Mr. Paul Moxley
[06/06/1921]
K.H.: Today is Friday, October 12, 2007. I am Kevin Harris and I am interviewing Paul Moxley at 312 N. Ritter, Indianapolis, Indiana. Mr. Moxley is the father of Paula Bittelmeyer, a work associate of Dr. Terri Harris. Mr. Moxley is eighty six years old and was born on June 6, 1921. Mr. Moxley served in World War II and Mr. Moxley was in L Company, in 39th Infantry, 9th Division. He held the following rank of captain.
[40 seconds]
K.H: So Mr. Moxley, before you served, what was your family background and your lifestyle like?
P.M.: What was my lifestyle like? Well, I went to Sacred Heart Grade School for eight years and then I went to Cathedral High School. I graduated from Cathedral in 1939 and decided to go to Indiana University. I went to Indiana University for a year and a half, took R.O.T.C. there and I think that’s what helped me in my service time. Then I got kind of fed up with college life, so I went to work for a railroad. I went to work for the Illinois Central Railroad. Left them in 1942 to go in the service and came back then in 46 and worked until 1981. So I have forty years at railroading minus the four years active duty.
[1 minute, 39 seconds]
K.H.: Did you have any siblings?
P.M.: [Responds about family members]. Of course I had a real good wife and we were married for sixty years. She fought everything. She wanted to make sure that she made our 60th wedding anniversary because she’d had cancer. She had a kidney removed eighteen years before she died. So she lived a total of eighteen years with just one kidney. But she wanted to make our 60th wedding anniversary so she fought and made that and then Paula’s oldest daughter was due to have a child, so she wanted to see him and she made that in April of 2004. And since she told me, “now don’t forget that you’re going to see the World War II dedication in Washington D.C. on Memorial Day.” I said, “No, I’m going to stay home and take care of you.” So she died the 21st of May. So I ended up at Washington D.C. So she got everything that she wanted. She was good people, though. And so that’s about all I mean the family. Of course I have one…two…ten grandkids now, no I got nine grandkids, ten great-grandchildren and another one due, so the family is getting real big.
[3 minutes, 58 seconds]
K.H.: During World War II I know there was a large draft. Were you drafted? Or did you join into the service by choice?
P.M.: No, I drafted.
[4 minutes, 6 seconds]
K.H.: At the time of the war, were you in any form of close relationships?
P.M.: You mean with women?
K.H.: Yes.
P.M.: Well, there was this girl I married. We lived across the street from each other. She was a year ahead of me at Manual High School. Of course, I went to Cathedral and [chuckle] I used to walk her to school every morning ’cause Manual at that time was up-town and we would walk past Manual and the students were all out in front of the building at the time and I’d wear my block C and I’d get booed going by there and they would all jump on her because she was going with somebody from Manual at that time… or from Cathedral. At that time Manual and Cathedral was a big rivalry in town. But we kept going with each other and finally we got married in December of 1943.
[5 minutes, 4 seconds]
K.H.: Precisely how old were you when you joined into the military?
P.M.: Twenty one.
[5 minutes, 15 seconds]
K.H.: Did you have any formal training with tactics or weaponry before going onto the active line?
P.M.: Well, we had tactics. I belonged to the reserve officers training corps [R O T C] at Indiana University and they taught us a little bit of something. They had a major from the regular army that taught the course at I.U. I was involved in that. I think that’s what helped me when I got into service.
[5 minutes and 45 seconds]
K.H.: Do you recall you’re first few days on the active line in your service?
P.M.: Well, only that they got me up at five-o-clock in the morning. [chuckle] That was the only thing.
[6 minutes, 0 seconds]
K.H.: Were there any special rules you were forced to follow during your military career based on your unit or your job?
P.M.: You were supposed to_____ we had instructors there at what they called the Cadre (the key group of officers necessary to establish a new military unit) and they taught us what they thought we would have to learn or have to know when we got into combat, which we were getting ready for. Like I say, I was fortunate that I had taken the training at I.U. and then after I finished my basic they decided to promote me to a PFC, and later report made me a corporal and I stayed there and trained troops for about six months before I was sent to O.C.S. School at Fort Benning.
[6 minutes, 48 seconds]
K.H.: Exactly where did you go during your time enlisted into the army?
P.M.: Where did I go? What did I do?
K.H.: Yes, for example, where did you start out and end up?
P.M.: Well, like I say I started at Camp Wheeler, Georgia which is in Macon, Georgia. From there I went to Fort Benning for O.C.S. and that’s at Columbus, Georgia. From there I went to Muskogee, Oklahoma, to join the Forty-second Rainbow Division and after that I was sent overseas.
[7 minutes, 25 seconds]
K.H.: Where overseas were you sent?
P.M.: Well, I landed in Edinburgh, Scotland and then we trained around Plymouth, England before… after I got involved with the Ninth Division. In fact, that’s where we sailed from when we went into combat in European countries.
[7 minutes, 55 seconds]
K.H.: Were you ever put into any dangerous conditions? Or did you ever see any armed combat?
P.M.: The worst combat we had was the hedge rows in France. Of course, people, when we came back, wanted to know why it was so difficult to make the hedge rows. I’ve got pictures of the hedge rows there. People thought the hedge rows were like the hedge rows like we have here in the states. But the hedge rows over there were mounds of dirt about four and half feet tall and about three or four feet wide and they had hedges on top of them. That was the hedge rows. And they were in about hundred yard plots with openings at each end. And that’s the end you were in trouble with because that’s the end the Jerry had zeroed in. If you stuck your nose out there, you got shot at. And you couldn’t crawl through the hedge rows, because they had so many roots in them.
[8 minutes and 53 seconds]
K.H.: Were there a lot of casualties in the unit in which you served?
