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Published Sunday, October 05, 2008 in Local

Jackson endured rough conditions while in Europe

By Alex McRae

The Times-Herald

After just two weeks in Europe, the men of the 273rd regiment of the 69th Infantry Division were exhausted. And the fighting hadn't even begun.

William Jackson remembers spending his first eight hours on French soil riding in an open truck in a snowstorm and sub-freezing temperatures. Then the men were loaded into boxcars designed to hold eight horses or forty men for the ride to St. Vith, Belgium. Each mile was a nightmare.

As soon as they arrived at St. Vith, Jackson's unit was ordered to move out in 48 hours to relieve another regiment that had suffered severe losses. They advanced quickly to the front and when dawn broke on February 12, 1945, the concrete dragon's teeth of the massive German fortification known as the Siegfried Line was visible in the morning mist.

Soon, the view was obscured by gun smoke and flames as the Germans hit Jackson's outfit with everything they had. Artillery fire, rockets and mortars pounded the American position as Jackson and the others tried to adjust to their first few minutes of battle.

"The Germans knew we were a green outfit that hadn't seen combat, so they wanted to rattle us," Jackson says. "At first we were scared to death, but that didn't last long. We knew if we wanted to survive, we had to get busy and do our jobs; and that's what we did. It was rough, but most days were like that."

Jackson was born in 1917 in Moreland. The family had a dairy farm and sold milk and butter at the mill village in Grantville. Jackson did farm chores after school, and on weekends he often accompanied the driver who delivered milk and made weekly collections.

"I did a little bit of everything," he says. "But the worst part was plowing a mule and chopping cotton. That wasn't any fun at all."

After graduating from Moreland High School, Jackson went to work at the hosiery mill in Moreland. Jobs were scarce, and Jackson was glad to get the work. He also found time for a social life and started courting Nevelle Morris. The two were married in April 1941.

At the time, America had not entered the war. But after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, Jackson knew his daily routine was about to change.

"We all knew the war was going to affect everybody," he says. "And it sure did."

Jackson was drafted in May 1943. He was inducted into the Army at Atlanta's Ft. McPherson and sent to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, for basic training.

Jackson joined the 69th Infantry Division, which was sending waves of replacement troops to Europe. At the end of his first training cycle, Jackson was not shipped out and had to endure basic training again.

By then, he was 26 years old. He was up to the task physically, but says the 18- and 19-year-old recruits thought of him as an old man.

Jackson was finally assigned to a group headed overseas and arrived in England in December 1945. The unit traveled to Winchester for further training. Jackson was assigned to a weapons platoon and served as the leader of a mortar section consisting of three squads that operated 60 mm mortars.

When the training eased, Jackson got to visit the ancient town of Winchester and enjoyed the sights, including the famous Winchester Cathedral. But Winchester wasn't all fun and games.

While Jackson's unit was there, Winchester was hit by several German buzz bombs. Jackson says the British barely batted an eye.

"They were used to it," he says. "After a bomb hit, they'd just clean up and keep on with their business."

Jackson also took two brief trips to London.

"I'd never been in a city that big, and it took some getting used to," he says. "We saw lots of interesting things and met some nice people. I'm glad I got to see it."

Jackson's outfit shipped out to LeHavre, France, in late January 1945. The unit moved as quickly as it could toward the front and set up a defensive position along the Siegfried Line near St. Vith, Belgium.

Jackson's mortar unit soon learned how brutal war could be. When the first battle was over, two soldiers from Jackson's unit went to the abandoned German position to look things over. They were killed by booby traps.

"It was really bad," Jackson says. "After that, we were really careful whenever we went anywhere the Germans had been. The ground was too frozen to dig foxholes; and sometimes we used the places the Germans had dug out, but we checked them real good first."

Jackson's mortar squads set up where they could shell German positions during battle. It was good military strategy, but had a downside. Once they started firing, the mortars quickly became prime targets of the deadly German 88 mm artillery pieces.

"They tried to take us out pretty quick," Jackson says. "And those gunners on the 88s were good. They could put one in your hip pocket."

Jackson's unit rarely stayed in one place very long. As soon as the infantry moved ahead, the mortars moved, too, setting up and firing, then moving ahead and doing it all over again.

"It wasn't every day, but almost," Jackson says. "Somebody was always shooting at us. We saw a lot of bad things over there. You learn real quick there's nothing good about war."

After the opening encounter with the enemy, Jackson's unit went on the move and endured 25 straight days of heavy battle as they headed relentlessly toward the Rhine River.

