The view from a veteran

This is a draft of the story to run in The Belton Journal's 4th of July guide.
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The view from a veteran
Jonathan Blundell
Editor- The Belton Journal

When you meet 1st Lt. Francis B. Young, Ret., you’re not likely to learn about Young’s time in the service right away. Like many veterans, Young is not boastful about the eight medals he was awarded, including his Silver Service Star and Bronze Star medals. He doesn’t brag about earning the rank of 1st Lieutenant. But he is proud of his service and the service of those who fought with him.
“I’m not big on medals or accolades,” Young said. “The only award I ever wanted was my combat badge. The others weren’t a big deal. I just got them for doing what I was told to do.”
Like many men his age, Young jumped at the chance to serve his country.
“I remember feeling a sense of duty at the time,” Young said. “I had always grown up around guns and weaponry and that was an attraction, but to be honest, the one-dollar a night pay was another big attraction. That was a lot back then.”
A month before graduating high school in 1937, Young made his way to the Army National Guard office where he met Major G.W. Palette, who talked Young and many of his friends into joining the Guard.
“Almost all of my buddies signed up,” Young said. “I think every member of our football team and baseball team must have signed up. Each one of them felt the duty to serve their country.”
While America was remaining officially neutral in the new European conflict, Young took a job at a local bank for extra money.
As a member of the reserves, Young was promoted to Staff Sergeant and began to make his way up the ranks.
Within several years, and as tensions mounted in Europe and Asia, he was enrolled in Officer Candidates School at Ft. Benning, Ga.
He graduated from OCS as 2nd Lieutenant and member of the 3rd Inf. Div., 7th Regiment, I Company. He shortly moved to an anti-tank company in California. As he graduated, Young saw his chances of missing the battlefront diminish.
“We were moved to Camp Pickett, Va. two months after OCS school and we knew we’d be heading overseas shortly,” Young said.
In October of 1942, Young and the rest of the 3rd ID, landed in North Africa, 50 miles north of Casablanca, in Rabat, Morocco. The troops came ashore quickly, leading Operation Torch which captured nearly half the country.
“We knew we were going to fight the French,” Young said. “But within two weeks we had defeated them and started fighting the French Legion. After conquering them, we thought the war was over and we’d get to go home. But this was only the beginning.”
Unfortunately for Young and the rest of his regiment, the German Army sank their transports at sea, shortly after their landing in North Africa. The USS Tasker H. Bliss, USS Hugh L. Scott and USS Edward Rutledge each sank off the cost of Fedhala, Morocco.
“We were left with nothing after the German’s sank our ships,” Young said. “All we had left was the clothes on our backs and anything we had brought a shore with us.”
While he was in North Africa, Young had the opportunity to meet Maj. Gen. George Patton, who had command of the 1st U.S. Armored Corps at the time.
“The officers were all called in to meet this new general,” Young said. “The first thing that we noticed was his unusually high pitched voice, his two shiny pistols and shiny boots. We didn’t think much of him at all. He was a no body as far as we were concerned. But we learned to respect him and he ended up liking him in the end. It was our blood and his guts the whole rest of the war.”
After battling the French in Morocco, the 3rd ID headed across northern Africa where they began fighting Erwin Rommel’s German troops.
“We were coming from the west and the British were coming from the east,” Young said. “Rommel then retreated to the south. I think he found he was no real match for both forces combined. At one point we had 150,000 German Prisoners of War captured and held behind barbed wire. With Rommel retreating, we were sure the war would be over and we’d get to go home, but we were wrong again.”
The 3rd ID then headed north to land on the southern coast of Sicily, in July 1943.
“We fought Germans and Italians all the way across Sicily,” Young said. “We captured Messina and again we were shocked by the number of POW’s. At one point I had 100 Italian soldiers surrender to me. I had no clue what to do. I just turned them over and they were shipped off somewhere else.”
As the troops marched across Sicily, the 3rd ID they conquered Messina and soon headed for the Italian mainland.
After Sicily and Messina, the 3rd ID landed at Salerno, Italy and began their attack across Italy.
Then, shortly after landing in Italy, they were ordered to hit the beaches of Anzio
On Jan. 22, 1944, the 3rd ID landed at Anzio, Italy and fought for four months against German counterattacks.
The 3rd ID landed approximately 6 kilometers from Anzio.
Although resistance had been expected, as seen at Salerno during 1943, the initial landings were essentially unopposed, with the exception of Luftwaffe strafing runs.
By midnight, 36,000 soldiers and 3,200 vehicles had landed on the beaches.
Thirteen Allied troops were killed, and 97 wounded; about 200 Germans had been taken as POWs.
The 1st Division penetrated 3 km inland, the Rangers captured Anzio’s port, the 509th PIB captured Nettuno, and the 3rd Division penetrated 5 km inland.