P.M.: Well, I went in D+4 which was the tenth of June, and when I got to Cherbourg, I had gone in with forty men in my platoon counting myself. You got three squads of twelve men each and then there’s myself, my platoon sergeant, my medic, and a runner. So that makes forty. I got to Cherbourg and I had fourteen of the original men left. I didn’t loose many. Some were shot. I only had one killed, the rest of them were wounded. But I have one thing I’ll say that I found out, that when the good Lord made this body, he made a pretty good machine and I saw people banged up that I thought I’d never see again and after Cherbourg was taken and we went to a rest area, here comes about two-thirds of them walking back and reporting back to the outfit. So He made a pretty good machine when He made this body.
[10 minutes, 3 seconds]
K.H.: Is there any chance that you could tell me about any your most memorable experiences in the military?
P.M.: Well, which one do you want me to tell? I got lots of them. We went in on D+ 4. We went in on the easier of the two beaches. Omaha was the worst. We went in on Utah Beach. It was bad enough and the Fourth Division was having trouble with a town called Quinneville so they attached. They took the 39th Infantry out there and sent us in D+4 to help the Fourth Division. So you go in there and we helped them out and I was with them and we stayed with them until the 16th of June and then we reverted back to the Ninth Division. The Ninth Division came in. And that’s when I lost my first man—a kid by the name of Jackson. He was my runner. We were on one of the edges of the hedge rows, I can remember vividly, he got shot and the only thing he said was, “mama” and he was killed right away by a sniper. That was the first occasion. And then, of course, if you ever get a chance read Bradley’s book here. I was always glad I was in the First Army. Patton had a fear of God in the Germans, but I’m glad I didn’t serve under him. I mean, with General Bradley, if you were going to make an attack he’d be willing to walk you fifty miles so you didn’t run into them head on. Patton would have a tank in a town the size of Indianapolis and say he had it secured. There wasn’t anything wrong with his tactics. He was just that way. But I served under Bradley. Now I’m going to tell you about this Paddy Flint [Colonel Harry A. “Paddy” Flint]. Paddy Flint was a commander, full colonel, was a commander of the 39th Infantry and you were not supposed to have any emblem on your equipment or anything. Now we had, an officer had a white stripe, now these are all worn off, now we had a white stripe at the back of his helmet and a non coms had a stripe that went horizontal. And on all our equipment we had three As and bar on them. It meant, “anything, anywhere, anytime, bar nothing.” He said he wanted the Germans to know who they were fighting and he always told us that. He’d get the junior officers together before an attack, “now you can’t push these men, you have to lead them.” Well, that’s how he got killed. We were having trouble. It was during the Saint-Lô break through, I’d been wounded on the 20th. They were getting up further through the break through and they were having problems getting through and Paddy Flint gets on a tank destroyer stripped to the waist, brown as a bear. He had a black scarf around his neck, carrying a rifle and the sniper hit him. If he’d have been a younger man, he would have probably lived. I can remember him. I mean, he was a fine gentleman even though he was a colonel, he was my boss. [d. 7/24/44]
There were a lot of things. One of the stories I can tell you on the way to Cherbourg. At night when you were stationary, you sent out sentries to different spots where you were around and they would alert you if anything came up, you know. So, every once in awhile, my sergeant and I would go out and check to see if they were out there. Well, I went out there and thank goodness the man I ran into was a veteran, because I had checked with the sergeant before I went out and asked him what the password was, the sign and the counter sign. I went out there and my man out there challenged me and just like that, I forgot the answer. I heard him click the safety off on his M-1. I said, “Hold it. It’s Lieutenant Moxley.” And like I say it’s a good thing that he was a veteran and he recognized who I was. But just that quick, I just lost it. He wasn’t where he was supposed to be and when he challenged me, why, I forgot the answer.
But we went to our job in the 9th division. Our job was to cut the peninsula off. We had to go travel west and get to a little town called Barneville, and that sealed Cherbourg off. That’s what they wanted because we needed Cherbourg for a port to get supplies in. So then we went across and we had to make a change in 22 hours of 20,000 men from going west to going north and our division did that. Then we went into Cherbourg. We went into a little town outside Cherbourg which was called Octeville, and I’m not sure that this picture isn’t Octeville. I don’t know. It was in the Stars and Stripes. That was a paper that the army put out. That is supposed to be me over here in the corner [referring to picture]. And who that is I don’t know. He has my division patch on. That’s the type of gun I carried, and you can see the Germans surrendering there. He’s got his white flag up so I think there was a street fight before we got to Octeville. Octeville was like Speedway or Beach Grove would be to Indianapolis. That’s why I went to Cherbourg.
