Interview with Paul Buckler
[b. 11/30/25]
Interviewed by Mackenzie Turner
Recorded on 10/8/2006 by Mackenzie Turner
Transcribed on 11/18/06 by Mackenzie Turner
This is October 8th 2006, I am Mackenzie Turner and I am interviewing Paul Buckler at Brazil, Indiana. Mr. Buckler is unrelated to my family. He is eighty years old and was born on November 30, 1925. Mr. Buckler served in the WWII, 1925… that was when he was born. [Laughter] He was in the US Army and held the rank of Staff Sergeant.
Mackenzie Turner: Were you drafted or did you enlist?
[00:36]
Paul Buckler: Drafted.
MT: Where were you living at the time?
PB: In Brookville, IN.
MT: Did they ask you any questions like why did you want to join when you were drafted? Did they ask you why you wanted to join?
PB: Why, yes, they did you know. Why do you want be in the Army and I said well it is a very good cause. You know, ‘cause it was WWII. They had their back against the wall so I thought you know I could help.
MT: Um, why did you pick up that certain branch? Why did you pick the US Army?
PB: Well, I don’t know. At the time they asked what branch you want to go in and I said the Air Force. Well, the air force was all filled up and so, you could either join either the navy, or the marines or the army and I just picked the army.
MT: Um, do you recall your first day in the army?
PB: Pardon?
MT: Do you recall your first day in the army?
[01:46]
PB: Oh, yeah
MT: What were they like?
PB: Well, rather hectic. I was 18 years old and I’d never been away from home overnight very much. A little bit on one period, I went to school in Cincinnati for about 5 months, but it would be just a week at a time or maybe two weeks at a time and then I’d come back. And I have a recording that might be interesting to you. I’ll give it to you. It tells about the first day that I was in the army and I went to _ they sent me to Camp Walters, Texas for my basic training. And I ……. When I first stepped off the bus the drill sergeant he’s yelling at me and I thought, well, I must have offended this fella somehow but that is just the basic way of life in the army. They had to keep yelling at everybody a certain amount.
MT: Do you have any training experience?
PB: Pardon?
MT: Do you have any training experience in the US Army? Your training, what was it like?
[03:09]
PB: Well, it was seventeen weeks in the basic training; was just learning about the arms, the firearms and of course just a lot of calisthenics. Learning how to shoot on the rifle range they used a M1 rifle, a machine gun, a thirty-caliber machine gun, and a sixty mm mortar that was the basic weapons of the infantry.
MT: Was it easy to get through basic training? Was it easy?
PB: Oh, no I wouldn’t say it was easy. No, sometimes it was very hard of course in Texas it is hot, very hot. Long marches, a lot of speed marches nine-mile speed marches and twenty-five mile toward the end of basic training w/ full field pack.
MT: So you were in WWII and Uh where exactly did you go when you went?
PB: France, and Germany.
MT: Uh do you remember arriving there?
PB: Yes, on the 9th day of December 1944 arrived in Marseilles, France. I remember it was nice and warm there. And so they, the personal instructions, WWII, city of Marseilles. Marseilles was an old city. And on the ship you could buy as much candy as you wanted.
MT: Un-huh
PB: And I had a whole box of Hershey bars and uh the streets in Marseilles was just lined with people, packed with people, and they were just cheering us “Viva La France” “Viva La America” and I was selling those candy bars out and a couple of weeks later I wished I had some of them back. [laughter] And we uh camped outside of Marseilles in tents for about two days.
MT: Un-huh
PB: And then they put us on trucks and they took us to the railhead and we got on forty & eights. Are you familiar with that forty & eights?
MT: No.
PB: They were so called because during WWI these boxcars together would hold eight horses and forty men. And so that’s the kind of boxcars we got on. And we rode on this train and then they put on trucks again and took us the rest of the way to the front. Uh, the railroads were, well they had been bombed and shelled a lot so they were not in too good of a shape. So the train did not go very fast. Well anyhow they put us on trucks again and I can remember the truck that I was on, it was half F Company and half G Company. I was with G Company. And when they got off the trucks somebody must have bumped somebody with a rifle or something and anyhow these two companies got into a fight. And I’m trying to be a peacemaker but I wasn’t doing much good. But finally the commander of the F Company, came over there and he was a big fella about 6 foot 6 and he started grabbing people by the collar pulling them apart, you know, and he said you guys want to fight you’ll have all the fight you want in the morning. [laughter] And it is hard for me to forget that even though I’m not in combat.
