[Interviewee: Edwin A. Gorsky (interviewed 21 November 2002); Interviewer: Carol Bohl; also present wife Vera Jean; Transcriptionist: Angie Mollenhour (transcribed January through March 2003); edited by Carol Bohl (April 2, 2003]

BOHL: Today is Nov. 21, 2002. We’re in Harrisonville, Missouri, in Pearson Hall at the

Information Center, and the veteran we’re interviewing today is Edwin Gorsky. His birthday is 4/15/[19]26, and his current address is 408 Linden Place, Raymore, Missouri. He served in the infantry in the 70^th Infantry Division, 276^th Infantry Regiment, Baker Company. And his highest rank was Staff Sergeant. My name is Carol Bohl, and I will be doing the interviewing. We’re gonna start with the first question, which is, "Were you drafted or did you enlist?"

GORSKY: Drafted…after I was drafted…I should say this. I’d volunteered for the Air Force, but they’d closed Aviation Cadets at that time; therefore, I had to wait til I was eighteen. I turned eighteen in April, graduated from high school in May, and there were thirteen of us kinda in the same boat. We all volunteered for the next draft call.

BOHL: So, what year was that?

GORSKY: That was in 1944.

BOHL: 1944…and where were you living at the time?

GORSKY: Wakeeney, Kansas.

BOHL: Which is a small town?

GORSKY: Yes, it’s about 18 thou…18 hundred.

BOHL: And what part of Kansas is it?

GORSKY: It’s northwest Kansas thirty miles straight west of Hays, Kansas.

BOHL: So, why did you want to be in the Air Force?

GORSKY: Well, ambitious, I guess. I always thought that was a good life to be in. You’d

have a dry bed when you got back off a flight and everything. (laughter)

BOHL: Do you recall…were you assigned to the infantry then?

GORSKY: Yes. I went right into the Army and that was it.

BOHL: And where did you receive your basic training?

GORSKY: At Camp Robertson in Little Rock, Arkansas.

BOHL: And do you remember any of your instructors or any significant experiences there?

GORSKY: No. The only thing I remember about it – we were supposed to have eighteen weeks of basic training and because of the Battle of the Bulge, why they ended our training after thirteen weeks.

BOHL: And sent you right over to…

GORSKY: We flew from Little Rock to Kansas City, Missouri. Took a Union Pacific train to

Wakeeney, stayed there three days and left on about the 23^rd of December.

BOHL: On the train?

GORSKY: No, left Wakeeney and then we took the train back to Kansas City, got on an

airplane and flew to New Jersey and boarded the USS Mount Vernon, about

12,500 troop ship. We didn’t wait for a convoy. We went straight to Marseilles,

France and took four and a half days (chuckles).

BOHL: Now were you still with any of your friends from Wakeeney at that time, or…

GORSKY: Oh yes, there were several of us, classmates. I don’t know whether you want me to name them or not. Clarence Mai, a very good friend of mine, who was severely wounded in the war. Still living. We still have a very good relationship. And Vernon Corwin, he was…is now deceased, and Pete Marcy? He’s also I believe deceased.

BOHL: Did you have any brothers that were in the war?

GORSKY: I have a younger brother that didn’t see any military action, but he was in Japan following the war for about three years.

BOHL: Now, when you got there, what was your assignment, what did you do?

GORSKY: Well, we, course pitched our pup tents out there and waited for shipment to Epinal Repo Depot where we were given the military garb which happened to be for  summer wear instead of winter wear even though snow was on the ground. I never saw a winter overcoat until I came back and went to the Raymore Historical Museum (chuckles), and I saw a winter overcoat. But the medics were very good.

