Pete Percy
World War II veteran of Battle of the Bulge and D-Day+3
When I first learned that I would have to interview a person of historical
significance for my English class, I drew a blank. Out of everyone I knew,
no one fit the profile suggested by the instructor. My dad suggested Pete
Percy, a man whose office happened to be in the same building as his.
As it turned out he fit the profile, Mr. Percy was A World War II veteran
and a Battle of the Bulge survivor. Once Mr. Percy consented, we then
set up the interview for early January. Upon arriving at Midwest Tank,
Percy’s place of employment, to conduct the interview I was directed to
his office. A quiet man of seventy-two, he first greeted me with a big
smile, and then invited me pull up a chair. Taking my seat across from
Percy, I turned to the questions I had prepared, pushed the record button,
and began my inquiry. First, I questioned him about his childhood and
his family. He was very open and certain in his answers. Then, when the
questions became more serious, focused on his WW II experience, Percy
seemed reserved and cautious in his responses. He revealed that he had
been drafted while attending college in 1943, nearly two years after the
United States entered WW II. Until being discharged in December of 1945,
Percy served in the U.S. Army under General Omar Bradley. Invading the
beaches of Normandy, operating tanks, and fighting in the Battle of the
Bulge were all memories from his unforgettable experience. Percy shared
with me some of the remarkable experiences from his extraordinary life.
I was born November the twenty-third, 1924 [to]* E.J. and Freda Percy [in] Iantha, Missouri. It’s, uh, halfway between Pittsburg and Lamar, off of Highway 160. There’s not much there; just kind of a farming community, two or three hundred people. There were eleven of us brothers and sisters, and we lived in a small area. It was just a battle all the time with the brothers and sisters. Well it was, uh, pretty hectic as you might know with that many kids. We did some farming, and some cow raising; and we raised corn, and wheat, and soybeans, and oats and things of that nature. And we all had to work during our younger days. We all had to work at different jobs in order to survive. Of course, this was back in the thirties and Depression was, as everybody knows, a hard time for most Americans. It affected every family to the extent that they just wasn’t able to do a whole lot. When you just don’t have a whole lot of income, which this applied to practically all the Americans back in the thirties, and there wasn’t any good prices for crops, you just did the best you could to survive and did everything, everything that you could. We managed to go through those years and everybody had to pitch in, everybody had to do their job in order to accomplish what was done. We worked different jobs. We’d shovel snow in the wintertime, and we’d cut grass and cut yards for people as a very minimum amount of money, compared to what they get today. We’d get paid probably, oh, thirty-five cents to fifty cents to cut a yard with a push mower; and then sometimes you’d have to borrow the mower in order to cut the yard. In the hayfield we’d get paid ten cents a ton to bail hay, and which about a good day was maybe about two dollars.
When we was young kids, we all played ball, actually played a lot of softball, a lot of baseball. Didn’t have no TV, just had radio. And we didn’t have, uh, very many cars, didn’t have any cars to drive and run around. Well, I went on to school and graduated from high school. We all went to school, all graduated from high school. Some went on to college, a few of the brothers and sisters they managed to go through college. I went to high school in Mindenmines, Missouri back in 1939 and graduated in 1942. Mindenmines was a four year high school, had about a hundred twenty--thirty students. Then, went into college until I was drafted.
I was drafted in 1943 in April, and took basic training down at Fort Knox, Kentucky. They took so many young guys out of the county, and when your name came up on the list they’d notify you by mail. From there you went to the draft board, and they sent you to take a physical. I had, let’s see, one brother’s in the air force and another brother’s in the marines. Another brother’s in the Special Services; and, uh, he had lost an eye earlier in life so he was not able to serve overseas. And another brother that was in the army, he served in the Philippines. Then, myself, so there was five of us that was in the service. So we was all in different divisions, different outfits.