MT: So way back when, what was your job assignment to do in France?
PB: Pardon?
MT: What was your job assignment in France?
[07:17]
PB: My job well I was a messenger to start with when I came over to the company commander and the executive officer. Um, then finally after we were almost wiped out, they made me a communications ser-sergeant and the company’s communications sergeant. So that is what I did for the rest of the war, took care of all communications for the company.
MT: Did you see any combat?
PB: Yep.
[laughter]
PB: Yes, about 5 months of combat. I served in 3 major battles, Ardenne-Alsace, Rhineland, and in East Central Europe.
MT: Umm, what are a couple of your memorable experiences during that time?
PB: Oh, there are so many of them that… the 1st battle was in Ardenne-Alsace and I think five days, we had a full strength company of 180 men. Five days later there were only twenty-nine of us left. So they took us, those twenty-nine, and they said we know you guys are tired but we need you, and they desperately needed us, and so they took us and put us in an outpost about 900 yards east of Wieschem, France and we were there about five days and it was bitter cold, it was existing fox holes there at one time, that we could use but it was bitter cold, eighteen inches of snow on the ground and the Germans, they shelled us until that snow was blackened from the powder of the shells.
MT: Un-huh
PB: Eventually they pulled us off there and they did give us kind of a rest and then they sent us to a place called Roscoff in a defensive position. That is probably about the worst of the worst battle I was in Ardenne-Alsace.
MT: You were not a prisoner of war, I know that. Right?
PB: Pardon?
MT: You were not a prisoner of war, right?
PB: No, no, I never was. But several were taken prisoner in the 1st battle but we were on the front, just infantries. The company spread over 3 miles wide very thin, no artillery support, no arms support. They just walked through pretty much.
MT: Were you awarded any medals? Of course I can see them.
PB: Yes. A lot
MT: We’ve got lots of evidence here. I’d like you to explain them.
[10:38]
PB: Well, most of them don’t say what it is. This one is the American Campaign here, this one is the good conduct medal. This one is the bronze star, which I am very proud of. This one is for meritorious service __. This is the European commuter ribbon with three battle stars.
MT: Because you were in three battles?
PB: Yes, because I was in 3 major battles.
MT: That one says WWII on it.
PB: Yes, WWII, this is the occupation of Germany after the war. And this here is combat infantry man badge which is probably the one I am most proud of, and we got ‘cause only a infantry man under fire received this badge and received an extra ten dollars a month. [laughter] Wow, huh. And Ernie Pyle was instrumental to getting this medal for us. Because I received the bronze star the act of congress __ and that is the reason why the oak leaf is encrusted on the bronze star to signify that I have two bronze stars.
MT: How did you stay in touch w/ your family?
PB: Just by letters writing home and they would write to you and sometimes you would get a whole stack of letters all at once because they couldn’t get them to us every day.
MT: How often would you try to write your letters?
[12:39]
PB: Oh, once a week.
MT: When you found time to do it?
PB: Yes.
Mt: What was the food like in the army?
PB: The food?
MT: Yes.
PB: I never could complain about the food a lot of us didn’t but most of the time during the war we had K-rations which is a package about this long, this thick, and about this wide. When we first started, went over seas, the little cans they had in there it was cheese and it wasn’t very good cheese. And I’m not a finicky eater but it wasn’t long before they had food ham and eggs, bacon and eggs.
MT: You got them three times a day?
PB: Yeah, and it sort of got really good after a while. They gave us a can of food in there and some crackers and a candy bar, a chocolate bar and more cigarettes, a stick of gum and that was about it. Sometimes, if we were in a defensive position, they would give us C-rations, a little better, like pork and beans things like this it would be a little better. But most of the time K rations because it was easier for them to handle them and easier for us easier to carry them. One time when we were in the defensive position the cooks brought us breakfast before daybreak in the morning and I remember the first time they did that I wondered what are you guys doing here, you just drove into hell. But they brought us hot food up there in canisters and hot plates, and scrambled eggs and hot coffee. They put a little trailer in the back of a jeep and pull up there before day light and they would move out before day break. But they did that a couple of times and this was really a morale booster to us.
