Prewar Life and Postwar Careers

Entrance to Service

Stateside Soldier

Overseas to Europe

Hürtgen Forest

Aachen to Roer River

The Bulge and the Russians

Concentration Camp and Home

Closing Thoughts

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Harry George Paege, Junior was born in November 1921 in South Bend, Indiana. His grandmother died and his grandfather moved to town. They lived together then. He attended high school and played violin in the orchestra and trumpet in the marching band. He played at dances. A girl played piano and they played together at a German club. He got his own band together. His father and his father's brothers had a band and orchestra. He passed that on. Paege started playing violin at four years old and his grandfather made him a half-sized violin. He worked after school and in the evenings played in bands. His siblings played instruments too and they formed the Paege Trio. His uncle was their music teacher on Wednesday nights. He worked in a meat market at a grocery store. He ended up being a store manager for 38 years. He was fired after 38 years, and he sued them. The government took his case, and they formed a class action suit. It took three years, but he won the case. He then worked at a Nursing Home. His boss was Jewish and would have a rabbi bless the food he bought. Paege's wife worked as the man's accountant for years. He ran the maintenance department there for 20 years.

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Harry George Paege, Junior had his 21st birthday in the service. He was a bugler. He got a letter that said his mother had a baby. He never knew she was pregnant, and she was up in years. She did not know either. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Paege where he was when he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Paege got home from church and heard it on the radio. He did not even think about going to war. He went with his dad, who was in his 50s, to register for the draft. Then he went in one of the first calls on 20 October 1942. On 3 November 1942, he went to Toledo [Annotator's Note: Toledo, Ohio]. He then went to Camp Joseph T. Robinson [Annotator's Note: now Camp Robinson in North Little Rock, Arkansas] for basic [Annotator's Note: Army basic training]. He was transferred to Camp Fannin, Texas [Annotator's Note: in Tyler, Texas] and stayed there for a long time. He saw nine or ten cycles of men. He was helping officers teach classes. Playing the bugle kept him from being a sergeant. He then became a mail clerk and made Corporal T5 [Annotator's Note: US Army Technician Fifth Grade or T5; equivilent to a corporal; E-4]. He wanted to get in the ranks, and he wanted to go to college. He spent 38 months in the service and did not go to college. He saved 900 dollars while in the service. He went through all the courses they offered. Each badge would earn more pay and he wanted to do that. He got a Bronze Star [Annotator's Note: the Bronze Star Medal is the fourth-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy] and thinks he got it for the extra work he did. One night he was playing the bugle and he heard somebody coming. The camp commander came up. Paege saluted him with his bugle. The officer asked him if he knew how to salute. The commander had not understood how you salute holding a bugle and apologized. Paege was shaking and felt bad. About a week later, his First Sergeant called him into the office. He told Paege to report to the company commander. The commander asked him about a flyer hitting the Empire State Building in New York [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber crash, New York, New York, 28 July 1945]. [Annotator's Note: Paege gets emotional.] He asked him to play Taps [Annotator's Note: final call of the evening in the US military; played at funerals] at the military funeral. He did and it was a shaky deal.

Annotation

Harry George Paege, Junior was at Camp Fannin [Annotator's Note: in Tyler, Texas] for a long time. Soldiers in the states [Annotator's Note: United States] for so long had to go overseas. He went to New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York], but they were full. He and others were sent to the 66th Division [Annotator's Note: 66th Infantry Division] in Tuscaloosa, Alabama by train. He was there for ten or 12 days. He did maneuvers with them. He was made a scout. He won a lot of the war games for his captain. He stepped on a rattler [Annotator's Note: rattlesnake] once. Paege asked his captain why all the men kept leaving, but he stayed. The captain wanted him to stay with him and even had him fly in the observation plane directing artillery fire. Paege told him he wanted to overseas and the captain got mad. On Christmas Eve [Annotator's Note: December 1943], just before they got to the English Channel, a boat with all of those guys [Annotator's Note: the ones who had left without him] blew up and they all died. That would have happened to Paege. Paege used to know all the names of people and towns but has forgotten it all due to old age. He took German in school. He used it to talk to Russians once. He spoke to German prisoners he brought in once.

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Harry George Paege, Junior went overseas out of New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York, 1944]. It took eight days to cross. They zig-zagged [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] over. It took 11 days to come back, and they were double loaded. He went to England. They did not train but had to zero in their guns because they were covered in Cosmoline [Annotator's Note: name for petroleum-based corrosion inhibitors]. They hiked for exercise. They were there ten days. They boarded an ocean liner that had water over his ankles in it. He got diarrhea and it stayed with him. They went overnight and then got on LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank]. He was sick and weak. He got out in water up to his neck on Utah Beach [Annotator's Note: Utah Beach, Normandy, France, 7 September 1944]. He got to the top and had to go to the bathroom. They were yelling that he was going to get killed. He did not care at the time. The hill was steep. He was a replacement. There was shelling there. He does not recall the date. He was given a squad in the 104th Division, 415th Regiment, A Company [Annotator's Note: Company A, 1st Battalion, 415th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division]. They went into Belgium [Annotator's Note: 21 October 1944]. He was on guard one night and a buzz bomb [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] took out the hospital. He was disturbed by that. They were told as long as you hear the motor you are all right. When it stopped, it went into the hospital. He saw a lot of those bombs. He stood up next to one someplace he does not recall. They are big.