They’d come up and give us two shots in each arm every month while we were up on the front line. And so it wasn’t that bad. After leaving Epinal I had a weapon that wouldn’t fire and so several other people… there was such a hurry because the Germans had broken through and they Bastogne of course was surrounded and they just wanted to get us up on the front line. We were sometime referred to as "cannon fodder" because we were replacements, and the way this works is that a company has 240 men. You have three squads and then the fourth squad is a heavy mortar and machine gun round. They would just keep sending up replacements. In one stretch well, that’s a little bit further down the list…but we finally got up on the front line. On the first time we got right on the front line would be about the first of January. My first actual combat fight and everything was the third of January 1945.

BOHL: So you were in the latter stages?

GORSKY: Oh yes. Yes. We were in there…the…they had broken through the Seigfreid line and we were…there was the Panzer unit about 150 yards away from ‘em. (chuckles)

BOHL: So, for your first combat assignment…can you describe that?

GORSKY: Yes, I certainly can.

BOHL: Okay.

GORSKY: There were 240 of us were sent out, we came to a cliff there outside of Oetigan, France. And as we came there, we noticed that there were two Panzer tanks, and they were firing point blank at us. Some of our replacements had never even seen an M1 rifle. They were mechanics in England or wherever they could get ‘em. And they were standing there firing an M1 rifle at ‘em. And there were forty-seven of us left out of 240. These weren’t all fatalities, they were casualties. And then next day why here came a new batch of replacements.

BOHL: Uh huh.

GORSKY: And two days later we went back into the fight.

BOHL: Uh huh. So you lost a lot that first day, just the very first day?

GORSKY: The very first day.

BOHL: But you yourself weren’t wounded?

GORSKY: No.

BOHL: But you saw many I’m sure, casualties?

GORSKY: Uh huh.

BOHL: So, after that experience, then what happened?

GORSKY: Well, it got rather hectic. We crossed the Saar River into the Seigfreid line and the engineers had made an eighteen inch wide path for us with their Bandilor torpedoes which is filled with nitro and get rid of all the foot mines. Because at this stage the Germans did not want necessarily to kill a soldier ‘cause that would only eliminate one. They’d like to blow a foot off and then two people would escort that person sothey’d take three people out of combat.

BOHL: Hum.

GORSKY: We lost a few there. And then we began a siege that for eighty-five days in the middle of winter, snow on the ground. We went eighty-five days, and it’s in our history book there…without a hot meal, without a change of clothing, without a shower and constantly within range of the enemy.

BOHL: And you never did have winter clothes, you say?

GORSKY: Never did…had suntans and a field jacket and the shots were wonderful I can truthfully say. Matter of fact, so many people did not take care of their feet because they really didn’t realize it was that cold from the shot. And they would get gangrene and toes would fall off or things of that sort. Myself, I had a spare pair of socks, and I would change regularly at least once a day, put the pair I took off up against my chest where the body heat would kinda (chuckles) warm ‘em up a little bit and then massage my feet and escaped without ever getting trenchfoot, which was really a deadly disease to the men on the front.

BOHL: So for eighty-five days…that’s over two months, what did you do everyday?

GORSKY: We were fighting for fifty feet or fifty yards. Artillery coming in. I was very fortunate. We were the point company, which means the nearest to the enemy, and we were allowed, my squad, (as Staff Sergeant, I had a squad of men), we volunteered for the point because we were close enough that the artillery from the enemy and the artillery from, uh friendly artillery wouldn’t zero in on us when we were at close quarters. Then we’d dig in a fox hole, and it was kinda unique. While we were in the fox hole, why you’d have two men in the fox hole, and you’d have on lookout two hour stretches. Well what we did, we’d take a live grenade and pull the pin and hold it in your hand and that kept you awake for two hours…(laughter). And then after your watch was over, we took the pin, put it back in the grenade and slept. (laughter)

BOHL: No…(laughter) That’s that’s interesting. So what broke the siege?