MT: Did you feel any pressure or stress in Germany or anything?
PB: Yes, during the war there was a lot of stress.
MT: Well, what kind of stress did you feel? What were you stressed about the most when you were in the army?
[16:40]
PB: Sometimes you were under continuous fire; you know either artillery or small arms fire. And so you are always ducking trying to stay safe if you can. And during some of these times, I had to string wire because the lines got broken and I had to go out and try to patch them up so I could keep communications. We had telephones in just some of the foxholes and we had finally received radios. We had almost 300 radios, very good radios. That was part of my job, communications. We also had messengers, if telephones and radios failed. We’d send messengers to the battalion leaders and they would bring messages back. The first two days when I was at Wierschem, France. I ran messages to battalion headquarters and I had to bring messages back. I was almost continuously running back and forth to communicate.
MT: That is a lot of stress. Was there anything you did for good luck or anything you had for good luck?
PB: No. Today, when you are under this kind of stress you get a consultant to talk to there were no consultants there.
MT: How did people entertain themselves?
[19:50]
PB: There wasn’t any entertainment. A lot of times there was USOs and things like that would come up, but I never did see any of them. After the war the USO did come to our camp once and brought coffee and donuts, things like that, but not during the war. Some units did get help like this.
MT: What did you do when you were on leave?
PB: I was on leave once right after basic training. From then on I didn’t get one until after the war. But I had a ten-day furlough. I remember when I was home I went into a bar and ordered a beer and I was eighteen years old and they turned me down. [laughter]
MT: They turned you down?
PB: Yes. [laughter] Turned me down.
MT: Do you recall any particular funny events or humorous events that happened to you?
PB: Oh sometimes, I can’t remember anything in particular right now. But sometimes, there are humorous things that happen even under those conditions.
MT: Did you pull any pranks on any people when you were at camp?
PB: [laughter] No, I’m not a prankster. [laughter]
MT: And you do have photographs, right?
[21:47]
PB: Yes, from Dachau.
MT: Are they from a concentration camp or Auschwitz?
PB: These are actual pictures taken from a concentration camp, Dachau.
PB’s Daughter: These are actual pictures that he took when his company went in and liberated that camp. So he actually took these pictures when he went in there.
MT: Ok. What were the dates you liberated that concentration camp?
PB: Pardon?
MT: What were the dates that you liberated that concentration camp?
PB: 30 April 1945
MT: You were in the first group to go in there?
PB: Yes, oh, I wasn’t the first to go in there but members of my unit went in the day before. 42nd Division was the first in also the 44th came in about the same time. But a friend of mine, he took these pictures, he was kind of an amateur photographer. He developed them over there and he gave me a copy of them.
MT: Do you remember any thoughts you had when you first liberated that concentration camp?
PB: Pardon?
MT: Do you remember any of the thoughts you had when you first liberated the concentration camp?
PB: Yes, yes. I was so amazed with what happened. I was like oh my God, how could somebody do something like this? Just dead bodies everywhere. There were approximately 32,000 still alive there at different stages of health. You know some of them were so bad they would die soon after they were liberated. Also, 30,000 died there before we got there, didn’t get there soon enough. I remember a fellow soldier, a friend of mine, he was taking 3 SS troopers to the compound that had surrendered to us, and they went past the prisoners, they started shaking their fists and spitting, and yelling and no doubt they were really afraid of us. So we stopped and thought about throwing them in there and I remember we talked about it for a minute or so and decided if we did that we would be as bad as the Nazis so we took them to the compound.
MT: What did you think of the officers that you had?
[24:55]
PB: Most of our officers were good. I can only remember one that was really bad. But most were top notch.
MT: Did keep a personal journal at all?
PB: Pardon?
MT: Did you keep a personal journal?
