Various World War II Stories of Monroe County Men

Kindly submitted by Judy Baker Barklage.

16 Aug 1945 Monroe County Appeal and Paris Mercury

S 1/c Stanley BAKER of California, arrived Saturday for a few days visit with his mother, Mrs. Mary BAKER and other relatives here.

Four to Navy

Bill YAGER, Royal MILLER, James BARNEY, and Jimmy REEVES will leave Friday to begin training in the navy, reporting to St. Louis.

Cpl. Virgil GREENING, formerly of Stoutsville, a son of Mrs. Freda GREENING of Hannibal, is at home on a 34 day furlough before being reassigned for duty elsewhere. Cpl. GREENING enlisted 04 Nov 1942, and went to England in December, 1943 where he served as a ground crew member of the Ninth Air Force. He has been overseas 20 months, wears six battle stars and a presidential citation wreath and the Good Conduct medal. GREENING returned to the States on the SS India Victory, the same ship on which Gene Pryor KELLY of Paris returned, docking August 4.

30 Aug 1945 Monroe County Appeal and Paris Mercury

On the Iowa

Raymond Garold NESBIT, seaman, second class, USNR, of Monroe City, fought aboard the 45,000 ton battleship Iowa when she and other 3^rd Fleet battleships, cruisers and destroyers staged a daring midnight bombardment of industrial targets on a main Japanese Island, just 740 miles from Tokyo. Standing only a few miles offshore, the Iowa hurled more than 200 tons of flaming projectiles at war factories.

A few days before this crowning achievement in her wartime career, the Iowa’s guns had wrecked the port and industrial city of Muroran on Hokkaido, northernmost of Japan’s large islands.

Since she was launched nine months after Pearl Harbor, the big battleship has taken part in virtually all naval action in the island-to-island conquest of Jap-held Pacific territory. She was in on initial strikes at the Marshalls, air strikes at Truk, the Carolines, Marianas, Formosa. New Guinea, actions in the Philippines and at Okinawa.

Sgt. Glenwood MITTS, a paratrooper just back from Europe, is spending a furlough with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harvey MITTS, northwest of Paris. While on the German front Sgt. MITTS suffered severe burns on one hand when a German shell exploded a drum of gasoline near him. Otherwise, he cam through in fine shape, with 10 parachute jumps to his credit. At the end of his furlough he will go to Camp Mackall, North Carolina, for further orders.

1945 Monroe County Appeal

Saw Carloads of Dead at Dachau

Cpl. Craig HOLSHEISER, just back form Europe, now visiting in Paris and Holliday, saw 50 to 60 carloads of piled corpses at the German horror camp at Dachau, and was in the crematory where bodies of slave laborers were piled to the roof above the furnaces, ready for burning. The sight was indescribable and the stench of the heaped bodies one which will never be forgotten.

Cpl. HOLSHEISER was a member of a reconnaissance unit of the 20^th Armored Division of the Seventh Army. His outfit was one of those which captured Dachau and liberated the prisoners yet living in the camp. He has been overseas six months, in the army 30 months and will report back for duty on Sept. 8, at Jefferson Barracks. HOLSHEISER is wearing two combat stars, one for the Rhineland battle, one for Central Germany. After going into action in the Aachen area just after the battle of the Bulge, HOLSHEISER was with the oufits spearheading the drive through the Ruhr pocket, across Germany into the Bavarian Alps and on into Austria. He visited Hitler’s Bavarian hideout and Queen Elizabeth’s palace. Mrs. HOLSHEISER, who has been working in New York, is here with him.