GORSKY: I think that the number one that ended the war as timely as it did was the fact that

the American and the British bombed the fuel supply depots. And eventually because of lack of fuel I think slowed down the course the Panzer division. And troops which we were up against at Forbach, France. They were fanatical, and they were excellent fighters. But after awhile even their numbers dwindled due to the fact that it was more or less, I’d say about from March the 15^th to May the 8^th when of course the war was ended. It was more mop up operation than anything. You’d…you’d go here, go there, check out things, take prisoners, maybe have a little bit of combat, you know at that time … but it was very spasmodic.

BOHL: Uh huh. So when did you actually get out of the war?

GORSKY: The end … when the war ended then we became the army of occupation. And I stayed there from May of [19]45 until the time that I returned in July the 8^th [1946]… so my total war experience was … I would say is from the first of January [19]45 to May the 8^th [1945].

BOHL: How far into Germany did you go?

GORSKY: We went up the Rhine, the river, and that’s … I didn’t get all the way to the Rhine because … and this is not being wounded, but I was hit with the 88 concussion from the German tanks. I bodily wasn’t hit, but the concussion blew me down a hill. And I was about ten days in the Marbourg Hospital before rationality came to reality. (laughs)

BOHL: You have any long lasting effects?

GORSKY: No. None whatever. No Purple Heart or anything because, actually, other than scratches on my face and things like that, I was not what you would consider wounded.

BOHL: You were never a prisoner of war?

GORSKY: No.

BOHL: No. So how did you stay in touch with your family while you were over there?

GORSKY: Writing letters (laughs) I tried to write to my girlfriend at that time that I had met earlier and my parents. I tried to get … because I knew that most of the letters wouldn’t get through. And as you’re sitting there in the fox hole when you don’t drink or smoke … which I didn’t, nothing else to do.

BOHL: Uh huh.

GORSKY: So every chance we got … sometimes in writing a letter it might be three or four  parts over two or three days before you’d mail it.

BOHL: Uh huh.

GORSKY: And then a lot of my V mail of course was destroyed quite often, jeep … mail jeep would get blown up going back and things of that sort.

BOHL: Did you meet any of your high commanders, did you see any of the famous generals or anything?

GORSKY: Oh yes, I marched in the first Memorial Day parade in Lieges, Belgium in 1945 to Omar Bradley. And his entire staff, Patton was there. Eisenhower was not, to my knowledge, I didn’t see. And I carried the Regimental colors. Everybody had to be six-foot-two or taller to be in that one regiment, and I happened to be six-three, so they took people from different outfits.

BOHL: And who was your commanding officer?

GORSKY: Well, our general was Herren, but my immediate [officer] is a Lieutenant Gustaffson from …he lives in, up in Michigan now. And my captain of our outfit was Captain Baber from Scotts Bluff, Nebraska.

BOHL: So were the people in your unit from all over the country?

GORSKY: Oh yes. We had Texans, we had South Carolinians, my B.A.R. man was from Texas, Spencer. And but I had two of the I’ll say courageous, but I think they were just a little bit off . They carried the ammunition for the semi-automatic weapon, and they loved it. They volunteered to go out and everything and they both survived.

BOHL: So, you’re … as a Staff Sergeant, what was your responsibility?

GORSKY: I had complete control of a squad of men, that was 14. And reported directly to my Lieutenant of Baker Company. And that was it. When I got an order; night patrol or whatever it happened to be, go out and get prisoners. That I had to make a selection of my squad as to how many I wanted to go with me of that sort.

BOHL: Did you feel like you had plenty of supplies?

GORSKY: We were very fortunate. I will say this, as to ammunition, I can’t ever remember that we were in need of ammunition. And as I said, I think I was very fortunate. Captain Baber and Lieutenant Gustaffson would never ask a soldier to do anything that they wouldn’t be the first ones to do it. They were great.

BOHL: That’s a good leader. What was the food like?

GORSKY: Well, we had K rations and we had, in the beginning, C rations. Are you familiar with that or not? Okay. And it was kind of a treat to get the K rations because it was at least a little bit different in your diet. I still like cheese, but I can’t understand why. But I still like cheese, and I like Spam. (Laughter) I guess I developed an appetite for it.

