Commentary: Springdale Man Recalls Experiences Of War, Return

"We were the luckiest company in the world," said Leonard "Quentin" Skelton of Springdale. "The enemy never put a scratch on us."

Skelton, 93, spoke recently of his service during World War II, as a member of the 12th Armored Division, 43rd Tank Battalion, Service Company, serving in Europe. His family shared oral histories given by Skelton and posted on the 12th Armored Division World War II Memorial Museum website. "The Hellcats were the fightingest division in the war, I think," Skelton said.

Skelton was born "on the top of a hill" in southern Washington County. His wife Marie -- to whom he was married April 17, 1943, in a Methodist parsonage, wearing his uniform while on leave -- was born on top of another. Skelton was working in California when he was drafted into the Army at age 21.

His first son James was born just days before he shipped out to Europe. Skelton didn't see the baby until he was 17 months old.

Skelton and his unit first trained at Fort Campbell, Ky. -- among the first soldiers assigned to the fort. They went on to Camp Barkeley in Abilene, Texas. He trained to be a "wrecker man," part of a tank recovery unit.

In a converted tank, Skelton and a five-man crew went in to repair the Shermans on the spot. Most of his time was spent behind the lines making minor repairs, but if help was needed, "they'd send us right up to the front," he said.

Skelton's tank had a boom and a winch instead of a gun, he explained. "You could put a cable on that turret of the tank, winch it around, and it would pick up one side of the tank off the ground. Then we'd throw a track on it."

Later, just after the fighting at Herrlisheim, France, Skelton transferred to a transportation company of the 44th Tank Battalion. He and a driver followed directly behind the armor in a truck, carrying gasoline and ammunition to resupply the tanks. "Sometimes, we were putting ammunition in the back, as they were shooting out of the front," he said.

Skelton's loaded truck hit a traffic jam crossing the Danube River, and he was left sitting on the bridge for an hour, waiting for the column to move. In addition to his explosive cargo, surrounding him on both sides of the bridge were bombs attached to the structure to blow it up.

During this time, a plane dove out of the clouds to bomb the bridge. "Normally, I would jump out of the truck into the ditch," Skelton said. "But, somehow, I knew I didn't have time, so I fell over in to the floor."

Skelton didn't know it at the time, but this was a close call for this soldier.

Weeks later, when turning his gas mask in at the end of the war, the officer declared the mask "no good," and stuck his fist through a hole shrapnel had penetrated.

"But there was no shrapnel in the truck," Skelton said. He figured the shrapnel came through the open right window of his truck, passed closely by his back while he was on the floor and out the left window. His mask was hanging in the window.

"But I didn't know it until the war was over," Skelton said. "When you don't know what's happening, it don't scare you too much."

The 12th Armored Division played a role in liberating concentration and prison camps in Germany and Austria. Skelton's unit followed orders to knock down the camp gates, disarm what few guards were there and move on to the next camp. "Any pictures you see of (the 12th Armored) at a camp like that, I'd been there and gone," he said.

"We didn't go into the camps," he continued. "We didn't have time to look around. We'd keep going to the next one. That's about all we did for a month."

Skelton also recalled the lines of German soldiers marching toward the Americans at the end of the war. "They were lined up in the road like ant trails as far as the eye could see," he said. "They didn't want to surrender to the Russians."

Skelton boarded a boat bound for the U.S. on Dec. 7, 1945, six months after the war ended. It pulled into the harbor at Newport News, Va., about 10 a.m. Christmas morning, he said. "We ate Christmas dinner at Fort Patrick Henry.

"We were the lucky ones, but the vets we left over there were the heroes," Skelton said.

Commentary on 09/11/2014

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