So we went to— got into Cherbourg after a while. I guess the biggest trouble I got in Cherbourg after Cherbourg was taken, all the French people were out and they started singing the French National Anthem. And if you can imagine the whole town being out singing the national anthem of France, you know. They were giving my troops wine, and the first sergeant of the company comes down here. He says, “Now we got a job to do.” And he started knocking the glasses out of their hands. So we had to go up to Cap de la Hague [20 miles NW of Cherbourg] which has a big railroad up on the hill. So we went up there. After Cherbourg was sealed, we went back to our rest area. We went back for seven days rest. We went to what I thought was a little town called La Roselle. I’m not sure. But we went back for rest and we had all this wine. Paddy Flint says he knows who we’ve got. He wants one officer and one platoon soldier each. He says you’re going to be here for at least five days. We were back there for five days. We even played a softball game. The staff officers, that’s major on up, challenged the junior officers, that’s company grade officers, captain on down. Well, I had pitched softball. They knew that because we did that back in England in training. So we had a soft ball game. And then, like I said we were back until about the 7th of July, I believe. And then we knew that Patton was going to have the Third Army, and we were to punch a hole for him over the Saint-Lô-Périers Road. So we are walking now. We were going back on the front lines. It was static where we were at now, there wasn’t anything doing. There were other divisions up there fighting and there is a group of engineers up in front of me cleaning out the road and checking for mines. I walked by a fellow there and I said, “hi Tony!” Then I just kept on walking. So about eight to ten minutes later, we took a break. So I walked back toward where I’d seen that fellow and here he comes walking towards me. It was a fellow by the name of Tony Laker that lived a square and a half away from me over on the south side. It was just surprising. I saw him, I knew his name, but I couldn’t stop. So we talked for about five minutes and then he went back to his job and I went back to mine and then we were getting ready for the break through. We knew Patton was going to be up there with the Third Army because we could see… we saw… I saw him once. I saw Montgomery, the British General. I saw Eisenhower. Of coarse, we see Bradley a lot. So we had a commander of our division, General Manton Eddy, E-d-y [actually Eddy]. He had been with the division all through Africa and all through Sicily and we knew and liked him. Then we found out our job was to punch a hole along the Saint-Lô-Périers Highway. On the Saint-Lô-Périers Highway, I went on two or three patrols out there. We were just probing to see if we could find where their strong spots were. I came back from one of them to make a report and my platoon sergeant, Mike Natale, came up and said, “Lieutenant you have a hole in your arm.” I said, “No I haven’t.” He said, “Yes you have.” I don’t know why but I never felt it. So he said, “You better go back to the aid station.” So I went back to the aid station. It was the 20th of July. So they sent me back to the 4th Evac Hospital. While we were there, they set up the attack around the 26th of July over the Saint-Lô-Périers Highway. You know, you’ve heard a lot about friendly fire, hitting your own troops. Well, the 60th Regiment which was one of our regiments in my division was supposed to be the attacking regiment and the 39th and 45th were in reserve, and the 8th Air Force was supposed to fly parallel along the highway. Well, somebody changed the order and they came from behind [Operation Cobra]. They dropped 1000 yards short and they decimated the 60th Regiment. General McNair who was head of troop training in the states was with the 60th and he was killed, but they kept it a secret for two weeks. In fact, they buried him over there so they couldn’t get the word out. But they bombed short. See, when the planes come over they have a pathfinder, and when he drops his bombs, the rest of them jettison theirs. So the 60th Regiment lost a lot of men. You figure the regiment itself is probably around 5000 men including combat men, supplies, and all that. So they lost about two thirds of their people there.
Of course, I missed that. That’s because I had already been wounded. So I was in… I don’t know how long I stayed in the 4th Evac Hospital. Then they finally sent me back to England and I stayed in England in Auburn Wells. And then, I think it was the later part of November or the first part of December, probably the first part of December, I was ready to go back to duty. Now most of the time when you went back to duty you went back to a replacement depot and they sent you wherever they needed troops. Well, our general wanted all his veterans back, so we sent a T.W.X. to him when we were ready to come back to duty. So I did and I went right back to the Ninth Division, right back to the Thirty-Ninth Infantry, right back to the Third Battalion, right back to L Company, and L Company was short two officers. The two sergeants were arguing about which platoon I was going to take over. Well, I knew most of them out of the second platoon because some of them I had before so I said I would go into the second so I went right back and joined my old outfit.
And then we piddled around there in France or on the outskirts of Germany and when I got back, why, Lieutenant McConnell (he was Captain McConnell then) said, “Boy, we’re glad to see you back.” and I said why? He said,” Colonel Stump wants to see you.” And I said, “I don’t want to see Colonel Stump.” Because Colonel Stump was a real good friend of mine but any time he had a patrol to go out he would call on me. He said, “He just found out you were back.” I said, “Okay, I’ll go and see him.” So we piddled around and I went on a few patrols for him and then I went out one time and I couldn’t find anything out there. I said, “There is something going on”. It was about the 16th of December when the Germans started their big push and what started was the Battle of the Bulge. We had been up there and the division had been on the line for so long that they pulled the division out and set us in a rest area and they said, “Well, if the Ninth Division would have been up there, they would have stopped the Germans.” But we wouldn’t have been able to stop them either, because they came out and you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face for the snow. It was foggy. We couldn’t get any air force up. They said,” We know where he wants to go. He wants to go to Antwerp and Holland, because that is where all our supplies were coming in at the time and that is what he needs.” And they said they were going to let him go as far as they can. But they didn’t want a base to spread so they put us on one end, the other base on the left side and they put the Twenty-first Division, Big Red One, on the other side so we were not going to let them spread at the base, and when the weather breaks we’ll get him. And that is what happened. We sat there and held the base. And a byline to that, when I came home the first thing my wife said to me; she said, “I am sure glad you were not in the Battle of the Bulge.” And I said, “I wasn’t?” And she said, “No, you were in the Ninth.” And I said,” That is right.” She said,” Well, the Ninth was in the north.” And I said, “That was the Ninth Army. I was in the Ninth Division.” So there was one time that people didn’t know what the army divisions were or what they did even. She didn’t worry about me one bit during the Battle of the Bulge until I showed her the map where I’d been.
When the Battle of the Bulge broke out, they said they were going to do just a different___ .They knew what he wanted. So we just sat there and we let him go until the weather broke and when the weather broke what they really_____. I was at the, I am trying to think of the town, there are so many towns; I was at Remagen I know that later on. Here’s one of the stories after the Bulge was broken, and we got ready to attack. The weather up there, the snow is probably like the snows in Minnesota. And we were in the Hurtgen Forest when this here battle broke out, and Jerry sent airburst over. And you could get hit by a stump or you could get hit by a piece of shrapnel. You didn’t know what you were going to get hit by. But then, I say, after the air force got up and we got all these people going like we did. So, we are sitting out there one day and Colonel Stump comes and sees me and he says, “Paul I’ve got a patrol that I want to go out and we are going to jump off in a couple of days and I want you to go out and look at the territory.” So I went out and I took six or seven men with me. We came to a ravine and went down the ravine, and there was a pillbox on one end and a pillbox on the other but there were no footprints. So we figured, I told them, “Maybe Jerry is sitting over the hill. We’re not going to try that now.” So I went back to my company commander McConnell and I said, “Mac I got all the dope and we will go see the colonel.” And we went to see the colonel. And I said, “Colonel, it’s forty-five degree slope down, it’s forty five degree slope up and Jerry is going to be sitting one hundred fifty to two hundred yards back over the crown of the hill. Okay let’s go see regimental headquarters.” Now this is a colonel that I go back and see, so I gave him the dope. He says, “Lieutenant you don’t know what you are talking about.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Now here is the map. You were on the wrong ground.” I said, “No I wasn’t. I was exactly where they wanted me to be.” He said, “Do you know how to read a map?” And I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well these lines are far apart on the map, what does that mean?” I said, “That means a gentle slope.” He says, “Now you are telling me this is a steep slope, forty-five degrees.” I said, “That is right.” He says, “Nope, you don’t know what you are talking about.” So I leave with my colonel and Stump says, “Mox, what is it?” I say, “Colonel, just like I told you.” He says, “Ok, I know it is going to be that way, I know L Company is going to be the attacking company and Mac is going to have the Company, and you are going to be the attacking platoon. I know that.”