BOHL: What did you do for good luck? Did you have good luck routine?

GORSKY: No, I really didn’t. I had my faith in my family and God.

BOHL: Um huh. Prayed a lot.

GORSKY: Yes. I remember one prayer. When an artillery barrage was coming in I looked up and I said, "Dear Lord, if you let me survive, I will be so happy if I can see my  fortieth birthday. (Laughter)

BOHL: You remember that.

GORSKY: I remember that.

BOHL: That’s interesting. What did they do for entertainment? Did they send anybody over to entertain you?

GORSKY: No

BOHL: No. You didn’t have any.

GORSKY: We never had anybody.

BOHL: Okay.

GORSKY: The only entertainment we had, if you called it entertainment, was this. And I want  to give them credit because I think the true heroes of the war were our medics and our stretcher bearers. Because in the middle of an artillery barrage you’d see these people without any weapons at all, carrying the stretcher, going out and picking up the wounded in the middle of it, and we’re back here watching them. They were the bravest people.

BOHL: Hum. Did you ever have leave?

GORSKY: We had what we called "R&R". Sometimes after the eighty-five days why about once a month you might get a day; or if you’re lucky, two; that you could go back to what we called the rear company headquarters. And you could take a shower, and you didn’t have anything to do. You ate three meals and walked down the street. You couldn’t fraternize of course Of course I was at the age I didn’t know what fraternization meant. (Laughter)

BOHL: Do you remember any particularly humorous or unusual events?

GORSKY: Yes, I do.

BOHL: Okay.

GORSKY: I remember in April when we were mopping up the area, after all this time without a hot meal, I received an odor of cooked cabbage and potatoes. And I knew it was in enemy lines, and I had three boys, three young men that were replacements. It was their first patrol, the first time they came over from who knows. And I had to take "Fellows that’s enemy territory. But I know it’s like a bed and breakfast. It’s a three-story building, I can see it and it has ‘Hotel’ on the top two floors and a restaurant down in there and they’re cooking cabbage and potatoes. Now if you promise you won’t say a word, we’re going in there and we’re gonna have cabbage and potatoes." I spoke German, incidentally. And so we had our whole military garb. We had our bayonets, we had our grenades, and we walked in there and sat down. Four of us at the table. I ordered, served them. We ate and oh … it was the best meal we had in so long. I got up and paid ‘em in German marks and things, and then we went out. We got back to our lines. Pretty soon one of the three came up and says, "Sarge, if you’re going out on a patrol tomorrow, we’d like to volunteer." (Laughter)

BOHL: They thought that was normal?

GORSKY: No, they thought maybe they’d get another hot meal.

BOHL: Yeah! Well, how come you spoke German?

GORSKY: I was born in western Kansas in a very German community. My mother happened to be the first of the family that was born in the United States. They were from Germany, they went to Russia to teach ‘em how to grow winter wheat. But they kept their German citizenship. And then finally they came overseas, and I was baptized in the German Zion Lutheran Church and spoke German until grade school.

BOHL: Were they persecuted at all for that German heritage?

GORSKY: My parents, no. And in our area, no. It wasn’t like the Japanese internment and Everything, but I do understand that happened some places. But one thing I should Say. When I was sent overseas, I had to go before an interview board, and they said, "Do you have any first cousins that you are aware of that you might be fighting against? If so, you won’t be on the front lines." And to my knowledge, I didn’t have any.

BOHL: Hum. Interesting. So, did that help you when you were over there that you could speak German?

GORSKY: Oh, certainly! Certainly it was a tremendous help. Matter of fact, specially after the war, I’d have to go and meet with the Burgemeister, who was like our mayor. And I’d say, "We need ten billets." Okay? We’d just move the German families out, and we’d take up residence there and you had a lot of times…German came in handy. We’d so out sometimes, we’d get an order and I have more rods than cones in my eyes and I see better at night than I do in the day time. And I’d get a lot of night patrols where we’d sometimes go out and get three prisoners. And when I’d bring them back why then I’d have to question them and that was about it. (Laughs)

BOHL: Tell us about your nickname. You said you were called a "Babe."

