The "Eight Ball" Who Earned the Distinguished Service Cross
Buried in my archive is an account of an action I never thought I'd find
I interview. I record. I transcribe. I forget. My class in eighth grade took typing, and in the 1990s I was a transcribing fool. When I interviewed a veteran of my father’s tank battalion, I didn’t begin with a plan or a set of questions. As I learned more about the battalion’s history, I knew some key points to cover. Were you at Dillingen? Were you in the horse cavalry? Were you affected by the Great Depression? What was your position in the tank? How was the food? Where did you sleep? Mostly basic stuff. I don’t have a military background and I glossed over what I realized too late was some important stuff: Which platoon were you in? To which regiment was your company attached? Sometimes that information comes out anyway in an interview and sometimes I can figure it out, but much of the time I can’t.
A few Substacks ago, I wrote about Pfc. Ted Davis, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. I was able to find and post his citation for the award, but it conflicted with the couple of thirdhand accounts I’d heard. As it turns out, a firsthand account was in my archives all along, and it both matches and diverges from elements of the citation, which I’ll delve into shortly.
In my defense, the account was around the 30th page of the single-spaced typed transcript, in the middle of side 2 of tape 2 of the interview (these were 90 minute cassettes). And what I have identified as tape 3 of the interview was actually an earlier interview which I didn’t transcribe in a q-and-a format but only typed the anecdotes, some of which I used in my book “Tanks for the Memories”
Interestingly, the reference to Davis began with Bob mentioning Colonel Charles Bryan. Bryan wrote one of the best memoirs about the war that I’ve read. At one of the 90th Division reunions, Colonel Bryan asked me to read a draft of his work, which he said he was writing for his grandchildren. I was blown away by it, but I didn’t see him at the next couple of reunions. Finally I visited him at his home in Johns Island, South Carolina, and did a brief interview, which I apparently haven’t transcribed. I remember two things from that interview, neither of which he said were in the book. One was that he met up with the Poles at the Falaise Gap, and they turned over one prisoner. When he asked why there weren’t more prisoners, he was told they ran out of ammunition. The other was during the battle of Dillingen, where his outfit looted a department store which had already been pretty well pillaged, and he found a pair of women’s purple bloomers, but what the heck, it was clean underwear, so he put them on. Soon the 90th Division was sent up into the Battle of the Bulge and he was in a position where he came close to being captured, and all he could think about was the Germans finding him wearing the purple bloomers. I later learned that Bryan had published 100 copies of the book, “Story of a Citizen Soldier,” and there might have been a second edition, but either way, it’s long out of print.
But back to Ted Davis. Bob Hagerty trained in the horse cavalry at Fort Riley, became a sergeant in the 712th Tank Battalion and received a battlefield commission. I’m pretty sure he led the third platoon of Company A near the end of the war, because Lieutenant Ed Forrest was his platoon leader when the battalion entered combat. Following is an excerpt from the interview in which he talks about Ted Davis. It begins with a discussion of decorations and a mention of Colonel Bryan, who I had not yet met.
Bob Hagerty: This Bryan, he struck me as somebody that I could admire. He wasn't much older than I, but he was just what I would think of as a really neat officer. He must have come in at the landing with the 90th and got in all his fighting in the early days, survived it by the grace of God, and yet, I think along the way he became a company commander. And by the time I’m meeting him, he’s a major, and he’s kind of the tactical officer for the battalion, which was run by a fellow named [Jacob] Bealke. Bryan and Bealke came in as a first rate team, and then, for whatever reason I don't know, it was necessary to have a new regimental commander, and Bealke I guess was the choice based on what he’d done with his battalion, so he moves up to be regimental commander and Charles Bryan moves up to be battalion commander and then he becomes a lieutenant colonel. And I saw a lot of him every day when we're getting together and saying what’s on tomorrow? Who’s the leading company, etcetera, etcetera, and you’d see Bryan, and Bryan was never far behind the front. He didn't think his job was to be leading, which it isn’t, but he wasn’t far from the front. And he always seems to gain knowledge about where they were supposed to go and how they were gonna get there, and what it would take to get there. He just had a sense of what to do. And not to use up men in a meat grinder. And the kind of guy you’d like to know better after you’re out. The circumstances don’t allow that. He did come over, though, sometime after the war ended; he spoke to Colonel Kedrovsky and I.
