Corporal Wac

A nephew's letter, and a 30-year-ago trip

In a recent Substack, I noted how one of my interviews helped a nephew learn about the action in which his uncle’s B-24 was shot down during World War 2. This isn’t an everyday occurrence, but it has happened a number of times since I first interviewed a veteran of my father’s tank battalion in 1987. While I was looking through some old blog posts I came across this email I received on March 15, 2018, from Earl Battey, the nephew of T-4 Wes Harrell. Harrell was a tank driver in the second platoon of C Company, 712th Tank Battalion, during the March 16, 1945 battle of Pfaffenheck.

I recently became aware that you have written a few books on the 712^th Tank Battalion.  I just received The Armored Fist* today and have the 2^nd edition of Tanks for the Memories coming as well.  My Uncle is William Wesley “Wes” Harrell whom I know you have written about in these books and maybe others.  He served in Company C of the 712^th from Normandy thru Germany.  He was a Sherman tank driver and lost two tanks in battle that I know of that you wrote about.  He never spoke about his service.  I only learned about it shortly before his death back in 2003. 

I am putting together a shadow box for future generations of my family to remember him as both of his sons (my cousins) have already passed – neither of them ever had children.  His wife (my father’s sister, Laverne) is now in a nursing home in Hobbs, NM and probably will not be with us much longer.  I want to finish the shadow box so she can see it.  It will have the flag from his military funeral as well as the medals he was awarded, photos, his dog tags, T/4 patches, a certificate from the 712^th Tank Battalion Association, etc. …

  I wish I had spoken to Uncle Wes more about his service but like so many it just wasn’t something that he spoke of.  My childhood was spent reading military history books of those that served in WW2.  I was in my late 30’s before I even knew that I had a hero in my own family.  I know Uncle Wes never would have considered himself a hero, but he always will be one of mine.

   "I look forward to hearing back from you -- and thank you for both your father's service and your efforts on behalf of these supremely brave men."

The 712th Tank Battalion had four companies — A, B, C and D — each with three platoons; and each platoon had five tanks. T-4 Harrell was originally a driver in C Company’s first platoon when, on July 10, 1944, the platoon got orders to move out and his tank wouldn’t go into reverse. His gunner at that time was Don Knapp, who later would take the snapshot at the top of this post; and his tank commander was Sergeant William Montoya. Although Harrell, Knapp, and Jake Driskill, the mechanic who repaired the transmission, confirmed that the tank wouldn’t go into reverse, Lieutenant Jim Flowers always believed Montoya had chickened out of the assignment, on which all four tanks knocked out with three of them going up in flames and nine of the 20 crew members killed.

After the battle for Hill 122, Knapp and Harrell were transferred to the second platoon.

“They said to me, ‘You are now in the second platoon, as a tank commander.’” Knapp said. “I said, ‘I don’t know how to be a tank commander.’ But when Jack Sheppard (the company commander) told you something, you did it. And he told me I would have Harrell for my driver, and he hadn’t had much driving experience, but he had some.

I remember if we were in combat up against a hedgerow and it was quiet, he was buttoned up and he'd turn the little light on and he'd be reading his Bible and not bothering anybody. He never was one of these born again Christians or anything, just a nice country boy, a good man. And like I say, he had to learn to drive in combat, and I remember, I guess you got the part where I christened him Corporal Wac? I was the one that gave him that name. Nothing to be proud of. At the time, we had access to coveralls which I liked, all one piece, and it enabled you to crawl around because sometimes if you had to crawl through the basket in the fighting compartment down into the driver’s compartment, and you didn't get caught on things. But I guess he liked the two-piece fatigues that were made more for infantry; they had baggy pockets on the side to keep things in, and in the process of getting out of the driver's compartment he sometimes got his pockets caught. And he was a little broad in the beam; he was just a heavyset, well-built young man, but I said, "Man, you've got a butt on you like a Wac." (The Woman’s Army Corps.) So the name stuck And he didn't mind, because he was that kind of a person. He resented nobody and he was his own man.