GORSKY: Yeah. The company [division] during this time went as high as forty [thousand] in the military, and then they decided they need to have a babe constituent. And so they said, "We’re going to name twenty-five people who are the youngest in the entire division." And I was number seventeen. (Laughs)

BOHL: Out of how many did you tell me?

GORSKY: Out of twenty-five. But 40,000, that’s counting the replacements that came to fill up and everything like that. But they had an article in the paper about "The Babes." (chuckles) And you were talking about humorous, because I know one thing in here is on the reunion. My wife and I went to a reunion when I was 65 years old. And my wife was having a little trouble in the knees which since then of course she’s had both of them replaced. But we were sitting at a table with ten people, and there were 1,300 people there at the reunion. Okay? So, my wife said, "I think I need to go up and rest a little bit to our room." So we went up, and about an hour later we came down. There wasn’t anybody sitting at a table. And before we went up there, one of the persons was 89-years-old and had a cane. There was one that was in his eighties had a walker. And we came down, nobody was sitting there, and we looked out on the dance floor. Everybody was dancing!! They had the walker there and everything, and my wife and I sat there by ourselves and we didn’t get out on the dance floor! (Laughter) So that was one of the highlights of one reunion. (Laughter)

BOHL: That’s interesting. (Laughter) Okay, so when your service ended, where did you go?

GORSKY: From the service, I was discharged at Fort Sheridan. I came back after the division had already returned home. I had some special duty. And so I…down at Fort Sheridan, I got discharged there and immediately went home. But before I went home, I phoned Vera Jean, my wife, now and told her I was back. And the next, about the next week, she was in Casper, Wyoming at that time. Her father was working on an oil refinery project. And so, I caught the next available train which happened to be from Denver to Casper at this time. You still put, you probably have seen Dr. Zhivago? Okay, they had the stove there and the potatoes were boiling on top and everything? That’s the kind of train that they had from Denver to Casper. I got there in the early hours of the morning, and my wife is a late sleeper and I am an early riser. So I rang the doorbell at 5:30 in the morning and my wife had been primping for a whole week. That’s the first time she’d put her hair in curlers and she greeted me that way! (Laughs) And burst out crying. (Laughter)

BOHL: Did you go to school right away, or work, or what did you do?

GORSKY: Immediately I made use of the GI Bill, and it got me through a Bachelor of Arts degree four years, before it ran out. Then I went and got my graduate degree from the University of Kansas.

BOHL: So you did undergraduate and graduate at the University of Kansas?

GORSKY: Yes…I did undergraduate at Emporia State Teachers College and the College of Emporia which I graduated from for undergraduate. Then went to KU for graduate work.

BOHL: And so, what was your career?

GORSKY: Well, I immediately went into education In 1951 I started as a teacher and a coach. And I stayed in teaching and coaching in the secondary until 1964, I went into college administration. And that was in ’64, and I retired three years ago in 1999 after forty-eight years in education.

BOHL: Wow. That’s wonderful. We need those kind of people. I was a teacher, too.

GORSKY: Were you?

BOHL: For about twenty years.

GORSKY: Oh, that’s wonderful.

BOHL: Just took this job this year. I loved it.

GORSKY: I enjoyed every minute of it.

BOHL: Me, too. It says…let’s see…you talked about your reunions, anything else you’d like to say about any reunions you’ve gone to? Have you done that…

GORSKY: I went to two and I have to confess, I guess maybe it’s just me, but I did get rather depressed. Seeing the men when they were in their peak fighting, and the ones that weren’t there.

BOHL: Yeah. Yeah. Did you join a veteran’s organization?

GORSKY: Yes, I immediately became a life member of the VFW and a life member of the American Legion.