It was all new and everybody was in the same condition. We all had to do a job, which most of us did to the best of [our] ability and knowledge. You was informed, and had orders to do certain work and jobs; and you tried to do those. Some succeeded and some didn’t. And it was a requirement, and it was just somethin’ that most young guys did at that time. Because you was a draft dodger if you didn’t go, and that was not very good on your record. You just didn’t even think about not going because you was drafted. So, everybody went to the service. Never give it no thought, no idea because I just was sent down to Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Took basic training in the tank corps and after about three months there, at basic training, they shipped us to the east coast. Then eventually, we went overseas in 1943; in late, about November 1943, we was shipped overseas. In basic training you went through all kinds of courses and you did KP work, like cleaning up barracks. Then, you’d exercise and you’d train and you’d, uh, just the regular basic training for the first few weeks. And then, eventually assigned to a tank. When you was assigned to them, then you’d learn how to shoot the guns and drive the tanks, and learn something about the equipment that went with the vehicle. And uh, I don’t know, you just learned those things after you’d get in the service. I started out as a gunner, and I ended up as a tank commander. Ended up as [a tank commander] during the war in Germany. Started out as a driver, or as a gunner, then to a driver. And I did about everything that was done inside of a tank, which is no picnic.
Let’s see from there [Fort Knox] we went to New York. From there we went to Europe and crossed the ocean when I was nineteen years old, that was in 1943. I started as a private, ended up as a sergeant before I was discharged in 1945. I was in the tank outfit and we was with the, uh, Company F of the 32nd Army Division, and the 1st Army. General Omar Bradley was our general. And we was called the “Spearhead Division.” We had about 150 soldiers in our company and we was one company in a regiment, and then there was so many regiments in the division. I really forgot the number; I know there was several companies in a regiment and then the regiment, as I said, had so many regiments to form a division. And then, as I remember, there was two or three divisions under one commander and that was General Omar Bradley. And we was called the “Spearhead Division,” the 3rd Armor Division, which was called the “Spearhead Division.” They worked with the 2nd Armor Division, and they was called “Hell on Wheels.” I remember that, it was all tanks. And then, of course, we worked with different infantry divisions and I know the 1st Armor Division, the 1st Infantry Division and the 29th Infantry Division worked with us at one time. I know there was other divisions that we was associated with, but I don’t remember their numbers.
I was stationed in England, we continued doing training in England and then from there we landed in Normandy in France on D-Day plus three. We was stationed at a place called Salisbury area, Salisbury, England, west of London about ninety miles. It’s more open field, like it is in the Crawford County area, the terrain’s about the same. And the towns are close together and uh, but that’s where we took our training there. From there we shipped over to, south of England and boarded a ship, and we landed in Normandy D-plus three, that’s D-Day plus three.
You landed on Normandy in boats with your equipment, and that’d be three days after the war officially started against the Germans. Landed in Normandy, and then from there we went on into France and then into Belgium, then into Germany. We was involved in the Northern part of France; and then we just eventually made a drive and we went down towards Paris and circled, well we went south of Paris. And then went east and northeast up into Belgium and then into Germany and saw a lot of activity; a lot of people, a lot of men, lot of tanks, a lot of equipment, lot of everything. It wasn’t much of hand-to-hand, it was just tank-to-tank, and then infantry had a lot of close encounters. And there was some of those hand-to-hand; but we was more in the areas where we used our tanks to bombard the enemies positions and try to hit their targets. I never saw really no hand-to-hand combat, even though I know there’s a lot of American infantryman that did do a lot of hand-to-hand combat. But the tankers they didn’t get involved too much in hand-to-hand. It was always firin’ at the enemy with the artillery and their guns and tryin’ to destroy the enemy in that category.
