Anton Zemlock

            At eighty-three, my grandfather, World War II veteran, and former P.O.W. , Anton Zemlock, still resides on his farm in Mulberry, Kansas.  He and his wife, my grandmother Ruth, have lived on their farm, raising cattle and harvesting crops for over fifty years.  As he told of his experiences and the details of his capturing on his way to Bastogne, I was intrigued.  To know that he, like many others who were sent and gave their lives, faced death on a daily basis, and lived through many ordeals that would have broken other men, makes me very proud to be his granddaughter.

 

             [I am] Anton Zemlock, [I was] born to immigrant parents that came to this country 'bout 1912.  Well, I was born on April the twenty-second 1919, to Steve and Molly Goricek- Zemlock.  As a young boy, I went to school near to Franklin, Kansas.  Graduated from the eighth grade, and at the age of seventeen I went down to the deep mines durin' the Depression years.  I was helping the folks farm.  From there, I worked in a strip mine for awhile, and during [the] Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, while I was working on the Defense Plant, I got a telegram to report to the draft board.

            Well, they were hirin' all --any kind of--people they could get a hold of with any skill.  [Of] 'course I was sent to Charleston, Indiana as a pipe fitter, I was twenty years old.  I [had] worked there for little over a year when I received this telegram, an' I had to report to the draft board on Friday the thirteenth, 1942.  I was sent to the Fort Leavenworth.  That same day I was transported to Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training.  From basic training, after there at Fort Knox, we went to Camp Cook, California to form a new organization.  We got to California, and from there we had to go to desert maneuvers 'cause they was, at the time the United States and the Allies, were fightin' in Africa in the desert country an' [we] got our training in the desert. Then [we were] sent back to California for the winter.  In the early spring we [were] sent to the Tennessee maneuvers, and we had training there for more hot climate.  From there, in the fall, we went to Pine Camp, New York.  From Pine Camp, New York, we had to get winter training.  They sent us to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, an' was there for couple months, and from there I got two weeks [off], an' reported back to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin.  From there we were sent overseas to England.

            We landed in Glasgow, England and had more training there.  [The year was] forty-three, early forty-four.  From England, we stayed there and got more training there.  And that was September the ninth before we went across the channel.  We got 'cross the channel, landed on Omaha Beach which was loaded with wreckage of all kind, dead bodies still floatin' in the waters, and cartons of material, guns, ammunition, and all that stuff was floatin' there. 

            There we were.  Got there and was attacked by the German's aircraft.  They strafed us and tried to bomb us.  That was our first taste of what war was like.  I was in the 7-0-7 Tank Battalion.  I was [the] Command Tank Gunner, on the Command Tank of 7-0-7 Tank Battalion which is made up of line company which is A, B, C, and D tank outfit.  We [were] just like a small army.  We had our artillery, we had our mortar, platoon, machine gun, infantry, communication, radio, so we was attached to the 28th Infantry later on.  We were always under constant aircraft fire or bombing; and even these "buzz bombs," which was somethin' new for the Germans.  They used that for same as artillery--to bomb cities, towns, anything that they could [to] hold back the Allies.  This had been from Omaha Beach all the way into, on our route from Paris into Belgium, into Luxembourg.  That's where we were.  There in Luxembourg for quite awhile before we was used for reserve.  The Allies were making big head ways 'cross France and had liberated little towns, and Belgium an' Luxembourg--not all of 'em, but most of 'em that we claimed and held. 

            While I was there, in this 7-0-7 Tank Battalion, I was a gunner for the Battalion Commander.  On December the second, we went into combat in a little town called Vossenack, which was just [on the] outskirts of Schmidt dam, the city of Schmidt.  There, under heavy fire, we were brought up to test the Germans.  The 7-0-7 Tank Battalion was the same as a suicide squad--go up there an test the Germans how strong they were; and either destroy them, or neutralize them.  There we was, almost completely destroyed.  There I lost my first tank--took a direct hit under heavy fire.  We were able to get out of the tank, and pull back to an assembling point which was out of battle.  We were sent into this forest [with] the 28th Infantry, 9th Armoured Division.  We were all battle weak.  We were guarding a seventy-five mile front.  In this area, it was one of the coldest winters of the war in Belgium.  We was right there close to the Zegfried Line.  We spent our winter months in this forest--drawin' replacements, regrouping.  It was four feet of snow.  Five, ten below zero.  Raining.  Freezing.  Sleet.  Fog.  For weeks!  We couldn't get no air support form any of our Allies.  They were all grounded on account of bad weather.