So just like anything big, the condemned men get the hearty meal. So the next day, why, we get a big hot dinner. So we know the next day is the jump off time. So my troops are eating and all of a sudden it is about three o’clock in the afternoon. I had approximately one hundred and fifty men sick. And I went around and I found six enlisted personnel and myself who were not sick. So of course you grab the food right away and send it back to division and have them take a look at it, you know. And they can’t find anything wrong with the food. And finally I asked these six men, “Did you drink any coffee today?” And they said, “No.” And I said, “Neither did I. Tell them to check the water supply.” Well, we got our water out of a stream, you know, and we put it in a Lister bag. A lister bag had a spicket at the bottom of it. And we put a lot of purifying pills in that bag, you know. So, low and behold, we check on that and the coffee was contaminated. I said, “Where did you get your water?” They said, “From that stream back there.” So we go back and it is a beautiful stream clear blue water going down there. So we go back about one hundred yards and we find five or six decaying bodies lying in the water. So that is where all the contamination came from. Well, to make a long story short we could not make the attack. And we were sick for ten days.
And I told this colonel, this G-2 colonel, “Now I don’t care what you say, I was there and Colonel Stump believes me and it’s going to take three hours for the battalion to clear the hill.” Well, they told me the Germans were waiting for them at the crest of the hill and it took three hours and fifteen minutes. I see the colonel right after we went back on the line, about two weeks later. He said, “I got to apologize to you Lieutenant.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Well you were right.” I said, “Colonel, I walked the ground. I have been here for awhile. How long did it take to clear?” He said, “three hours and fifteen minutes.” I said, “Ok.” That’s one officer I had trouble with. Another, I don’t want to mention his name. We had made an attack on a pillbox and we had caught the Jerry sentry out by himself. And we captured the pillbox, it was a concrete one, without firing a shot. And we were in what they called a static area. There wasn’t anything going on after we got this big barracks surrounded. And a couple days later Colonel Stump comes up and says, “Paul, I have a job for you.” I said, “What’s that.” He said, “You know that attack you made a couple days ago?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, we have an officer here from West Point, a captain. He wants to see how it was done.” I said, “Okay, well don’t forget Colonel, we have been here for two nights. Around eleven o’clock, not exactly, it might be a little before or a little after, Jerry fires three rounds into that hill. I’m going to get out at that time.” He said, “Ok, you take the captain.” So we go along and we get up the hill. We are going to go over and I pull out my wire clippers and I cut the wire. And he says, “What are you cutting the wire for?” And I said, “Because I want to get through here.” He says, we’ll walk up and down, there might be a hole in the wire.” I said, “I know there is a hole in the wire but I don’t have time to look for it. I cut one in it two days ago. It is getting close to eleven o’clock.” Okay, so I cut it in there and I said, “We’re not going any farther. We’re getting out.” And just about that time three rounds came in and I had two men hit with shrapnel. And I told this captain, “I told you.” And he said, “No, its ok. We can go on. They’re not going to fire anymore.” And I said, “There is one thing I’ve got that says we’re not going on. I’ve got a forty-five on my hip. That means we’re not going on any farther. I fought this battle two nights ago and I didn’t lose a man. I listen to you and I lose two. They’re not badly hurt but they’re hurt.” So I pulled my troops back and we go back. And the next day Colonel Stump comes up to me and he has a big smile on his face and says, “Your going to get court marshaled.” And I said, “I am? What for?” He said, “You were going to pull a forty-five on a captain from West Point.” And I told him what happened and he said, “Don’t worry about it.” But that is just some of the incidences.
The worst I could say was the troops getting sick. We went around and they were starting to roam and we would give them a morphine shot to put them to sleep. We had to cover them up with a blanket because the snow was deep. Another incident we had with the troops, the ground was hard and I had to give each one of them a one half pound stick of dynamite. And they did not want to carry dynamite. And I would take a hammer and beat on it and throw it against a brick and everything, you know. “It’s not going to explode.” I said, “I’ve got the fuses. I carry the fuses.” You have to have a fuse to set off the dynamite because that is the only way you can dig a fox hole. They stick it in the ground, you know, and cover it up and loosen the ground up. But that was the hardest thing to do was to get them to carry that dynamite.
But I was fortunate. I had good people, and I took care of them and they took care of me. I can remember when I first went in, I told Mike Natale, who was my platoon sergeant, that I couldn’t tell which incoming shells was and which was outgoing shells. The incoming shells whistle. The outgoing shells go shoo. He said, “Lieutenant you are going to be dead tired. Excuse the language. You duck when I duck.” So that is the only thing I learned.
There were a lot of things, I mean like rations. We had canned rations to start with. You had beans, vegetable stew, and vegetable hash in a can. And if I gave one of my squad leaders too many vegetable hash, I don’t know what is was, it would give you heart burn real quick. And if I gave him too much vegetable hash the first time, I better not give him vegetable hash the second time. But they took care of me and I took care of them.