BOHL: Do you think the military influenced how you approached the rest of your life? How…what were the lasting effects?

GORSKY: It certainly had some impression because you put a higher value on life, I think, and the possibility of not having additional years.

BOHL: Uh hum.

GORSKY: It’s very hard to realize, walking down a road, a company of men, artillery coming in. And the person in front of you, and the person behind you are dead. And you haven’t got a scratch. So there’s a higher being that is a belief of many of us.

BOHL: Do you think that a lot of the people that came back needed some sort of counseling to get back into society? Was it hard to step back into society?

GORSKY: No, it wasn’t for me because I came from a small community, and my wife has always said that probably my survival…my early childhood had a lot to do with it because I always hunted, always fished. At the age of seven I’d walk out three miles to a creek and fish by myself. And I hunted when I was seven, eight years old. So I go pheasant hunting…haven’t the last two years, but I still enjoy it. The moment I get my shot gun in my hand and I walk through the field, I’m looking for a low spot in case firing would drop out…it still haunts me. Because that’s survival.

BOHL: Right.

GORSKY: Back at the military humorous story…I had a man by the name of Kaplan from Brooklyn, New York who came over from the Air Force in Britain. He came to me and he says, "Sarge, I’ve got a wife and six children at home. I’ve never seen an M1 rifle. I want to get back to ‘em. What advice do you have for me?" I said, "You see that tablespoon you have in your combat boot?"

He says, "Yes."

I said, "When the artillery comes down, you get as low as you can, don’t try to fire [your M1]. Story short, he became the best digger in my squad and survived and never had a scratch (Laughter)

BOHL: That’s interesting. Well, I have no more questions. Do you have anything you’d like to add that I haven’t covered? That you’d like to put on the record?

GORSKY: Yes, I’d like to put this on the record.

BOHL: Okay.

GORSKY: I am very disturbed today about…

BOHL: The story about the dog tags.

GORSKY: Yes, after being reminded here, I think one of the hardest things, of course, of any person, like a sergeant of a squad or company commander is the collection of the dog tags. In other words, you couldn’t stop when a person was a fatality. But it was your responsibility to get the dog tags. And sometimes you might have 35, 45 dog tags that you had to sit down and write a letter…

BOHL: Oh, you did, personally did?

GORSKY: Yes, personally wrote a letter, and I got a lot of returned mail from people and I was able to see a very few of the people. I happened to go through an area and I’d see ‘em. The other thing, as I said what’s bothering me today, is that on Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, this little town, Raymore, which when I moved there was 527 people and now it’s probably close to 14,000. But they said nobody had an interest. I go, and I’ve never missed a voting, and I see well we only had 25% of our veterans voting. If the people had gone through what every soldier had gone through, they would be voting and celebrating.

BOHL: I agree. What’s your opinion about the military today?

GORSKY: I think we have one of the, well, definitely the strongest in the world, and I have the utmost respect for them. One aspect, it’s a disgrace to have people protecting your country and yet the family living on food stamps. I think, if a person is willing to give his life for his country he ought to be paid a proportion that isn’t embarrassing to his family.

BOHL: Uh hum. Yeah. Well. Any others…

GORSKY: Oh, I could go on forever…

BOHL: Well, we have plenty of time. Now’s the time, if there’s anything you want to put down for people to, you know, be able to remember, or like you say that you think is significant. Now’s the time that we can put it down.

GORSKY: Well, I think one thing that…the misconception of the people sometimes of the military. If they had it, like when we were on R&R in back, sitting around talking and everything else. They weren’t saying, "Boy, that’s a good looking frauline," or they weren’t talking about that. They were talking what they missed at home, what they missed cooking, and things of that sort. But I think the people have a different concept of what the true American soldier was. Now, I agree, I wasn’t in the Air Force, and you see the glamorous movies of what they did when they were back; we didn’t…I never had leave in the United States. Of all my service, I had thirteen weeks in the United States. They talk about special service clubs and things like that, NCO clubs. I was never part of that, and maybe there was something there that went on, but I think sitting around a group of men. They were thinking, "How will I live the next day? How will the next week?" I think there’s a point there that we ought to remember these people.