            We were there when the Germans came up, and they started firin' on us.  They mopped us out in about ten minutes.  Our outfit was composed of about seventy-eight tanks, three command tanks--line company A, B, C, and D--D company was a light tank, the rest was all medium.  We had Infantry, one hundred and five field artillery mounted on half-tracks and mortar platoons-- three mortar platoons which was on half-tracks.

            When the Germans hit us that morning of the 15th, the Germans has three Penzer Divisions equipped with American equipment, American uniforms, American--English--speaking soldiers.  When they hit us, we didn't know who was who, and what was what.  We was shootin' at each other until we was complertey surrounded.  Later found out that they were not to stop for no skirmishes, no battles.  By-pass anything that put up any resistance.

            We were caught with the rear-end reserves.  Well, we battled with them which delayed their supplies for their front line soldiers of the German outfit.  Every hour that we delayed the Germans, it was effecting their time table.  Their time table was to hit Antwerp by Christmas--which they never got to it.  From that time that we were all disordered, orders come that every man, vehicle, was on their own.  Fight at all cost!  Regardless!  So, we was there, an' we run into a bunch of Germans.  We gve them a little short battle.  While we were there, we hit and run, hit an' run, hit an' run.  Constantly.  Until we got into Wilks, Luxembourg.  Just on the outskirts of Luxembourg we still had our tank; although we was in no group-- it was just everybody on his own.

            We run into a roadblock, and there was a line tanks, and jeeps full of soldiers.  We rounded this hill around Wilks--we was tryin' to head for Bastogne.  The jeep took a direct hit, and was set on fire, and the soldiers on it were all scattered--blown up.  We took a hard left to get out of the line-of-fire.  We took the next shot.  We lost out tank there.  Then we grabbed out guns, jumped out of the turret.  In the meantime, a wounded German soldier got in the tank.  I didn't know it at he time--'course we was under fire, an' we was firin'.  This German pulled his gun, and he shot me in there.  As he shot, I turned around an' seen who he was.  I grabbed his gun.  Took it and threw it out of the tank.  Well, he said he was wounded.  So, I said, "Well, what the hell you doin' shootin' the gun in here?  I ougth to kill you right here."  I let him go, he was wounded pretty bad; therefore we didn't have no more trouble with him.  When we were hit, we jumped out. We had D-Bar rations, an' we got their [Germans] guns.  [Now remember] from December the fifteenth we had our last meal, an' all we'd lived on was D-Bars.  And [we] never slept--fought day and night.  On the nineteenth of December we ran out of ammunition.  We threw our guns away.  We was goin' through timber tryin' to find our way out.

            Why, we was out of the tank two days and one night, and we just kept runnin'. We had no ammunition, no weapons or nothing.  Nothing to eat, [except] somethin' we'd found out in the field to eat, regardless of what it was; tree bark if nothing else, that's what we were eatin'.  Weeds, anything

            Every time there was a shot fired, we went in the opposite direction.  We kept on goin' around and around that way, an' before we knew it, we were surrounded by the German Infantry, which was composed of SS Troops.  Now SS Troops were from old men to kids--in other words, they was fallin' short of men.  As I said, it was four feet of snow, coldern'n the dickens, an' we hid in pine trees--which was easily tracked, just like a rabbit.  We went into them trees, an' stayed in there, an' all the Germans had to do was follow the tracks, and they picked us out one-by-one.

            They hollered "Honda ho, comrade". I had nothing to lose but my life right there, so I had to give up.  When they called for comarad to come out, well, naturally we come out from under them pine trees.  It wasn't hard for them to track us down, anyway. 

            There was fourteen of us, [and we were] lined up for interrogation.  We were searched. They took anything of value out of our pockets or anything that was hanging off [of our clothes].  They took our over-shoes, our gloves, our knitted cap, our over coats, an' they lined us up to be shot.  Fourteen of us, [and] some of the boys that was in the goup that they rounded up; well there was some of them [that were] from our own outfit, our company. So, here comes a German on a motorcycle, and he was a hollerin'.  He's the one that saved our life.  He made them to [put down] their weapons and not to shoot us.  And from then on, they said, "You're gonna march," so we went. 

            They got us together again, took us to an old building [where they] interrogated.  Different groups that was captured they brought all in there.  We wound up in the neighborhood of around 500 soldiers that was captured.  An' from there on they interrogated most of us.  They took us out to a big field.  Counted us out, and said that we was goin' to march to what they called a Stalag, which is a prison camp.  We marched a 110 mile without any food, no water.  All we had was snow to drink, along the way of this 110 miles where we marched to Koblentz, which was on the Alba River.