One thing I remember, I knew I had their respect but I didn’t know how much I did until during The Battle of the Bulge. We didn’t have a chance to get a hair cut. One of my sergeants says, “Lieutenant, you need a hair cut.” And I said, “Okay, I’ll cut it.” And I don’t know if you remember, I don’t think you’re old enough. During the war you had Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, and you had an orchestra called Kay Kyser and his Musical Knights [Kollege of Musical Knowledge]. And he had a fellow in there called Ish Kabibble. And Ish Kabibble was one of those comedic singers. And they always cut his hair across in bangs like this. So when this sergeant cut my hair, he is calling me and he says, “Come on up here.” And he cut my hair and he cut bangs right straight across. And after that I was never known as Lieutenant Moxley, but always Lieutenant Ish. “Where is Lieutenant Ish?” And after that I thought, well, I really have the respect of my people I work with.
And like I said I’ve got one, I got a letter here from Doc Miller [Buck Miller]. He was my last platoon sergeant and we corresponded for a while. And then all of a sudden you loose trail. And we would run through the computer to see if he was registered in that thing in Washington, D.C. and he is not, so we filed one.
I’ll show you some of the stuff I’ve got in here. I was wounded the twenty seventh of February, in a little town called Neideggen. And that’s the last big push we made because we were into German territory and the Germans just didn’t want to fight. We were in a little town called Düren and then _____. But anyhow, I’ve got my combat book and I will show it to you and you can look at it. And I had him marked down as wounded in action and I found out from the thing in Washington, D.C. that he died. Like I said the army life I had, I can’t complain about it. I was lucky. This shot here bothered me more than anything because it hit what they call the median nerve in my arm. And I know when I was in the hospital in France, in Paris, the American surgeon said, “I would sure love to cut into that and see what happens. But I don’t want to. When you go back to the States you tell them don’t touch it.” Well at the time, I couldn’t straighten my wrist up. It was always hanging like this. There was a captain in the nurse’s corps and she said, “I’ll take care of him.” And we go down there early in the morning before they’d release me. I was in Paris from February until April. They were sending all the stretcher cases home and I was ambulatory. So every morning she would work on my arm. And I never paid any attention to her, you know. She would put this salve on it and put this heat lamp on it. And I wasn’t paying any attention to her one day and I had my arm out like this and it was on the edge of the table and she put her hand underneath the table with her hand and clamped my wrist down with her other hand she pulled my hand back and broke all the adhesions loose. And I called her every name in the book. And she said, “Now look, you’re just a first lieutenant. I’m a captain.” I said, “Yea, it hurts!” She said, “Well, you can move your wrist.” And I could. She just tore it loose. So they sent me back to the States and when I came____. I was in Paris from February twentieth and left Paris April tenth. I got back the day Roosevelt died. But I got back to the States and they sent me down to Louisville, to a neurosurgeon. And I get down there and the colonel says, “Hey, that’s different.” They put it under a heat lamp to make my hand sweat and the pattern would show up where it would sweat and where it wouldn’t sweat. And then they told me what I had and they said, “Were not going to cut on it.” And I said, “You’re not going to cut on it anyhow.” He said, “How would you like to go home for thirty day leave?” And I said, “Alright.” So they gave me a thirty day sick leave. And he said, “On the twenty eighth day wire me and I will see if I can give you another.” So after the twenty eight days there, I wired and I got another thirty day sick leave. He said, “Wire me after another twenty eight days.” So I got three thirty day sick leaves. I was home. So I sent him a wire. And he said, “No, you can’t get anymore sick leave, but how would you and your wife like to go to Miami Beach for R and R?”
So we went we went down to Miami Beach and that was the first time they had a hurricane that chased the people out. This was in forty-five. We went down there and I can remember we stayed at the Sherborn hotel down there. And they had us fill the bath tubs up with water and everything. And I remember my wife was pregnant and the general of the 69th Division and I was walking through the hall down there and he said, “Lieutenant, you and I are going to go fishing tomorrow.” And I said, “We are?” He said, “Yep, I got a boat down there and we are all going to go fishing. I am taking a bunch of junior officers.” So I told my wife, “I can’t go out on that ship. I can’t say no to the general.” And at six o’clock in the morning, I got a phone call and it was cancelled. He said, “They can’t get the boat cleaned up from the last bunch that went out.” So I had to report back to Camp Wheeler, Georgia, but I had to get the wife back to Indianapolis because there was a hurricane coming in. And I tried to get a stateroom for her but I couldn’t, only if I traveled along. So I said, “Okay.” We got a stateroom. I took her back to Indianapolis and I got on the train to go back to Camp Wheeler. I walk in and the adjutant says, “You’re a day late.” I said, “Yep.” I told him why. He said, “Ok, go down and see so and so down there.” So I walk in there and I said, “I am the new company commander.” And he said, “You are? What is your name?” And I told him. And he said, “Have I seen you before?” And I said, “Well Sergeant, where is the picture of all the troops you trained?” They had them up on the wall, the different groups that went through, so I go up there and I said, “There I am.” And he said, “Well, I’ll be darned. I trained you as a recruit and now you are my company commander.” So I was in there until December. And then in December I had enough points that I could get out. So in the December of ‘45 they put me on leave and I had a 120 day sick leave coming. So I wasn’t going to go back to work at the railroad and I wanted to see my boss down there. He told me what jobs I could have when I came back. So I said, “I’ll see you in May.” But then in the middle of March I was so bored. So I went back to work for the railroad in March. I finally quit in August of eighty one. But I have had a good life. [Drifts off topic]
[46 min 10 seconds]
K.H.: We will get a few more questions. You said your birthday was on June 6th.
P.M.: Yep, D-Day.
K.H.: On D-Day how were you… or what was the tone like? Were you celebrating?
