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By Al Zdon
Arnold Anderson was a funeral director in Montevideo when he got his notice from Uncle Sam in World War II.
After Army basic training, he was assigned to Ft. Warren in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where
he found himself in a group with seven other funeral directors. They all wondered what the U.S. Army had in store for them, and how the military would use their special talents.
The Army made them truck drivers.
A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Anderson soon was accepted into Officer's Candidate School and was commissioned. His first job was to be the only Army person on a Liberty ship carrying material
overseas. He was the security officer for the cargo.
On his first voyage, the Liberty ship was returning from England empty when it ran into a huge storm.
"They had put rock ballast between decks, and during
the storm, we heaved over and all the ballast shifted to the port side. We were without power and dead in the water on our side."
The crew did its best to shift the fuel and other materials to the other side. "We
had to shovel the ballast material uphill." The ship made it back to Boston with a 15 degree list.
"The only good thing was that all the regular food had been destroyed, and we could only eat what was in the
freezers. So we had bread, milk, ice cream and steak for the rest of the trip."
That wasn't Anderson's most dangerous voyage, though. On his third trip over, he was assigned to an old World War I ship carrying
10,000 tons of ammunition. "You didn't want to use a good ship for ammunition. That crew wasn't the greatest because they basically all were Shanghaied. Nobody volunteered for that ship. The captain stayed drunk
most of the time, and I didn't blame him."
In all, the ship broke down 17 times in its passage over, and spent much of its time either waiting for another convoy to come along or trying to catch up to a convoy
that had left it behind.
At one point, as they were lagging behind a convoy, the crew suddenly noticed an American destroyer heading for them at full steam. "We had the black ball flying from the mast indicating
we were loaded with explosives, and we were all standing there trying to wave him off."
The destroyer would not be deterred, though. It pulled alongside the ammo ship and began dropping depth charges, hoping to
destroy a German U-boat.
"That was a real nail-biting time."
Anderson applied for a transfer from the security business and was assigned to the 3609th Truck Company. He was in charge of 48 1½ ton Chevy trucks
and 48 three-ton trailers. He was back in trucking again.
Anderson joined the company in June 1944, and the next month the unit and its tractors and trailers were sent to Utah Beach in France. "We had our
trailers loaded on this floating barges they called a Rhino. We missed the tide and had to wait overnight before we could land.
"The German planes started to bomb us. That's an awful feeling trying to dig a hole
in a steel barge."
The company's first duties were to haul supplies from the beach to inland depots. Later the port at Cherbourg was opened, and supplies were hauled from there.
"In the early days we were
supplying Patton's Third Army. As we drove down the roads the French people were so happy to see us, they would cheer as we went by. We had to watch out so the drivers didn't get too much cognac."
Americans had
pretty good control of the skies, but now and then a German plane would get through. "We were strafed, but it was just that hit and run sort of stuff."
As the lines stretched further, Anderson's company shifted
from supplying the Third Army to the Ninth Army. As one point as his truck convoy approached an intersection, Anderson was confronted by no less a personage than Gen. George Patton himself.
"I was only wearing a
soft hat, and no necktie. The kind of work we were doing, we looked pretty ragged," Patton launched into the young officer for his lack of uniform discipline and threatened a court martial.
"I have to admit that
he might have intimidated me a little bit. He asked me where I was going, and I said we were delivering the gasoline to the First Army. He looked at me and said, 'I think you're going this way,' pointing in the
opposite direction.
"The Third Army got 40 semis of gas that day."
In late August, the Red Ball route was formed from the depots to the front lines, with one road for traffic going one way and another road set
up for the return trip.
The convoys were in constant demand, and it was difficult keeping the trucks in good running order. Part of the problem was solved when the company acquired a unit of 20 German POWs, some
of whom were excellent mechanics. "At first we guarded them well, but then we realized that they wouldn't go away even if we forced them."
Another part of the problem, getting parts, was alleviated by sending a
GI with a three-quarter ton truck loaded with helmets, weapons, and other items that could be traded for engines, truck parts, tires, and so forth.
At one point, a tractor had probably made its last trip. "We had
to make a midnight requisition. We brought the old tractor in, swapped hoods with a new one, and drove that one out."