I was injured in September of, around the 13th of September 1944. I was wounded when we was crossing the Siegfred Line in Germany and I was wounded there, the Siegfred Line. It wasn’t no particular battle. We just had all kinds of little skirmishes and encounters with the enemy in small towns. I was wounded in September when we encountered the German tanks and their artillery. And they hit our vehicle, our tank on the side, and eventually they hit it under the tank. Which it, their shell, exploded and some of the fragments came up through the bottom of the tank. I was injured in the leg. That’s when our tank was destroyed completely, and two of the men in the tank that I was in, they was killed. But I managed to crawl out into safety, where they hauled us off to the first aid station. Then from there, treated us and was sent back to hospitals. They flew me back to England, and I recovered there for about a month and a half, or two months.
And then they reassigned me, and sent me back to the front lines. Then, they assigned us to another tank which was a little bit larger tank, it was called a 76 millimeter, because it had a 76 millimeter gun on it. And it was little bit more effective. It had more armor on the front and it was more protective from the German’s 88’s. In fact, we even added more armor to the front of the vehicle so that if a German shell hit the front end, it wouldn’t penetrate the tank like it would a Sherman tank, which is quite a bit smaller.
About two months later we went into the Battle of the Bulge, which happened December 1944; and we joined out there and went through that. The Battle of the Bulge was a battle of the Germans involved in the wintertime. It was Hitler’s last stand, his last push to try to defeat the Americans. And he threw all his armors and all his artillery and all his men he could possibly gather in order to make one final push; and it fizzled on him. And the Americans they whipped him, and you could tell the war was gonna end rather quickly after that.
We ended up at the end of the war southwest of Berlin at a town called Patterborn, Germany. While we was there we, met the Russians and well, we knew the war was over when we met them. So from there we was shipped back to an area, a rest area and we heard all kinds of rumors that we’d be gettin’ ready to be shipped over to Japan. And, of course, those rumors ended rather abruptly when the war ended in Japan because of the bombs at Hiroshima and Yakasaka, or whatever the name of the other town was. And we stayed there [Patterborn] until November, and then I was shipped back to the United States in November. I was discharged in December of 1945. First of December spent my twenty-first birthday comin’ back on the ocean and nineteenth birthday goin’ over. So, I was overseas a total of two years.
In the service you didn’t have very many regular hours. You woke up whenever. Sometimes you’d be awakened by gunfire, artillery fire, or you’d be woke up by the guards or something of that nature. Sometimes you’d have orders to move out like two or three o’clock in the morning; and you didn’t have no specific hours. You ate whenever you could and whether you managed to find something to eat. Sometimes they’d have a chow line for ya, and sometimes you had to cook your own meals and find somethin’ to eat. You’d get K-rations or C-rations and you had to use those, and that was mainly your meals.
They went by points in the service at that time, and you got so many
points by being in the service so many months or years, and then you got
so many points for medals. Which I got a couple of ‘em, I got a purple
heart and a good conduct medal and they was worth about five points apiece.
I think at that time I had seventy points, and there was several that
had more; and there was naturally a lot of the privates had a lot less.
But when they got so many points you was considered for discharge. And
that’s what they went by; and that’s how I was returned to the States
and eventually discharged. You learned that [you’d be discharged] with
your company, and they’d pass the word down to ya.
No regrets; but I’m glad it’s all over, and thankful that those that did
return was fortunate in so many ways. I have no desire to go back to anything
like that. Just had too many experiences, and too many eventful things
that happened to ya during those years. You lose buddies and friends that
ya get acquainted with, and ya see some of ‘em get killed; and it’s not
a very pretty picture. No, I have no desire. I would have no desire to
go back to anything like that, and I don’t wish that on anybody else havin’
to go through any kind of a war.
[After the war], I don’t know, you were just kinda in a daze and you really didn’t know what you was gonna do. You couldn’t really make up your mind. I decided to go into school at the University of Missouri for about three, four, five, six months as long as I could make it up there. And it was on the GI Bill of Rights, and they paid the tuition; but they didn’t pay for everything, but they paid part of it. After the war, they’d give you a little money when you was discharged from the service. They’d give you what they called “musterin’ out pay.” And it amounted to about three hundred dollars. And that three hundred dollars that was about all you had to go on, and you just was on your own. You pretty well just had to go from there and do your thing, and decide on what you was goin’ to do. And that’s what I decided upon at the time, and I guess it was the right choice. But just like most of the service boys that got out of the service, most of ‘em just didn’t know what direction they was goin’ and what they had planned and what they was goin’ to do.