PB: No, you know I would have liked to but they told you not to. Because if you were captured then the Germans would know where you had been and give them some idea of what you were doing. When you wrote letters you had to be careful not to say what the weather was because if they happened to get a hold of those letters, then they could tell what kind of weather that particular day. And you couldn’t say well, there are a lot of pine trees here, things like that. They could figure out where you were.
MT: Do you recall the day your service ended?
PB: Oh yeah.
MT: Were you saddened by it? Did you want to go home?
PB: Oh yeah, I wanted to go home. Of course, the company commander he tried to recruit us, you know. At least a certain amount of us, but I wanted out. I probably would have liked it alright because I was a staff sergeant and I was making very good money. When I came back from overseas I was making about $135 a month, which was a lot of money back then. And I uh, for a while I just helped my dad and mom on the farm. And in August 1946 my wife and I got married. I went to work at a factory in Connersville, Indiana and after that I drove an oil truck for about 5 years and all of this time I wanted to become a farmer myself. Finally I was able to rent a farm. It was exciting.
MT: Did you make any close friendships while you were in the service?
PB: Yeah.
Mt: Did you keep up with them afterwards?
[28:03]
PB: Oh yes. A friend of mine, his name was Fred Terry. He was taken prisoner at the first battle. So I stayed in touch with him all these years. Sometimes I’ll call him and he lives in New Jersey. He’s a couple of years older than I am, so you know life’s rather short. Not very long for me.
MT: Did you join a veteran’s organization?
PB: Yes, American Legion and the VFW club.
MT: What made you want to do that?
PB: Oh, um, I feel like it helps all veterans by doing this. It kind of gives you a word of mouth with the government. Once in a while, some members of my family and I will go to the VFW and have a public breakfast on Saturday morning. You go in there and get pretty good breakfast so we’ve done that several times. They’ll have biscuits and gravy sausage and bacon and scrambled eggs. They have a good breakfast.
MT: Did your military experience affect the way you look at your life?
PB: Oh yes, it changed my outlook on life. It makes you want to go vote. I want a say in what happens, you know, if I can. Before that I didn’t think it was that important.
MT: In the veteran’s organizations what do you participate in?
PB: Well, I’m not really active. I just go up to the VFW once in awhile and the American Legion I never have gone there. I just belong to hopefully support them and their programs that they try to help the veterans.
MT: Did you attend any reunions?
[30:40]
PB: No, well, no. Yeah we went back to France and Germany two different times. The veterans of the 42nd Rainbow Division organized these trips. We went back, we went back to Dachau for the 50th anniversary in 1995 then again in 1998 we went back to the battle field in France.
MT: What was it like being in Dachau again?
PB: Oh, of course, now at Dachau, they have a museum there, but it’s hard to display what it was really like for me personally, when I first liberated them. In 1995 I went back to the battlefield in Marseilles, France. I had reservations whether it was right thing to do to go back there. I didn’t know what it would be like but I’m glad I went back. There was tobacco growing on one side of the road, corn on the other side, and it was so peaceful that it gave you the feeling that I did some good.
MT: How did you end up deciding that you wanted to go back?
PB: Pardon?
MT: How did you end up deciding that you wanted to go back?
[32:31]
PB: Oh, I wanted the family to see you know what happened, where, everything.
PB Daughter: Dad, tell them, Mackenzie, about your duty?
PB: Well, at Wierschem, when they pulled us back off of the battle field the next day, they wanted to find out what was going on up there. And so a fellow by the name of Lt. Blackhurst asked me to go on a reconnaissance patrol and um he said it was strictly voluntary. It would be a jeep driver with Lt. Blackhurst and I. And I think he asked me because I was carrying a Tommy gun. I was the only Tommy gun in the company and they told me that I could take whatever weapon I wanted. Not everybody could do that but as a communications chief, I could do that. So, when we went up to Wierschem, I saw these two American tanks knocked out. And, I walked over there and I saw this Tommy gun leaned up against that tank. So I decided to lay my M1 down there and I picked up that Tommy gun, and I gathered up all of the ammunition that I could. And so I’m carrying this Tommy gun and I think that is the reason why he asked me to go. Ah, anyhow we drove up there in that jeep, and we got out of the jeep, and he used his binoculars and uh, he finally said I think I’ve got all of the information I need and he jumped back in the jeep and although the Germans are firing on us, with artillery and small arms fire. So the jeep driver, he took us down off the road far as he could and then he came to some woods and a ravine. And so he shot back up on the road just a narrow road and it was a gravel road then and the shells are landing on each side of the road, luckily they never did smack the road, but ah the jeep was on two wheels on one side and two wheels on the other side. Not quite sure how he did it but he did a good job of it, keeping it on it’s wheels. So, one by the time we hit Wierschem, France the shelling had stopped.
