D. Clarke Evans Photographer

Chuck Harter

Corporal, U.S. Army
1943–1945

Pvt. Chuck Harter
Hollywood, CA, 1943

                    At the Battle of the Bulge, we were protecting a road going into a city. I had the bazooka. We were scared stiff. All of a sudden, we heard this creeping in the grass; it was getting closer and louder. Then we heard “moo”. It was a group of cattle.

I was in college at Alfred, New York when I was drafted. I used to hitchhike to college from Buffalo, where I’m from. My dad was the congressman for the 43rd District which was before Jack Kemp.

I was 18 when I entered the Army in January, 1943. We went to Fort Niagara where we got our clothes and met the group, and then by train to Aberdeen, Maryland for basic training. The fellow who was in charge of our group was 35 years old; we used to call him Gramps. Here I am 92. It makes you feel funny.

We went to Camp Young in California. We were in the desert to learn to work on tanks and other desert equipment. The group I was with was the 534th Ordnance. I also spent time at the base at Santa Anita Racetrack. They kept us in the stalls, and across from us was a group of musicians. Come to find out, it was Glenn Miller’s band. After about a year we were sent back on the train to Fort Dix. We were there quite a while before going overseas. We got on a sister ship to the Queen Mary, landed at Liverpool and went to a small town near Birmingham. We were free to go into town and the countryside. We used to watch them Spitfires come over. We did all the things the English did—have pints and shoot darts. This was January, 1944 right up until the invasion.

We didn’t get over to Normandy until July 6 or 7. We were repair and ordnance, and our job was to weld big metal pieces to the front of tanks, which would allow them to plow through the hedgerows. We built these because the Germans had their artillery zeroed in on road corners. When the tanks turned the corners, the Germans would open fire, causing a great deal of destruction. The idea was to build these so the tanks could go anywhere and the infantry could follow.

We had Eisenhower, then Bradley, then we ended up with Patton. We followed Patton across France and Germany. Because we were ordnance, they were pushing us with different troops, even the French Armored Division. All these groups were depending on us to keep them going. We were signed to Patton from July, 1944 to when the war ended in August, 1945. He really moved fast. We were with Patton at the Battle of the Bulge.

We all had to take part in protecting the area. One time the Germans broke through. They assigned us to different ditches, and I had one fellow on each side of me protecting a road going into a city. There was a machine gun nest on the other side of the road. It was night, pitch dark and silent. I had the bazooka. We were scared stiff. All of a sudden, we heard this creeping in the grass; it was getting closer and louder. Then we heard “moo”. It was a group of cattle.

We ended up in Worms, Germany on the Rhine River. We had to cross the Rhine on pontoon bridges with our tanks.  We got on the Autobahn doing 65 mph in tanks. The war ended when we were in Landsberg, Bavaria. From there they sent us back to Paris, then to Marseilles where we were billeted next to a group of Muslims. We could see how they put their robes on and took care of their sheep. We’d go to town and when we came back, we walked with them.

On the trip back home, the weather was so bad the ship was really rocking. I got out December 21, 1945. I got married in 1946. I met my wife in Buffalo at the soda fountain. She was working there. We were married 64 years. I was the district manager for a company in the Albany area. We used to service gumball machines. I also traveled for Planter’s Peanuts. We left there and came to Texas. {02-24-2016 San Antonio, TX}