            We marched a hundred and ten miles without any[thing to] drink, eat, no clothes, as cold as it was.  In the mean time, they picked up that we were about five hundred from different areas that was all pulled together and on the road [to] march.  We marched there [during the] days, and we bed at night in farm homes, and we'd get into these [hay] barns and they'd bed us down.  Well, over there [ in Germany] they had a habit of [having] their hogs and cattle attached almost to the house--that's how their barns were made.  Well, me bein' familiar with cattle and hogs, and all of that, well the first thing I was looking for was potatoes.  The Germans use a lot of potatos, cooked potatoes, to fatten their hogs with. So, we went in there an' raided their barrels of potatoes and that's what we ate.  Nobody had anything else to eat, nobody got anything.  When they found out there was potatoes in there, everybody flocked in there and scraped the barrel dry.  Well, when I got all of the potatoes I wanted, I went to milk the cow. We drank that milk, and we were full, 'but sick.  We really got sick.  Boy we were sick!  And from then on we kept on marching, and every night around eleven o'clock they'd bed us down in these farms, like I said, that was the only place where we could get anything [to eat].  But in the meantime, during the day when we were on the road, we'd have to go to these little towns that were bombed and clean the streets so their military could go through it.  We didn't do much cleaning. [because] we were looking for places in the destroyed basements of the homes and buildings that were bombed looking for food.  We'd find canned food or fresh fruit like pears and apples that they had stored in there, and that's what we'd eat.  We would fill our pockets up, and that's what we'd have as we were going along the line.

            Well, in the meantime, if you didn't eat it right away, they stole it from ya [other prisoners].  There was a bunch of different nationalities.  We had Poles, Indians--India--Arabs, all kinds of different nationalities.  An' they just would rob you to death if they could.  They didn't care.  It was you [or them] that was gonna survive.  So, you had to fight for yourself.

            We got to this place where we was goin' to--the Elbe River on cologne.  From there, we took the ferry, an' we went across this ferry an' we marched again for a couple of days.  We went into the Stalag 2A.  There they give us paper that we could write home on.  It says that we were POW's.  I grabbed a hold of three different letters--they were just card folders, that's all they were-- an wrote three of them.  These letters that was sent out never did reach home; although they were sent.

            Form there, we were told that we were gonna hafta march again.  We marched again for a couple days, an' in the meantime they'd either gave us what they called rutabaga soup--which was nothin' but turnip greens boiled in hot water once a day.  Next day we got a potato.  Then, the third day we'd probably get a hot can of water, that was all.  All right.  From there, they said that we was gonna go, an' they were gonnna put us in railroad cars an' transport us to Berlin.  Close to Berlin, to a camp there.

            All right.  They put us in these boxcars for three weeks.  Locked in the boxcars, an' we was so tight in there we was practically standin' up to sleep.  No facilities of no kind.  No water.  No nothin' to eat.  On the second day they opened the military cars up, and they gave us a little bit of cottage cheese to each one of us.  Wouldn't let us get out to stretch our legs or anything.  We'd sleep on each other to keep warm in these open boxcars.  It was cold, an' I mean COLD!  We were put [on] a [siding] there on account of the bombers coming over, and they started bombing.  On this one particular train we was on, they hit the back end of our train.  They knocked out seven cars filled up with soldiers--how many got killed, how many hurt, we didn't know.  Anyway, they cut the cars off, an' they pulled us out of this area, an' we traveled only during the night on account they was afraid that these fighters was gonna spot these trains through the fog and they'd go ahead an' bomb us.

            Up there, up in the northern part [of Germany], we got into a little place [there was something] called [an] incinerary, human incinerary ovens.  They said they was going to give us a bath as the war was near ending, and they thought they were showing the Allies that they were really taking good care of the prisoners.  That was the first bath we had in four months.  We got to another Stalag, not a Stalag, but a German burned-out barracks.  But anyway, when we went in there to take a bath, there was about twenty-five to forty people [that] could go in there, and take a bath.  Of course at that time, I was observant, [and noticed that] all [of the] pipelines were inside of this building with that big oven in the center [that was] open, you [could] look down there and you'd see half bodies burned--bones, ashes and all [of] that, and we'd figured well, they were going to try to gas us.

            Of course, we had cold water to take a bath in ten below zero weather. Then, when we put our same clothes on, we had dead bugs and live [ones] an' everything else [in them].  Of course that bath didn't do us no good 'cause we never had nothing but cold water to take a bath with.  [Then] they chose a bunch of fellas that already had their baths to go and pull this wagon that the political prisoners loaded with human ashes to take out to fertilize the field, and put a bunch of rope [on it].  That's how we pulled this wagon. 