P.M.: No Sir. I was sitting in the middle of the English Channel eating soda crackers to keep from bringing up my breakfast. Well, if you watch the shows on TV at all, the channel, the weather was terrible. And I’ll tell you just how bad it got. They had made, I forget what they call them, it was like a barge only it was hollow and it weighed forty or fifty tons. And they floated them across the channel. And they were going to set them up close to the beach, kind of like a false harbor so the troops could get in. Okay, I went back there on the sixteenth of June so I could pick up some officers, replacements, and missile personnel. We had a storm, and the storm was so bad that we couldn’t get any ammunition. In fact, it had slowed down so bad that I had a sixty MM weapons platoon section attached to my platoon and that’s three guns, they have got these mortar shells. I’ve got three shells per day for each one of those guns. I said, “What am I going to do if I get in a fire fight? I’ve got nine shells and then it is over with.” But anyhow, the storm was that bad. And these things they brought over to get as close to the beach as they could get them and filled them with water, and then they would put steel placement over them, you know. And they were tossed up on the beach just like a match box. So I went back and I picked up those guys and I said,” Where do you go to school at?” and they said, “Oh, we’re from Fort Benning.” I said, “Good, forget it. They can teach you theory but there is nothing like what we got over here.��� I mean it is true. You learn from experience. I know one of the things we’d do over there. We would get a new replacement the first day we would make him a scout. And that meant he was out in front of us you know. Well he was not stupid but he was curious enough to look into everything, you know. He made a good scout the first day, but the second day if he lived through it he wasn’t worth a darn. He knew what was out there, you know. And I’ll tell you one thing I found out. The Germans were good soldiers. They were good soldiers but if we could knock out their officers or their noncoms we had no problem with them. But after we went in there, I saw American privates that could run a company and that ran it as well as any officer could. We were taught to think for ourselves. And it was just the way it was. Maybe I’m talking too much. I don’t know.
[49 min 44 sec]
K.H.: Did you win any medals for your service?
P.M.: Well, you’ve got that right there.
K.H.: Can you show us?
P.M.: Well this has to do entirely with my division. This is the Bronze Star, that is for doing something. This is the Purple Heart that they give you for being wounded, not that you want to be wounded, and there is a Cluster.
[50 min 48 sec]
K.H.: May I rotate this?
P.M.: That’s ok.
P.M.: And this is the Good Conduct Medal. This is the American Theater of Operation, that is within the United States. This is the European Theater of Operation with three battle stars. Now, that’s for the Battle of France, the Battle of the Ardennes which is the Battle of the Bulge, and the Battle of the Rhineland which is Germany. And this is the Victory Medal. These are the medals you can wear on your shirts. And they’re all fixed up. This is my division patch. This is what we called the Ruptured Duck. That is what they gave you when you got out of the service, that little medal there. This is the First Army of which I was a member of, a member of the First Army. This is a Presidential Unit Citation that the president gave the regiment for some outstanding battle. Of course this is the Crossed Rifles which we wore. This is U.S. and that’s my Expert Rifle [Sharpshooter Badge] and that’s the Ninth Division patch Octeville, and this is the Combat Infantryman’s Badge which they give you in combat.
And I’ve got a few other things you might want to see, if I’m not boring you. This is what I carried on my rifle butt. We had a piece of plexiglass. We made some screws here. This is my wife [Referring to a picture]. She put on a hula skirt. [Repetitive sentence]. Of course I carried a carbine which was a smaller shot. And these were a couple of pictures we had taken. This one here, if you look real close you will find out, I don’t know what the Army does when they take this picture. That picture, the thing is backwards, because my jacket is buttoned the wrong way, and I know I don’t button it that way. And this one was taken down in Georgia. And this is when I was on the land route. This is what we started off with taking basic. I guess the picture is gone out of that one. It will be in another one. Now this is the last platoon book that I had when I was wounded the last time. In here you write out what you’re supposed to do that day. See this was my medic [referring to a name in the platoon book]. That’s a different one. And this was the squads various guys. And on them you’ll find out WIA, MIA, or KIA which means missing in action, killed in action or wounded in action. And that’s the last one I had. And we kept trying to find some names that would be here and this is the one I was telling you about. There could only be one name like that in the service. And we found his name and that is how I found out he was killed. This is what we would write down when you get ready to go into combat, so you know who’s on your right, who’s on your left and everything. And I had different things that you write down. Like this one says, “First platoon on the right, second platoon on the left, light machine gun, see attached.” You put all that down and you’re supposed to. What you do in combat when you start off, you have what they call a line of departure. That’s where you jump off from. Then you have a certain prominent thing out there and that’s called your first objective. And you’re all supposed to meet that at a certain time. Then when you get that, you make sure somebody on your left is not exposed and on your right and then you go to your next objective. Now many a time now, they’ll tell you, ‘the United States Army never retreats’. No, we never retreat. We just make a strategic withdrawal. I know at one occasion during Cherbourg we jumped of at one o’clock in the morning to make an attack. And we went about four or five miles, and that night I slept in the same place we jumped off the night before because the Germans counter attacked and we didn’t have enough people to take care of them. But like I said, we never made retreat, we made a strategic withdrawal. This is a book that the 9th Division put out. It was written by ____. They’ve got reports in there from Ernie Pile and different people. This is a letter from Louis Ludlow. Louis Ludlow was a politician for the 11th district here in Indianapolis during the war and he notified my wife that I was wounded before the war department did. And you can look through that if you want to. You can see it better than I can. Like I say, I’m thankful for coming back. My youngest son wanted me to go back. He wanted to take me back when they had their 50th Anniversary of the invasion over there. I told him, “I’ve had a million dollars worth of experiences over there, but I wouldn’t take a million dollars to go back.” I don’t know whither you want to take this home and take pictures or not [referring to article]. I have some things highlighted in here about the 39th Infantry. Like there, that’s D-Day. I’ve got a picture of Paddy Flint I talked about. Well, I saved this till last. I got a letter from the French Consulate General in Chicago.