PB Daughter: What kind of shape was the jeep in?
PB: The two tires on the right side had shrapnel holes in them, the radiator had shrapnel in it, and so it was steaming and you couldn’t gone much farther. And that’s the wildest ride I’ve ever had.
[laughter]
PB Daughter: That is the last time he ever volunteered for anything. So we went back there, we were there in 1998 when we went back and stood on that road where he drove that jeep.
PB: It’s black top today but it’s still pretty narrow.
PB Daughter: It’s not a whole lot of a road anyway, it’s still pretty small.
MT: Is there anything that you would like to add that I did not cover?
[36:24]
PB: Well, this is ah, {showing Mackenzie a map here} that piece you are holding there are my discharge papers and this is where we landed in Marseilles, France. Just getting off of the Mediterranean Sea and this is the route that the Rainbow took. The division gave us these maps, gave each one of us these maps. I left it lay around for a long time. I finally decided it was important enough to put it in a frame to preserve it.
PB Daughter: The jeep ride was here in Wierschem, wasn’t it Dad?
PB: What?
PB Daughter: Where was the jeep ride?
PB: Yeah, Wierschem.
MT: Do you think Dachau was one of the most memorable experiences for you?
PB: Yes.
MT: Was everyone in the company just absolutely shocked at Dachau?
PB: Oh yeah. Some, most of the good many of those fellows were veterans and some cried.
MT: What took you to Dachau? Did you hear about it?
PB: No, it was just on the route of battle.
Mt: So, it was strictly by chance?
PB: Yes.
PB: It’s the oldest concentration camp. One of their first ones
PB Daughter: There are all kinds of people there, Czechs, Poles, and there were priests that were in that concentration camp. There were, it wasn’t just Jews, I mean there were political prisoners. When my dad went back in 1995 I didn’t go that year back to Dachau, I was with him in ’98. In ’95, when they went, there were some of the prisoners of war that were at that camp were at the reunion. And um, it was a huge reunion for the soldiers and the prisoners, the prisoners of war that were in there and the Jewish people that were there. And when my dad, had a button on that said 42nd Rainbow Division those people knew who the Rainbow Division was. They cried, hugged and hung on to them because they had saved their lives. How if they would have been just a little bit later they would have died. They were setting up flame throwers on top of the fences and were getting ready to torch all of the prisoners that were in there.
MT: How many people did they say died in there?
[40:02]
PB: About 30,000, uh, plus several died after they were liberated. They were just too far gone. There was one fella that didn’t speak good English, he and his daughter were there from Czechoslovakia, and he was a prisoner there and he was telling us that in seven hours that the commander of Dachau had orders from Himmler himself to destroy the camp. Fireball it and that anybody who survived to machine gun them down. And in seven hours this was supposed to happen. They made us feel like we were ten feet tall. There was a lot of patrolling from both sides the Americans and the Germans. So I asked my commanding officer if I could go to church, and he said “Yes”. And about a fourth of the church was shelled out. I don’t know if the Germans shelled it out or if we shelled it out. And it was snowing, snowing right down through that hole in the roof. The people, the church was full of people mostly civilians; a few soldiers.
PB Daughter: So they had Christmas Mass there with snow coming down from the middle of the church that year.
MT: And where was that?
PB: At Fort Travis. And we went back there in ‘98, to the church. I wanted to see if they had fixed it. [Laughter]
PB Daughter: But, it was still there.
PB: Yeah.
MT: I want to thank you so much for the interview.
[42:39]
PB: You’re welcome. Thank you.