            Well, it was ten to fifteen men pullin', pushin' this wagon load of ashes  [In the meantime,] here comes a German with a horse, and he hooks this [same] wagon up to the horse and he goes and gets a load that is a load of bread [from] some little town close by that he brings it to us prisoners.  They took this bread and distributed it to ten men, to the loaf of bread.  So we had to slice it, ten slices, everybody got the equal share.  Later on they would give us, maybe [a] potato, [a] raw potato sometimes, sometimes a cooked one.

            We stayed in there for a few days then we were ordered to get out.  When we'd got out of that camp, we went less n' half a mile from there.  In this camp they had a railroad that they supplied these camps with.  On this railroad, while we was sittin' there on this hillside--which was four or five thousand of us--why we heard that they were gonna put the political prisoner in there.  We stayed there a whole day, an' they started bringin' these political prisoners in.  They were just starved to death.  No clothes, or anything.  In the meantime, they took all of our clothes, and gave us the striped clothes like the political prisoners wore--you wouldn't know an American soldier from a political prisoner, only thing he [soldier] was more healthy 'cause he [political prisoner] was starved to death.  They were nothin' but skin an' bones.  They were so weak that they'd bring 'em in pitcars, an' the mule was pulling these pit-cars--over here we call 'em pit-cars, but over there they was potato-carts.  See, the people in there, they was too weak to walk, an' hungry--no clothes--cold.  While these mules would pull these political prisoners who couldn't march, we'd march.  An' they took 'em into this camp.  Around this camp they had trenches--what they called aircraft bombing trenches, y'know.  Right there, why they put these political prisoners in there.  Here comes an old man with a wagon load of sawdust bread--which was whole grain, cracked grain, 'n' sawdust mixed together.  They throw 'em in these trenches, an' these political prisoners would dive in there tryin' to get that bread.  In the meantime, there was this German, there on the other end, he was shootin' 'em down with machine gun--which was seen by my own eyes.  Then, they put us on the march again. 

            They made us go to a town call Penzberg.  That was their ball bearing plant in Germany.  They made us go over there, an' they made [us] labor, clean the streets, an' carry ball bearing boxes out to a buncha trees, just outskirts of town.  While we was doin' that, why, here come two waves of B-26 Bombers--our own bombers, and bombed us!  We were bombed, an' a lot of 'em got killed, a lot of 'em got hurt.  Me and this other kid--a buddy of mine, was in our own outfit--well, we buddied up, see, an' we dove in these bomb craters hopin' that another one wouldn't fall in there with us.

            So, we dove in them, an' we got out of that wave of bombers.  They [the Germans] rounded us all up, and start makin' us work again.  They'd use bayonets or gun butts to force ya to do it; even if you was laggin', they wanted you to hurry up, see, they was forcin' you to do it.  In the meantime, another wave of B-26's came and bombed us again.  We were fortunate we was close by a cemetery which had a big rock wall around it.  Well, we got behind this when they come in strafing and bombing.  [When] that was over, they made us go work again. 

            We got into a bombed out place.  They had a lot of apples stored in the basement there.  Well, we jumped down in there, and filled out pockets up with apples.  They had some jelly down there, an' we'd just eat the jelly, broke the jar and at the jelly--see, that was the only thing we had.  They round us up again, kept on moivn', marchin again.  We just kept marching.  Well, in the meantime, while we's marching, we were bombed by Allied planes again.  And strafed--machine-gunned.  Then they come back, then they give us the wing they identified us--they shot us first, then they told us they identified us.  I don't know why they didn't identify us in the fisrt place, before they was strafing.  They thought they was German columns, but they [weren't].  They'd just bombed anything they seen.  That's the way we looked at it.

            We just kept marchin' and stayin' in these barns during the night to sleep, couple hours in there.  Never did take our shoes off.  All we had was these striped clothes, and I had a piece of German parachute I used to wrap my head in.

            [We] went through all these little towns, and 'cross the river and everything on ferries and we walked all the way up to northern Germany.  We walked there I'd say for [four months]. Four months--nothin' but on the road,walkin' all the time.  

            We stayed in this one area a couple of days. The Russians was makin' their drive, the Americans was makin their drive, an' we started walkin' in circles.  Just walkin' in circles.  Day after day.  And finally, into another Stalag.  They made us go into this Stalag, an' we was there two days.  An' tell you the truth, I couldn't even tell you what the name of this Stalag.