[59 minutes, 41 seconds]
K.H.: [Reads letters about French Legion Application]
P.M.: Well, we sent that to them. That’s just what I told you about, the battles I was in. Then I got this from the Consulate.
[1 hour, 48 seconds]
K.H.: [Reads letter about French Legion Acceptance]
Dear Mr. Moxley,
It is my pleasure as Consulate General of France in Chicago, that the President of the French Republic has named you Knight of the Legion of Honor for your valorous actions during World War Two. My fellow country men will never forget your sacrifice. Though their children and grandchildren are as proud as courageous actions as can be your own children and grandchildren. This outstanding distinction is the highest honor that France can bestow upon those who have achieved remarkable deeds for France. It is also a sign of true gratitude for you invaluable contributions to the liberation of France during these difficult times in the history of our nation. It is a privilege for me to send you my sincere and warmest congratulations.
P.M.: Then I got this one from the France Ambassador in Washington D.C.
[1 hour, 2 minutes, 0 seconds]
K.H.: [Reads letter from French Ambassador]
Dear Mr. Moxley,
I am pleased to inform you by a decree signed by the President of the French Republic on July 25, 2007; you have been named a “Chevalier” of the Legion of Honor. This award testifies to the President of the French Republic’s high esteem for your merits and accomplishments. In particular, it is a sign of France’s true and unforgettable gratitude and appreciation for your personal, precious contribution to the United States’ decisive role in the liberation of our country during World War Two.
P.M.: That’s the one I’m supposed to get. That’s the one they are supposed to send me. [Referring to a picture of the medal given by French Legion] They called up and told me I had that and then they want to know how I wanted to take it and I said, “Well, I belong to an American Legion Post. Why don’t you just send it to the American Legion Post and let them set it up.” And like I said, “they only make so many of them a year.” Well, that’s about all I got Kevin.
[1 hour, 3 minutes, 32 seconds]
K.H.: Well, thank you very much. You have some very amazing stories.
P.M.: Well, I’m sure there are some I have forgotten.
K.H.: Oh, that’s alright.
[He is remembering a forgotten story.]
P.M.: I was in a foxhole and a shell hit. I don’t know where it hit but it threw all the dirt on top of me and I had to dig myself out. And then in Cherbourg I was blown out of a two story window and I fell on my back. That’s why I have back trouble. It lit on the other side of the house I was in. Here is a story I didn’t tell you about. I was going into Cherbourg. I came up and there was a bunch of British Marines. And I had never seen a British soldier, but I swear all these guys were six foot three and they had these grappling hooks and they said we’ve got a German general pinned in and were trying to find out how to get in there. That’s when General Von Schleiben, was commander of Cherbourg. He said, “Can you hold up your attack?” I said, “I can’t hold up my attack.” He said, “Ok, well were going to climb.” And they would take these grappling hooks and they would throw them up in the window. And they would climb up in there just like a monkey. And they would go in the house and you would hear them say, “all clear.” And they would climb down and say, “Ok Lieutenant. You can go ahead.” That was the first British troops I ran into. But like I say, they must have all been six foot three. You know, I can remember being awake for thirty six hours. Which, you were running on adrenaline, I guess. And like I say, ‘The Good Lord made a good body.’ And like I said, I had good people.
I’ll tell you one. If you got through patrols, they would give you a couple of days off. And we had a rest area in Belgium. And we had been on patrol one time and we come back and Mac says, “Paul, I want you to take seven or eight of your men into Maria just for rest.” Well, they give you a good clean uniform and you wear all the medals that you got with you, so the people know who you are. Well, we go to Verviers and Verviers is just dead. Verviers is just army personnel, you know. And they say, “Lieutenant, can’t we go someplace else.” And I said, “How are we going to get there?” And they say, “Well, there’s a bunch of six by sixes going by.” That’s these big trucks. And they had what they called the ‘Red Ball Express.’ And they were all driven, they brought the ammo and supplies up there. They were all driven by black soldiers, you know. And we caught one going back and we said, “Where are you going?” He said, “Were going to Liège, Belgium.” We said, “Ok you’re taking us.” So we hopped in the back of the truck. And we get into Liège and we go into a bar there. And the bartender had worked in a bar in New York. He has got a book, but anyhow. He made us drinks. He wouldn’t take any money. And so I’m sitting there with six or seven enlisted men and I got my bars on of course. And here comes a major in the MPs, military police. And he has got a first sergeant with him that’s on limited duty because he was a combat sergeant from the First Division. And he had on all his ribbons and everything on. And this major comes up to me and says, “Lieutenant what are you doing with these enlisted personnel?” He says, “You’re not supposed to go out with them.” And it just rubbed me wrong. And I looked at him and he had a Pre-Pearl Harbor ribbon on and a European Theater on with nothing on it. So I told him, “Major, when you get some battle time, you come in and talk to me. But these men take care of me in combat and they go where I go.” I said, “Right now I don’t want to be bothered with you.” So he said, “Well, I’ll take care of you.” And he left with the sergeant. About half an hour later the sergeant comes back he says, “Lieutenant, you hurt the major’s feelings.” I said, “Why?” I said, “Pop, look at the ribbons your wearing. I know what the First Division did, the Big Red One. ” He says, “Well, can I sit down and have a drink with you?” I said, “yea, you’re no different that anybody else.” But he just rubbed me the wrong way. I said, “You know how it is up there. I take care of them and they take care of me.” But like I said, ‘I was fortunate,’ if you can be fortunate in the war, I had a good outfit, I had good people. And like I say, ‘they took care of me.’ There was a lot I learned from them. I got a letter here from Buck Miller and I used to correspond with him. We had a switchboard operator on the hospital. If you remember Fibber McGee and Molly, well, this girl sounded exactly like her. And I got to know her real well in the hospital. I wrote Marian about her [his wife]. In fact, when the first baby was born, she knitted an outfit and sent it to us. But anyhow she was a switchboard operator and I called her Merc. So we corresponded back and forth until all of a sudden you loose track of them. But anyhow, I got ordered to go back and they invited me over to eat. The lady she boarded with, she was from France and I had two great aunts here, I had written home about them. I had two children and they had sent a bunch of stuff over for the kids. Somewhere around here, I have some sterling silver demitasse spoons that this lady had. And when I went over to eat she said, “I want you to take these.” I said, “I can’t take these. They are for your family.” She said, “Nope, I want you to have them.” So I took them, but then when I got ready to leave that night, I slipped them back under the davenport. And I get back on the front lines and I opened my duffle bag and right at the top of my duffle bag was that there case with these six sterling silver demitasse spoons in it. She knew where my equipment was before I went back to the front and she put the dam things in there. [Drifts off topic]
I met some nice people. We lived at the hospital in Melvin Wells. There was a pub up on the top of the hill called the Harney Old Arms. And the pub was all closed at nine o’clock. And over in England they never had a cold drink in all their life. They had whiskey there and everything. But you didn’t put it in a glass and mix it with anything else. So we would raid the ice box at the hospital and go up there. Another thing, if you were running a fever, the nurses would not let you out. Well, we would put ice cubes in our mouth, you know. The nurses would come around and take our temperature, and they’d think we’re removing it. They would say, “Lieutenant, take it out.” I would take it out. That is what we did. We would play some dirty jokes on people. You had to in order to survive. Like I said, in combat if you didn’t laugh once in a while, you couldn’t go through it.