BOHL: Uh hum. Do you think maybe Hollywood tends to glamorize and give the wrong impression? That’s where a lot of people get their ideas – from movies.

GORSKY: Uh, the story of GI Joe with Robert Mitchum and the Battle of the Bulge was the closest…and The Longest Day, those three probably gave some insight of the true life of the infantryman .But I don’t know. I’m just speaking of one branch of the service. But to me, it was important. And here I was, at my early age, and we believed everything. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt would say we had to do this, we believed that’s what had to be done. Now, there are a lot of wonderful eighteen- year-olds, and I do a lot of substitute teaching because I have a lifetime teaching certificate. And I see the eighteen-year-olds today, and there’s a wide range of differences. This group here, they don’t seem too concerned about what’s going to happen. Now, you want to trust the security of the United States to this group? And then you see these others that, I’d swear by, they’d be there…but that’s human nature.

BOHL: Uh hum. Any other…

GORSKY: Anything else?

BOHL: Any other stories?

GORSKY: Well…well, I don’t think that’s important. (Laughs) She’s [wife] asking me  there…at Nuremberg. We were at a camp and they…the reason I came later than the other. The people were at Brennershaven leaving, and I was detained, and at 2:30 in the morning, I entered a concentration camp. And they said, "Take a bunk, we’ll tell you what’s going to take place tomorrow." Got in there and I found out that the high ranking officials…they were taking two or four at a time to the Nuremberg Trials. And they needed somebody to take roll call, and there was about 400 prisoners there. And the man said, "I understand you speak German."

I said, "No, no, I don’t speak German."

He said, "Oh yes. We know. We know about your mother. We know about your father coming from Poland after he was wounded in the Russo-Japanese War."

I said, "What?"

He said, "You’ve gone through intelligence clearance."

I said, "Oh." He even knew my mother’s name, Amelia. And I said, "Okay." He said, "You have a choice. You can go back to Heidelberg, which we had been there, and take a refresher course, three weeks and come back. You’ll be an officer. And in six months you’ll get a promotion, but you’ll have to sign up for three years."

And I said, "Is there an alternative?"

He said, "Yes, you can stay here until we can find a replacement."

And I said, "Well, how long is that going to be?"

He said, "Well, it could be thirty days, it could be sixty days, it shouldn’t be over ninety days."

I think I’ll take the second choice. About fourteen months later, I was home. (Laughs)

BOHL: So you guarded the prisoners?

GORSKY: No, just took roll call. I had no guard duty or anything.

BOHL: At Nuremberg?

GORSKY: That’s right. [Allendorf Prisoner Camp, 20 miles from Nuremberg.]

BOHL: While they were on trial?

GROSKY: No, it was a concentration prison camp outside. And we had the whole company there and everything. And that’s…I mean it was just…it wasn’t anything big.

BOHL: Uh hum. Did you ever see any concentration camps?

GORSKY: I was in one. That one.

BOHL: But I mean, while, before they were liberated, or right when they were liberated?

GORSKY: No. We liberated a lot of the Polish displaced persons that were digging ditches for the Germans and everything, we came upon. The whole division eliminated a lot of those, but I never did, like Stalag Seventeen, I never did. No.

BOHL: Uh hum.

GORSKY: But it’s been an interesting time and I enjoy my quarterlies.

BOHL: Uh hum.

GORSKY: Do you have any questions?

BOHL: Well, I asked what I can think of and I appreciate of course what you went through. There’s no way anybody can experience it that’s not been there, but we all appreciate it.

GORSKY: Well, for my sake, I mean, I only saw a short time. Think of all those people that were in North Africa, Anzio, the Beach head, so they’re the true heroes. Okay.

BOHL: Well, there’s a lot of heroes.