945 on what was to be a 45-day furlough. It was the 5th of May before he touched American soil again and was able for the first time to see his baby girl, Sandra, who was 11 months old.
During his furlough, the Army began using the point system to determine which soldiers could go home soonest. Anyone who had 85 points was eligible for discharge. With over 120 points, Bobo was discharged on the 26th of June, after the European struggle had ended.
The Bobos continued living in Trezevant after his discharge, with Vernon farming while Jewell worked at the Henry I. Siegel plant in Trezevant, where she was employed for 27 years. During the next ten years, the couple added two more children to their family: Danny and Cathy.
In 1955, the couple expanded their dairy farming operation when they moved to McLemoresville, where their fourth child, Susan, was born.
After 19 years, Vernon slowed down his formal farming career while "hobby farming" with his son, Danny. The pair grew alfalfa hay and raised catfish while Danny also participated in hog farming.
During his hobby-farming years, Bobo was employed for 17 years as a night watchman at H.I.S. "I'd work all night, get off at 7 (o'clock) and sleep till noon, then I'd get up and work for myself," he says. Jewell worked all-told for 40 years in different occupations.
Since moving back to Trezevant, the Bobos have accented their yard with an amazing array of beautiful flowering plans and greenery that would rival that found in any botanical gardens.
They love to travel, having visited every state in the union plus 17 foreign countries over four continents. They drove to Alaska in 1992, a trip that took nine days one way.
They began attending the 83rd Division reunions in 1962, the most recent one being held in Jackson, Tennessee just three weeks ago. Eight members of the unit were able to attend the event, representing the states of Connecticut, Oklahoma, Ohio, Georgia, two from Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Tennessee.
In 1973, Vernon and Jewell joined other members of the 83rd in a reunion in which five busloads of former soldiers and their family members traveled from Omaha Beach to Germany, where they were hailed with great fanfare by the German populace.
Nowadays, Bobo realizes that war is glorious only in its end and not in it means: "Now, of course, I've got older and I know that we don't have no glory in thinking about the Germans that lost their lives because they were out there just like we were; most of them were out there just because they had to be. After, all, they had mothers and wives just like we did."
Few wars have been fought for so noble a cause, however, as to free the world, a continent, a country, or a town of an evil so corrupt as that perpetuated by the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, or at so great a cost.
It is to men like Vernon Bobo that we owe a great measure of respect and pride in a hard job, well done. For, as Col. Robert H. York said: "Few, if any, American forces have been called upon to make greater efforts and greater sacrifices than did this Combat Team in the hedgerows of Normandy or during the bitter Battle of the Bulge."