I lived in Pittsburg since 1948, so that’s about what, fifty-two, fifty-four years. I came to Pittsburg from Columbia, Missouri. I went to school up at Columbia for about six months after I got out of the service. And I come to Pittsburg after spending six months up at Columbia, the University of Missouri. I went to three years of college including six months at Southwest Missouri State in Springfield. Then I ended up finishing about three years of college here at Pittsburg, Kansas. What was it called then? Kansas State College of Pittsburg or something like that. It wasn’t called Pittsburg University like it is today. I came [to] Pittsburg and started school here at the college in Pittsburg until May of 1948. Well, I didn’t graduate. I had about ninety hours in business administration.
Let’s see, after the war I started work with, really my first job was with the National Biscuit Company, which is called Nabisco, that was in 1948. I answered an ad in the paper, in the Joplin paper, in 1948 and went down for an interview. The manager at that time, he said, “Well, I’ll let you know.” And he called me the next day, and I went to work the next week with no experience. And that’s when I started, I guess you could call it, a career in the cookie business. I was a salesman for Nabisco, covered the four-state area. I covered the Pittsburg area within a range of about forty miles of this area. Whole lot of grocery stores, and restaurants, and supermarkets at that time. Of course, there wasn’t that many supermarkets, but there was a lot of small restaurants and a lot of small grocery stores; and that’s where I spent most of my time [selling] mainly cookies and crackers and snack items. In fact, they still sell the same things today as they did sixty years ago. I worked for Nabisco from 1948 to 1960, and then I went to work for Junge Biscuit Company out of Joplin, Missouri from 1960 to 1970. And then from, after that twenty-two year tenure, I spent a little time with, about six months, with another cookie company called Sather’s Cookie Company out of Round Lake, Minnesota. We moved up there for about six months, and it didn’t turn out too well. We didn’t like it all that great, so we returned to the hometown. Then, I went into the restaurant business in 1971, and sold out in 1982. We was there for about ten years then. The restaurant called ‘The Pit’ was across from the high school in Pittsburg. ‘The Pit’ [was] across from the old high school, which is a junior high school now on North Broadway. It was just snacks, hamburger, French fries, and snack items. Ice cream, sold ice cream there and candy, donuts, anything that you could sell. Most of our business came from the school and some from business people. Quite a lot from McNally’s at that time, ‘cause there was a lot of people workin’ at McNally’s. We was within two to three hundred yards of it, of the McNally’s corporation. Bought ‘The Pit’ in 1971 and closed it in 1982. And then after that, started to work with Midwest Tank Company back in 1981. I think it was ‘81. Yeah, 1981! And I’ve been with the tank company ever since, which is twenty-two years now. I started working in the office and been doin’ the same job twenty-two years now. It’s mainly contacting customers and schedulin’ the washouts and inspections of the water tanks. Had to contact the customers, cities and rural water districts, and had to keep crews together and organize those and keep them on the road. We routinely call the same customers. Over past years, some have changed, some new ones have been added; and we lose a few because they go to other companies or they don’t have anything done. [I plan on retiring] within the next, well, don’t know--couple years I suppose, or until they run me off.
[I] got married back in 1951. Was married for about thirty years and had three girls and two boys. All five are survivin’. All doin’ well, and live within a radius of, oh, a hundred and fifty to sixty miles of Pittsburg, Kansas. I’ve got five grandchildren ranging all the way from eight to thirty-two. Three granddaughters and two grandsons.
From an interview conducted in January 2003 by Jamie Arthur.
*Text in brackets was not directly said by interviewee.