As the armies advanced, so did the supply lines. At one point the drivers were going 16-20
hours per trip and fatigue was becoming a major factor.
When a driver could see that the truck ahead of him was weaving, he'd go up and give him a bump. And when the trucks couldn't make it up a steep grade,
another truck behind would help push him over the hill. Sometimes four or five trucks would be bumper to bumper, all pushing each other up the hill."
The drivers took a ten minute break every two hours, but often
the time was used to fix a flat tire or to shift the cargo from a truck that had broken down. "The guys worked together so well, it was just fabulous."
One trick the drivers had was to wire their C-rations to the
manifold of the truck for a hot meal when they stopped. "You had to remember to punch a hole in the can or it would explode."
That phase of the trucking ended on Nov. 9, 1944, after the unit had convoyed 74
consecutive days, stopping only for servicing the trucks and unloading. "When it was all over, I sat down and just cried. I'm sure it was just fatigue."
The truck company was then assigned 48 5-ton Internationals
with trailers and ended up in Belgium on the ABC route. Ships would be unloaded in Antwerp and the material was brought to Liege before going to the front. At point, the company was unloading a ship every day doing
12-hour round trips.
The operation was under constant threat from the German V-1 and V-2 rockets that were slamming into Antwerp regularly.
"We had many close calls. I was in a Quonset hut once when a rocket
hit a stand of trees nearby. All I remember is rolling on the floor with the doorknob still in my hand.
"The worst though was during the Battle of the Bulge when it was so foggy and you couldn't tell
where the rockets were going. It was a great psychological weapon. You could hear those pulse jets coming, and you thought every one of them was going to land in your hip pocket. A couple of my men cracked."
The
convoys carried every manner of military gear, but gasoline was the primary load. A convoy could take 200,000 gallons in five-gallon cans on one trip.
On one occasion, Anderson and his unit were loading up at an
ammo dump when they were attacked by a German plane. On its first run, it hit the tire on Anderson's truck. "I got my carbine out of the cab, and when he came back for a second run, I got one round off."
Afterwards, he and his men went back into the ammunition depot to put out the fires that had started. "I got some of my men Soldier's Medals for that. I suppose it was a pretty fool hardy thing to do."
In March,
1945, Patton had pushed across the Rhine on a pontoon bridge and was in great need of gasoline. Anderson's unit, though working out of Holland, was sent south with a load of fuel.
"You could see the whole Third
Army stacked up in fields. They were pretty happy to see us." Anderson said he would bring the gas forward as far as possible, including going over the pontoon bridge. Just to get through the city streets, was a
challenge, though, and at one point the trucks were stopped by a sharp turn through a centuries' old Roman archway.
In the end, the company was able to put cement blocks on one side of the roadway -- enough, to
tilt the trucks so they could edge through the archway. After that, it was the pontoon bridge.
"That's very strange driving. They had a lot of smoke to cover up what they were doing. When you drove on the bridge,
it was like you were in a hole all the time. The bridge would rise up before you and after you."
In the end, the unit was able to deliver the gasoline to Patton right at the front line.
After the end of the
war, Anderson was sent to Berlin to help run the transportation services there, and he was present when the Potsdam Conference was held. He was the transportation officer for the conference.
"President Truman
wanted to tour around Berlin and look it over, and so we arranged for a seven-passenger Cadillac for him to drive around in." The Cadillac would be part of a motorcade that would include trucks loaded with military
police. A convertible, driven by Anderson, would ride in front of the President with Secret Service and more MPs.
"As I was getting our convertible into position, I could hear voices behind me. Somebody was
saying, 'I'm not riding through Berlin in any G——n hearse.'" Anderson turned around to see it was the president.
Another convertible was arranged for, and the convoy toured Truman and his top officers around the
German capital.
"It was great, on a regular basis everyday, I saw the leaders of the world, political and military."
In the end, Anderson was given a personally signed photograph of the president.
Anderson, after the service, joined the National Guard and was called up during the Korean War. He later advanced to Brigadier General with five battalions under his command.
(This story originated both from the
World War II History Round Table at Ft. Snelling and through a later interview with Gen. Anderson.)
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