“And I remember one time, we were clearing out from some woods and he caught the 75 on a tree and he almost put the gun out of battery, and I went down and I guess I kind of stomped on his head, and that night I said, ‘Babe, I'm sorry, I just got mad at you.’ And he said, ‘Oh, that's all right. I shouldn't have done it, it's a dumb thing to do.’”

In once of those serendipitous occurrences, I interviewed Knapp at the 1994 battalion reunion in Covington, Kentucky, before hitting the road to do a series of interviews. Three days and two interviews later, I was in Hobbs, New Mexico, visiting Wes Harrell.

I asked if he remembered the time Knapp stepped on his head.

“Yeah, he stepped on it,” Harrell said. “I had my head out of the turret, and when he crawled out, why, he stepped on my head. I don’t remember whether he fell off or what, but I don’t think he did. I hollered at him and told him he stepped on my head.”

“And he said whenever there was a quiet moment, you would be down in the tank reading your Bible.”

“No, I never did,” Harrell said. “I didn’t have one of those in the tank. I might have been down there counting my cigarettes and stuff. We were supposed to get a pass to Paris. I had about 30 or 40 cartons of cigarettes in that tank, and I don’t know, ten or twelve cameras, and a bunch of watches and stuff. Man, they went up in flames when that tank burned up.”

The tank he’s referring to burned on March 16, 1945, a good seven months after he became Knapp’s driver in Normandy. Knapp was no longer his tank commander, having been relieved due to combat exhaustion only a short time before. His replacement, Sergeant Lloyd Heyward, would be killed in the March 16 battle.

As happened with a couple of tank drivers who made it through most or all of the battalion’s 11 months in combat without being wounded or injured seriously enough to be evacuated, Harrell sometimes mixed up dates and names and places; this was 50 years after the war, after all. But there are two documents that provide some important details.

One is a statement he made a few months after the battle in Pfaffenheck, I believe at the request of the family of Billy Wolfe, who burned to death in Harrell’s tank and whose remains were never recovered. The other is the citation for the Bronze Star Harrell was awarded for action on November 28, 1944, as the 90th Infantry Division was preparing to cross the Saar River.

This is his account of the action at Pfaffenheck:

"I, T-4 William W. Harrell, was driver of the No. 2 tank, second platoon, Company C, 712th Tank Battalion, when we entered the town of Pfaffenheck, Germany, on the morning of 16 March, 1945. Another platoon of tanks from the company was pinned down by antitank fire from the edge of the woods to the right of town, so we attempted to circle around to the left of the town to get positioned to knock out the gun.

As we passed an opening between two buildings, the tank was hit in the right sponson by an antitank gun and immediately burst into flames. I managed to get out safely and took cover behind a pile of dirt, when machine guns opened up on us.

I saw Pfc. Moy and Corporal Clingerman get out safely, and Sergeant Hayward got out and crawled a short ways away even though he was badly wounded in both legs. I didn't see Private Billy Wolfe get out of the tank.

The ammunition started to explode, so at the first opportunity I ran to cover in the nearest building. Later I borrowed a rifle from another tank and worked my way to the aid point, where I was joined by Pfc. Moy. During all this time I did not see Private Billy Wolfe.

And this is his Bronze Star citation:

William Harrell, T-5, 712th Tank Battalion, for heroic achievement on 28 November 1944 in the vicinity of Furweiler, Germany. During the battle in the town the tank driven by T-5 Harrell was immobilized and the tank commander wounded by enemy fire. Technician fifth grade Harrell without regard for his personal safety subjected himself to intense fire and evacuated the wounded man to a place of safety where medical aid could be administered. Returning with a replacement tank, he went forward with his platoon and aided in taking the objective. His heroic achievement was in accordance with military tradition. Entered military service from Oklahoma.

*The Armored Fist, published in England, is out of print. It is available on Kindle, but I would suggest the expanded Third Edition of Tanks for the Memories instead.