Early in the fighting, German artillery tried to disrupt the Americans by firing artillery barrages during meal time so the soldiers couldn't eat. The Americans solved that problem by eating before sunrise and after dark when German spotters couldn't see them.

"It was so cold and miserable it didn't matter when we ate," Jackson says. "But that made it a little better."

The unit usually moved so rapidly the Germans couldn't pinpoint their position. Jackson says when they stopped for a few days to let supplies catch up, things were tense.

"Anytime we quit moving we got nervous because that's when the Germans had time to locate our position and they let us have it," he says. "It was always better to keep moving."

Jackson says it only took a few days of combat for him to make peace with himself.

"What I had to do was reconcile myself to the situation," he says. "I realized I'd be there until the war was over or I was buried. Your life was on the line every day, and you were going to go when you were going to go and that was it."

Jackson's unit fought so well Jackson earned a Bronze Star for his leadership under fire.

After a solid month of battling through heavily-defended towns, Jackson's unit finally crossed the Rhine on March 27, 1945, and captured Ehrenbreitstein.

Just days later, the 69th relieved the 80th Division in Kassel and began the march towards Leipzig.

After weeks of heavy fighting it didn't seem like things could get worse. At Leipzig, they did. Hitler had chosen to defend the German cultural center at any cost and sent the best troops from his Wehrmacht ground forces to the town.

Wehrmacht soldiers made their last stand at a huge statue celebrating Germany's defense of the city during the Napoleonic wars.

The Americans attacked in wave after wave, but even as the dead and wounded piled up, the Germans refused to surrender.

American infantry commanders finally just went around the Germans and let artillery handle the situation, which it did.

Jackson's unit then set out for Torgau, near the Elbe River. On the way, they met thousands of German soldiers eager to surrender to the Americans before they fell into Russian hands.

At Torgau, Americans patrolled the river hoping to spot their Russian allies across the river.

On April 25, 1945, American and Russian troops met for the first time during the war. Jackson says a rather large celebration followed.

"We'd heard how bad the Russians were from the Germans," Jackson says. "But we didn't have any trouble with them. We crossed the river back and forth and visited with each other and had a pretty good party."

Eventually, the Americans were pulled back to Giessen, in the part of Germany that had been designated to serve as American-occupied territory after the war.

Once Germany surrendered, Jackson was transferred to the 28th Infantry and remained on occupation duty. The work was mostly dull, but Jackson remembers one memorable assignment.

He and another soldier were told to drive a man to Rheims, France. Once the delivery was made, Jackson asked his companion if he'd ever been to Paris. The man said no and he and Jackson decided to extend their French tour.

They arrived in Paris on a Tuesday, found a room and stayed until Sunday, four days after they were due back.

"When we got back the lieutenant crawled all over us and asked where we'd been," Jackson says. "He wasn't happy at all."

Jackson spun a tale about poorly marked roads and said they'd been delayed because they got lost.

"He told us to get out of there," Jackson says. "He was mad but he couldn't do anything else, really."

Jackson finally sailed home from LeHavre. A scheduled seven-day trip turned to 14 as huge winter storms tossed the ship about and slowed its progress. Jackson was seasick the entire trip and still can't go deep-sea fishing to this day.

Jackson went back to work at the Moreland mill for a couple of years, then worked door-to-door for Standard Coffee for ten years. He spent another decade as a Life of Georgia agent before going into business for himself.

He opened a grocery store and fresh seafood business on Greenville Street in Newnan. When chain stores killed the grocery business, Jackson concentrated on selling fresh seafood at a store on Temple Avenue.

Since retiring in 1970, he has been able to spend more time with a family that eventually grew to include three children, seven grandchildren, "a bunch" of great grandchildren and even three great-greats.

But even when he returned from the war, Jackson's military service wasn't over. He stayed in the Army Reserve, and in 1949 he was one of the soldiers that organized Newnan's National Guard unit.

"I thought it would be a good way to let people do military service without having to go overseas," he says. "We knew we could be called, but the chances were less."

The unit met in the upper floor of Newnan's Carnegie Library until the current armory was built across from Newnan High School.

Jackson rose to the rank of sergeant major and was the head non-commissioned officer of the Newnan unit for years. When he retired from the National Guard, Jackson had spent a total of 27.5 years in the regular Army, Army Reserve and National Guard.

"The military was a good thing; and I always enjoyed it, especially after the war," he says. "I hope nobody ever has to go through what we did again."