I don’t know whether Paula [his daughter] told you this story. My classmates met up a Cathedral there. When we got bombed, it was the Eighth Air Force. Bob Bash, who I knew real well at Cathedral, said, “I wasn’t flying that day, Paul. I didn’t know the Eighth Air Force was up. We went to Washington D.C. and I had this cap on. I didn’t bring this cap out to show you, it’s got my division symbol on it. Here comes this guy in an air force cap and he says, “We bombed you.” Just out of the clear blue sky, you know. “I wasn’t flying that day.” You know, none of the Eighth Air Force was up. It was funny. You could laugh about it now. He said, “Yea, we knew that we bombed you. I wasn’t flying that day though.” I guess none of the air force was flying. But like I said, I had good people.
Like I said a million dollars worth of experiences but I wouldn’t take a million to go back through it. That’s why I feel so heartfelt about what they have in Iraq and Iran now because those poor guys over there. He’s your friend in the daytime and your enemy at night. You don’t know who’s who. You know, during The Battle of the Bulge they parachuted a lot of Germans, or American speaking troops, into our lines that spoke English as well as any American, you know. We were changing the password every hour on the hour. We had some of the most confusing passwords. We were trying to confuse them, you know. But I said, they were good soldiers. If Hitler would have turned loose some of those panzer units, when we first went in there, because Bradley was going to at one time pull off of Omaha Beach, because the First Division just wasn’t moving. It wasn’t their fault. He had a long time to prepare for us over there. He still felt we were coming through Calais.
One incident over there during the war, John L. Lewis, who was president of the mine workers, called the miners out on a strike. While we were overseas, it got around to the troops, and if Lewis were standing next to Hitler, Louis would have got shot first. The troops were that mad. Like I said, if you didn’t find something to laugh about, you found something where someone would go over a hedge row. He was saving his life or something. It was funny the way he got over it, you know. You didn’t do anything on a schedule. I know we’d go back if we were moving and we knew there was a sniper or a gun sitting out there. I had forty men I had to worry about. You’d want to make a move through the gap. Well, you would send one. Then you would wait and maybe it would be three minutes before you would send two. Then maybe you send one out in a minute. You know, you didn’t put it on schedule. Like I said, the German was a good soldier. He was good. I always told people I was glad at least we weren’t in the Eastern Theatre with the Japanese. At least I thought we were fighting human beings. We had only one occasion, we were there, we were in a fire fight, and the Germans came out with the white flag and my sergeant went out. He could speak German. He said, “He wants to talk to you Lieutenant.” So I went out there and he wanted to take time to pick up his wounded and his dead. I said, “Ok, we’ll do it to.�� I went back and I told my medic to go out there with some men to pick them up. And it took just one German, took a shot at him, and hit my medic. And after that there were no prisoners. So it happens. If that fellow hadn’t fired a shot and hit one of us, it wouldn’t have happened. Because we went out and talked it over, you know. I know, when we went up Cap de la Hague to get that big gun, they weren’t going to surrender to me, because it amounted to a full colonel in the German SS troops. He wasn’t going to surrender because I was just a first lieutenant. He wanted somebody else to surrender to. I said, “It wasn’t me, who captured General Von Schleiben, it was my division. You might as well give up.” But they were good soldiers. They had the best artillery piece in the world, an eighty eight, they had. It shot an eighty eight millimeter shell. You could see the shell going through the air. They were that big. They used smokeless powder. They were mechanized. If they would shoot, you would never see them unless you were looking right straight at that point. But then if you would get your gun to fire in there, he would move someplace else. I told them, “I don’t understand why we don’t adopt the German eighty eight.” We went into Cherbourg. We were moving so fast after we got out, got to moving all our troops up there, that we bypassed a German eighty eights emplacement. They’d say, “Well you bypassed them because we got people coming up from behind to take care of them.” Well, at night those guns would be shooting me again. So I got myself a bunch of phosphorus grenades to put them in the breach to freeze the breach. They said, “Oh don’t do that.” I said, “Look you people, you’re not going to stop them, I’ll stop them my way.” Sometimes, I got pretty provoked. But like I said, I had real good people. And like I said, when they called me “Lieutenant Ish,” I think I had it made.
[1 hr, 19 min, 10 sec]
K.H.: Well, thank you very much. You have some really incredible stories. You should be proud of what you have done in your service.
Interview completed at 1 hr, 19 min., 27 sec.