One thing that distinguished him, you can't help but notice a guy’s ribbons, that’s the only way you can honor the fellow for what he did out there, and you don’t get those things because you know somebody. So among the ribbons that Bryan had was the Distinguished Service Cross. In our entire battalion we received three, didn't we?
Aaron Elson: The book says two, but at the last reunion I think they counted four [three actually], including [Jim] Flowers who got one that the 90th put him up for, [Colonel George] Randolph got one, and I forget who the two others were, but I think there was one private was put up for, the infantry put him up for the Congressional Medal of Honor and Randolph said no way [it would have been Colonel Vladimir Kedrovsky by then, as Colonel Randolph was killed on Jan. 9, 1945, eight days before the action involving Davis]. I don't know if you ever heard this story, but Forrest Dixon said he was like the battalion’s Audie Murphy, except that the only reason he was in this position was there were I think three or four tanks in a mine field, so they abandoned the tank. He wouldn’t leave the tank. And the Germans came up; he was in the tank and he started with the machine gun, he held them at bay, he melted the barrel in one, went into another tank, apparently he was too chicken to leave in the first place.
Bob Hagerty: Is that right? Randolph knew that?
Aaron Elson: I think his name was Davis. So that was the third one, and I'm not sure who the fourth one was. I would love to get that story from somebody who actually saw or knew of it firsthand.
Bob Hagerty: Davis was his name?
Aaron Elson: Yes.
Bob Hagerty: He was an eight ball. It didn't happen quite the way Dixon tells it. Maybe because he wasn’t there. What Davis did to distinguish himself is he was a soldier with the wit ...
Aaron Elson: With the what?
Bob Hagerty: He had the wit to do what the situation made possible. I think whoever was his tank commander, I’ve forgotten now, whoever was his tank commander, I sent two of them out on a side road, this was in Oberwampach, and Morse [Johnson] and [Howard] Olsen [the other two A Company platoon leaders] I think were over here, and between their tanks and my tanks over here was this long, deep draw, a valley that just seemed to go on and on and on. And these crazy Germans were gonna try to prevent us interdicting the road net that was behind the valley. So to do that they were gonna come down this long draw with infantry and armor, and they're going to delay us. That I think was their plan, to keep that road net open because they were escaping out of the Bulge on that roadway. We couldn’t see that road net from where we were. But anyway, my five tanks, I guess I had five, I had three down here and Morse and Olsen were here, and two tanks up here which might have been the second section as they call it, and maybe the second section is down to one tank, but that tank had Davis in it as a crew member, and he was a loader on the gun. That was a job you could give him that he couldn't foul up too much. Like one time when we were in some kind of an action or something happened quickly, you know, and you say fire, and you fired, but then there was no second shot. What the hell are you guys doing? And you felt like Davis was asleep.
Aaron Elson: Asleep?
Bob Hagerty: Yes. We’d been quiet so long, but all of a sudden there was a target of opportunity and he fell asleep in his seat. And you could believe that of him, it wasn’t out of character. But anyway, I think that this tank had been the only one up this side road; he had a kind of another one banged up that he could get behind, and he could do some firing. But whatever happened when these Germans were coming, some fire hit Davis' tank, I don't know whether it was armor piercing or what, but whoever was the tank commander told them, bail out. And they did bail out except Davis. And he tried to load the gun on the one side, then crawl over and fire on the other side. And I guess after he did that a little while it became questionable that they were gonna get him if he stayed there, so by that time we were busy firing and Morse was firing and so many German tanks were being hit, they were on fire in this draw, and the German infantry was walking in between these tanks, and we were having a field day, we were spraying machine gun fire and throwing high explosive shells and then they're throwing all of this at Ted, and they're firing back at us. But while this was going on, we welcomed the crew that abandoned the tank; we told them to get out of the way, get behind something, and we go on shooting. And suddenly we hear a tank coming, and it comes down this winding path, and it was our tank. Here comes our tank, and the only person in it is Davis. So he fought off the Germans and rescued the tank as well. He certainly deserved recognition for that.