Annotation

Harry George Paege, Junior [Annotator's Note: and Company A, 1st Battalion, 415th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division] went into the Hurtgen Forest [Annotator's Note: Battle of Hürtgen Forest, 19 September 1944 to 10 February 1945, Hürtgen, Staatsforst, or state forest, Germany]. They had white ribbon from the post on the paths so they would not step on mines. The weather was terrible. They went to a farmhouse and got hay to put in their tents because they were sitting in water. He laid on his socks to dry them. He had dirty hankies. They could not get new ones. After Belgium, they went to Holland [Annotator's Note: 30 October 1944] and fought alongside French Canadians [Annotator's Note: Canadian First Army]. They lost a lot of men and got a lot of replacements. The executive officer wanted him to make money orders for five different kinds of money and take them to exchange to pay the guys. Paege did not want to do that job as it was the officer's job. He [Annotator's Note: the officer] was new and his name was Yocum [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. He had to get it to the guys before they got killed. Nobody helped him do that.

Annotation

Harry George Paege, Junior went to Aachen [Annotator's Note: Aachen, Germany, with Company A, 1st Battalion, 415th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division]. There, they get the kitchen unit to come up for the first time. Until then, they had only been eating rations and D-bar [Annotator's Note: Army Field Ration D; chocolate bar intended as snack food]. He only weighed 118 pounds and his pack weighed 113 pounds. His squad went in a house and were told to dig a sump to bury the food. A few minutes later, the house was shaking, and they thought they were going to be killed. When it was all over, the right side of the house was gone, and a jeep was on top of the roof. They did not have to dig that hole. Their own Air Force did that. From there they went to Stolberg [Annotator's Note: Stolberg, Germany] and Eschweiler [Annotator's Note: Eschweiler, Germany, November 1944]. They were at the Roer River [Annotator's Note: Roer River at Merken, Germany] around Thanksgiving [Annotator's Note: November 1944]. They were going to get the same dinner as in the States [Annotator's Note: United States]. The Germans were on the other side of the river. Two or three guys could go at a time to eat. Paege went to eat and before he finished, he was told to come back and see his First Sergeant. He heard a loud boom. The Germans had set up a railroad gun [Annotator's Note: Krupp K5 heavy railway gun]. He looked down and saw somebody laying on the ground. It was the lieutenant. It had blown his heel off. The lieutenant told him to leave and not help him. Paege ran and was near some steps and was blown up to the door. Somebody was shaking him and asking if he was okay. The middle bomb went right through a room. A guy was reading a book and was still frozen there. Paege did not get a scratch but lost hearing in one ear. The bomb that hit near him was a dud.

Annotation

Harry George Paege, Junior's Division [Annotator's Note: Paege was a member of Company A, 1st Battalion, 415th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division] set up a 90 mile front [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They did crossfire with machine guns every minute and a half day and night. The Germans had a wire across something that cut guy's head off at Cologne [Annotator's Note: Köln, Germany]. They took the town in half a day [Annotator's Note: 7 March 1945]. Paege had to guard a guy who was French Canadian who had stolen a watch and was court-martialed. He felt sorry for him. He was a good guy. The canal crossings were not easy. They crossed on pontoon bridges [Annotator's Note: over the Rhine River at Honnef, Germany, 21 to 22 March 1945]. That was quiet then and they had no problems. Towards the last, they [Annotator's Note: the Germans] had nothing left to fight with. His unit went 115 miles in one day once. He saw dead horses. They were out of gas [Annotator's Note: the Germans] and used anything they had. He was riding on tanks because they were going so fast. He met the Russians [Annotator's Note: at Pretzsch, Germany, 26 April 1945] and they were friendly and happy to see them. He felt good towards them. He was happy he was elected to go and talk to them. They did not do much after the Roer [Annotator's Note: Roer River, Germany].

Annotation

The place [Annotator's Note: Nordhausen sub-camp of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, Nordhausen, Germany, 11 April 1945] was wicked and terrible, and it stunk. Harry George Paege, Junior [Annotator's Note: with Company A, 1st Battalion, 415th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division] saw piles of bodies. They [Annotator's Note: the Germans] had driven over bodies to put more on the pile. The people inside were on straw beds. It was shameful. He did not get to talk to anyone there. They must have come in after someone else and they just went to look. Paege liberated a big warehouse. The people were so tickled that they had come with wagons and food. He and his buddy thought they could get court-martialed for doing it. Paege got a mess kit off a dead German. [Annotator's Note: Paege shows it to the interviewer.] After the war was over, they were slated to go to the CBI [Annotator's Note: the Chinese-Burma-India Theater] and got on box cars. They went back to California to San Luis Obispo for amphibious training. The war ended but he still needed points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to get out. He had 25 civilians and 25 new soldiers to help him with service records for the guys getting discharged. He was then sent on a detail to put wood by tents in California. His last stop was in San Pedro [Annotator's Note: San Pedro, California], and he got discharged. He was treated well. When his time was up, he got out. He had gone to work in the mail room before that. He worked so many hours on the mail, he would sleep in the kitchen. A captain woke him up once. A staff sergeant told the captain that Paege was the hardest working man in the Army. That sergeant would give him extra food.

Annotation

Harry George Paege, Junior did not think about staying in the Army. He wanted to go to college and be a lawyer. He got out and got married in 1946. The war helped a lot of people. It made him a better man and he thinks every young man should go in the service. He would work on the problem guys, and they got to be better guys. He had a lot of friends. He helped the officers. He knew all about the machine guns. He did better with a machine gun than he did with the rifle. He was nearsighted and had to get closer. He was careful with his gun. He did not want to kill his own guys. He did not keep up with guys after the war. One guy wrote him, but he never wrote him back. He feels guilty about it and is ashamed of himself. There were good guys. He was not sad in the Army. He made the best of it.

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