“We landed on Anzio with limited supplies and rations,” Young said. “We didn’t have much, but luckily there was little opposition to our landing, but then the Germans pulled troops from everywhere to Anzio to stop us.”
Kesselring, the German commander, was informed of the landings at 3 a.m., on January 22. At 5 a.m. he ordered the 4th Fallschirmjäger and replacement units of the Hermann Göring Division to defend the roads leading from Anzio to the Alban Hills.
He also requested that OKW send reinforcements from France, Yugoslavia, and Germany.
Later that morning he would order Generaloberst Eberhard von Mackensenand Gen. von Vietinghoff to send him additional reinforcements.
The German units in the immediate vicinity had in fact been dispatched to reinforce the Gustav Line only a few days earlier.
All available reserves from the southern front or on their way to it were rushed toward Anzio; these included the 3rd Panzer Grenadier and 71st Infantry Divisions, and the bulk of the Hermann Goering Panzer Division.
Kesselring initially considered that a successful defense could not be made if the Allies launched a major attack on the following days. However by the end of landing day the lack of aggressive action convinced him that a defense could be made.
Fourteenth Army, commanded by Gen. von Mackensen, assumed control of the defense on January 25.
Elements of eight German divisions were employed in the defense line around the beachhead, and five more divisions were on their way to the Anzio area.
Kesselring ordered an attack on the beachhead for January 28, though it was postponed to February 1.
Lucas initiated a 2-pronged attack on January 30. While one force cut Highway 7 at Cisterna before moving east into the Alban Hills, a second was to advance northeast up the Albano Road.
The 3rd ID was eventually pulled back into the mountains during the dead of winter. It was there that Young battled his second fight with frostbite.
“My feat were frozen,” Young said. “There was no doubt about it. We still only had the clothes on our backs and they weren’t doing much to keep us warm. I did my best to warm them up, but a medic told me not to rub them and to layer them with anything I had. It was hard to keep your feet warm when you were lying in a foxhole all day without much else to warm you but the sun.”
After defeating the Germans at Anzio, a call was made for officers to return home for further training.
Young was selected to return to the states and ended up at a small base in central Texas, Camp Hood.
“I had never heard of Camp Hood and had no idea where it was,” Young said. “But I remember it being miserable in the middle of the summer, with dirt roads and no A/C.”
Young had spent 17 months overseas and even Camp Hood was a nice change for the battle weary soldier.
“After just a few months I was placed in Infantry Replacement Training and headed to Camp Livingston, La.,” Young said. “The paperwork was in for me to be promoted to Captain, but the army put a freeze on promotions. I had been promoted to 1st Lieutenant overseas and they made me company commander at Camp Livingston.”
Young was then given command of 450 troops to train them all for combat.
“I had three weeks to train these soldiers,” Young said. “We worked and worked, and then at the end of the three weeks they moved us all to Fort Mead, Maryland.”
After a short stay in Maryland, Young was transferred back to Camp Hood, where he discovered a new law had been passed that would allow him to get out of the army.
“With the freeze on promotions, I was ready to get out,” Young said. “So I went to headquarters and met a 1st Lieutenant who would change my life.”
The 1st Lieutenant was Martha Bately, a dietician at the camp’s hospital.
“She got to be a great habit,” Young said. “Everything I asked her to do, she would do. We went to boxing matches, wrestling matches and we’d go to Austin to watch football. We had a blast with the little we had.”
In the fall of 1945, Young’s paperwork was finally completed and he left the army.
He was offered a scholarship to play football and baseball at Washington-Lee University and he headed back to Virginia for a semester of school.
“Washington-Lee wanted me to play football, so I took them up on their offer,” Young said. “But the day after I signed, Duke University also made an offer. I was really disappointed I didn’t wait another day.”
Young’s “favorite habit” followed him to Virginia and the two were married soon after.
The two remained faithfully married till Martha’s death in 1996.
After leaving university life, Young accepted a job at a furniture in Charlotte, NC and began a family of his own.
“As I look back on things -- I’m proud of what I accomplished,” Young said. “I’m still alive at 85. I escaped the war without being wounded -- even after five landings.”
As Young looks to the 4th of July, many feelings rush over him.
“The 4th of July means a lot to me,” Young said. “As a child, it was the day I knew I could spend all day fishing with my dad. He didn’t have to work and we’d go fishing all day long. And the 4th of July reminds me of the freedoms my buddies and I fought to protect.”
Young said that he’s bothered by the lack of respect veterans get today.
“I remember so many parades we were sick of them,” Young said about his return home. “But there was a different feeling about America, patriotism and our troops. I have people who want to shake my hand from time to time, when they find out I’m a veteran, but the overall respect is gone. WWII changed a lot of things and the soldiers didn’t go to war for anything less than patriotism. With 9/11 people don’t understand exactly what happened and everything that went on. And there’s not as much respect and admiration for our soldiers fighting overseas.”
But for Young, it was never about respect or honor for him or his buddies, it was about serving the country they loved.