            I met a fellow [from] Arma.  I didn't know who he was, but anyway, he said, "Anybody from Kansas?"

            I says, "Yeah, I [am].  Close [to] Pittsburg."

            And he said,  "Well, I'm from Arma."

            I said, "Well, I was from Franklin."

            He told us that he was in the RAF, first part of the war, when they struck into Germany.  He was captured, and spent all that time in POW camps, and he says that during that time, this was the worst he'd ever seen in Germany.  He said that we were suppose to get Red Cross parcels--three Red Cross parcels is all we ever seen.  For one day's supply, they put ten men on one of these Red Cross parcels.  In there was biscuits, jelly, and these Vienna sausage, cigarettes.  Cigarettes, he told us, use as money.  “‘Cause money don’t mean anything here.  You can buy food from these German guards or civilians by trading a half a cigarette for maybe four, five, ten potatoes."  An' that's what we used.  We just didn't spend 'em unless we got to where we really had to have--where we never ate for two or three days.  We used them for money for food.  He said the Germans are out of food.  They're out of ammunition, they're out of equipment.   That's why they're losin' the war.

            But, anyway, the war was comin' to an end.  And a group of Welshmen, they come into this area where we were, and they liberated us.  The Germans--the guards--gave us their guns.  They were battling up in that area and of course the Welshmen, when they got into the camp, they rounded up all the Germans and shot them right there.  The reason they was doing that is they were mad, these Welshmen were. Some of their soldiers was hangin' from the trees where the Germans [had] hung them earlier, and these [bodies] were hangin' there all winter long on.  So, they just come up there and they wouldn't take nothin' from nobody.  They just shot them.  Any German they seen they just shot them right there.  

            They loaded us all up, and took us to the nearest airfield, and we were loaded [into a] forty-passenger plane.  They shipped us clear to Brussels, Belgium.  Then form there, we took a truck to Lucky Strike Camp, in the heart of France, and I was there for two weeks, waitin'--waitin', eatin' six meals a day of oatmeal and eggnog.  Six meals a day, and that's all we ate for two weeks straight; and there we had a shower and got different clothes

            It was four and a half months.  Four and a half months I was captured, [and I] walked most of it.  A lot of the boys that was in our outfit were captured too, but they separated from us.  They didn't want too many in one group.  At Lucky Strike Camp we were given two tablespoons of whiskey to start with.  We were malnourished.  I [went] from a hundred and ninety pounds, [to when] I weighed at Lucky Strike Camp, a hundred and thirty-two pounds in just four and a half months.

            They asked for potato peelers, down in, they call it the hatch, down [in] the bottom of the ship, to peel potatos.  So, I volunteered to peel potatoes. When we went down there, we found a lot a cereal, like Kellogg’s corn flakes, and we were robbin' that, fixin' it with our eggnog. 

            When I reached New York, I weighed two hundred and five pounds.  I was just puffed up.  Well, from there, I was shipped back to Leavenworth, and there they had a few questions to ask [us].  They put new uniforms on us, American uniforms; and then [we] filled out a bunch of papers, and they sent me from there to home for a month, to recuperate.  From home, they sent me to Little Rock, Arkansas, well Hot Springs, and we were there recuperating.  They wanted to get us in shape there.  Gettin' us ready to be sent to Japan.  Being there in Arkansas why, somehow I got in contact with my tank driver; and he was sent down there, too.  So me an' him got together 'cause we were tank driver and gunner of our command tank. [His name is] Clifford Shields, he was from Bellplane, Iowa.

            [In] a couple of more weeks I was to be sent to Camp Jefferson barracks there in Saint Louis, and that's where I got my discharge points; [when] the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, and [then] Japan surrendered, that stopped everything.  I got my discharge, and I came home.

            I got four gold stars for campaigning through the German flats--Belgium, Luxembourg.  They're medals for best gunner and stuff like that, rifle, machine gun and artillery shooting.  .

            Oh, there's times I wonder what we did to get caught.  'Course, like I said we was confused by these German's dressed in American uniforms.  They had American money on them, an' American cigarettes, and pencils, and money; 'course they took them, all of these prisoners [belongings] that they captured, they put it on themselves. 

            I'm lucky I did as I did.  To even be here, this long--being eighty-three.  I'm still lucky,  when so many of these people [have] already passed away, 'ya know.   Well, I tell you what, be honest, work hard, and achieve what you're headed for and make life worthwhile.

 

 

This oral history was researched and prepared by Holly Kranker, Spirng  2002.