Aaron Elson: Why is it he wouldn't bail out when the rest of the crew bailed out?
Bob Hagerty: I don't think it speaks to the kind of guy he was. If he didn’t like an order then maybe he doesn’t execute it. And then again, it doesn't merit the Congressional medal, does it?
At first I thought Bob Hagerty had written Davis up for the citation, but then I realized there were some basic differences. Naturally, future historians or screenwriters will rely on the language of the citation. I was reminded of a letter from Lester O’Riley, who was briefly the A Company commander in the 712th and was the secretary or president of the battalion association when I was writing Tanks for the Memories, so I had sent him a draft. He said something in the letter which immediately came to mind. Here is the letter:
Dear Aaron,
I have read your draft manuscript several times since it arrived and each time I go through the stories I plan to write. Each time something happens and I later scrap my efforts. Hopefully, this will make the mail.
I'm beginning a draft of the next newsletter, or more accurately, I'm about to write from my notes what was lost this weekend in the word processor. Those things happen, particularly when you have grandchildren who are computer wise for playing games but don't understand what the “Save” means when it gets on the screen.
“Three things were necessary for an award for bravery. 1) the opportunity to do something beyond the normal call of duty, 2) somebody to see you do it and report your actions, 3) somebody at headquarters who could ‘write it up.’”
I have had many thoughts about these stories, and my mail brings me copies of several newsletters from other organizations; some of them have a corner for short stories of actions by members of WWII units. Some recount stories of events which were very much in disobedience of regulations and are much more appealing for that purpose. I remember a standard comment of the “Rainbow Division,” which sent out a six-man detail; two shooting, two looting and two painting them damned rainbows on everything. I remember in Dillingen, Germany, when we had crossed the Saar River and were fighting to hold our part of town, a couple of 90th Division men had set up their machine gun alongside a building at a place on the sidewalk where a grill covered the vent to basement windows. While one watched down the street, the other was typing a letter on a typewriter he had “borrowed” from the building.
The Army was full of characters like those pictured by Bill Mauldin’s “Willie & Joe.” I’m sure we all did our best to rebel against the system just enough to register our resentment.
All these stories make good reading, for they bring back to us so many incidents which were ridiculous enough to be good therapy for the tensions of war. Only when you’re bereft of a sense of humor and certainly when you can’t laugh at your mistakes, are you nearing the breaking point. And heroes are those who are just compelled by their obsessive nature to do the damned fool things they’d never do if they had time to consider the possible outcomes.
Speaking of “heroes” — every GI in WWII that served in the 712th had at some time an opportunity to do something which was a bit more than that required by “normal duty.” As we used to say, “That ain’t within my M.O.S. (job description).” This laughingly was our response to doing things that tankers aren't supposed to do.
Valorous action became so commonplace that we all knew that three things were necessary for an award for bravery. 1) the opportunity to do something beyond the normal call of duty, 2) somebody to see you do it and report your actions, 3) somebody at headquarters who could “write it up.” Sadly, the third thing was not always available. Often the second thing was lost when witnesses became casualties.
Some men were embarrassed by being given a citation for some action when they could point out others who had done more heroic things and had done them often. In the same vein of thought, it’s degrading to the system to be cited for bravery for an action which in your own opinion was far less dangerous and far less demanding of you personally than other actions which went unnoticed, unreported and unrewarded. So many of these things will never be told by the men because they personally feel that this would be a lot of unjustified bragging.
One of our recent losses used to get together with me at reunions and other times and we’d laugh about his guard duty in Normandy when a noise in front of his outpost raised thoughts of a German patrol, and he blasted a herd of grazing sheep. The evidence was there at daylight. The patrol was reported and went into the log book. He didn’t want to be remembered for that action. Neither did his company exec who reported the patrol. And that’s my war story.
Thanks for the manuscript,
Les
As best I can surmise, Lieutenant Hagerty reported Ted Davis’ action to the headquarters of the infantry regiment (likely the 358th) and an infantry officer wrote it up in language that would obscure such things as Davis refusing to bail out of the tank. Which is not in the least to diminish the heroism of a tanker who was otherwise considered an “eight ball.”