GENE BOKHAMMER ARMY LIFE 1944 -1946

GENE BOOKHAMMER'S ARMY LIFE 1944

Gene was drafted and entered active service January 11, 1944, and was shipped out to Camp Wheeler, close to Macon, Georgia. Gene was 25 years old and married. He had his 17 weeks of training and left the United States

July 9, 1944 for the European Theater of Operations, arriving there on

July 22. He was in France after the 1^st of August, having additional training

in Scotland and England. The time was two months after D-Day landing

and he was a replacement infantryman during the 'Battle of the Hedgerows”

in Normandy and was receiving $13.84 a month as a member of the second battalion of the 330^th Infantry Regiment of the 83rd Division, the “thunderbolt” division. His unit took defensive positions and later moved southwest to ' mop up'

German troops who were bypassed in the main invasion. In August the

83^rd was moved to Brittany Peninsiula and took the port's of St. Malo and

Dinard, and the Cezembre Island fortification. There Gene shook hands

with General Dwight Eisenhower. From there the 330^th went on to the

Lorie River, capturing the twenty thousand German troops of General

Botho Elster as the German front in France collapsed. His unit then took

a 300 mile trip to Luxembourg and Gene was made squad leader of a

machine gun squad. During 1944 summer it was wet, cold and foxhole

living uneasy. October foun his unit at ease during a brief respite. When

back in action, Genes unit was under German artillery fire from the dreaded

88 millimeter cannon. December 6, 1944, the 83^rd moved to Hurtgen Forest at the German Belgian border and near the Rhine River and took

over for the 4^th Infantry Division which had been decimated.

December 8, 1944, Gene was hit by shrapnel wounds to his back. He was out of action an evacuated to a collecting station, eventually arrived in

Paris at the 108^th Army Hospital to have the shapnel removed except for two very small pieces which remain today in his back. While here he was awarded his CIB. Weeks later he was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital in England.

A CIB, Combat Infantryman

Badge, meant you had been there, and had

automatically been awarded a Bronze Star Medal for bravery. Other

medals he wore were Good Conduct, European Theater Campaign, with

three stars, and WW II Victory medal.

For another year and half, Gene now a PFC was assigned to 756 Engineer

Supply Company in France, then later Germany. Now he became a

corporal, charged with loading 350 railroad cars with vehicle replacement

parts to be sent to Germany. Now he was a Tech Sergeant. He was in

charge of the set up of a saw mill like he had back home.

Gene left Germany the middle of February, 1946, discharged at Fort Dix,

but spent another 2 months at a Army Hospital at Farmington Massachusssets and by spring 1946 was home again.

He and Kitty Williams Bookhammer moved in to Lewes.

Abstract: Dick Carter's “ Gene Bookhammer and His World”. 2009.