A Young Man Goes to War - 1944

By the beginning of 1944, the United States participation in WWII had been underway for over two years.  The campaigns against the Japanese and Germans had resulted in heavy casualties especially among ground troops. As a result there was a strong need for infantry replacements.  The draft had been underway since mid 1941.     By the beginning of 1944 most of the eligible men between 19 and 35 had already been drafted.  Now they were scraping the “bottom of the barrel”, drafting 18 year olds and men over 35.  When the author was drafted at age 18 he looked very young for his age, he was still riding public transportation in Chicago for half fare, that is age 12 and under!  Even a German officer remarked after his capture that he looked very young to be fighting a war.

The author’s military career was almost like a Readers Digest version of the war.  In only 19 months he was drafted, trained as an infantry replacement, assigned to a division, sent to Europe, went into combat in Germany, was wounded, captured by the Germans, liberated and wounded again, recaptured, liberated again, hospitalized, assigned to a division that was to be trained for the invasion of Japan, and finally turned into a “fearless” military policeman!

The book gives a picture of what infantry training was like in 1944.  Of special interest is what life was like for German prisoners of war captured near the end of the war, both in the camps and on outside labor details.  The author also describes the raid staged by General Patton to free American officers including his son-in-law from a prisoner of war camp, Oflag. XIIIB, near the town of  Hammelburg Germany.

Arthur F. Adams Jr. is a retired electro-mechanical engineer, a graduate of the University of Illinois. Throughout his 40 years in the engineering field, he has written a number of technical reports and worked on engineering tasks in fields ranging from domestic refrigerators to nuclear weapons and space vehicles.  In retirement his principal hobby, along with writing, is restoring antique, vacuum tube radios from the 1920’s and 1930’s.  In this capacity he has written a number of articles for radio related magazines.  He has also given presentations on the history of radio, television and motion picture palaces.

Mr. Adams interest in writing about his military experiences was initiated by an interview he had, several years ago, with a young Austrian graduate student. She was doing a study of Americans who were imprisoned by the Germans in WWII for her doctorate thesis. This prompted him to gather together all of the clippings and notes collected by his parents, along with his memories of his military career and put them into this one book.

Mr. Adams now divides his time between Palo Alto and La Selva Beach, California.