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/ From page 1Anightmares that he was fighting Japanese soldiers,” she said. ‘‘He thought for* many years that God couldn’t forgive him and he didn’t join the church for a long time.”Alex Pellerin, Sr., a 78 year-old Port Neches resident, was a Master First Sergeant in the U.S. Army that saw combat in North Africa and Europe. Pellerin says his war experiences have never left him.“Some of us didn’t last long because of shell shock,” said Pellerin. “What some soldiers saw was so horrific that they lost their minds. I often wondered if I’d ever make it back. I’m one of the lucky ones.”“My first combat was on the beach of Salerno, Italy,” he continued. “We were the initial landing of U.S. troops in Europe. I saw several Americans go down there on the beach from German shells, which was heart breaking to see, but we had to go on.”Pellerin was blown out of a fox hole one night by a nearby bomb. It was then that he realized how hellish war reallywas.“Training didn’t prepare us for explosions and death,” said Pejlerin. “Artillery tore my friend’s bodies to shreds, and that was the worst watching them die, but we couldn’t give up to fear. That was as close to hell as a person can get on Earth.”Pellerin says he never doubted their ultimate victory but wondered many times if he would live through the war.Port Neches veteran Otis Block, now a 75 year-old retiree, was in the 433rd. Army Signal Corps in 1943. His job was to keep communication lines open for Americans on the front lines. He arrived on the beach at Normandy, the main combat sequence in “Saving Private Ryan,” shortly after the initial invasion.In just the first day on that beach, which survivors described as, “surf running red with blood,” 6,000 American men were killed, captured,PELLERINmissing or injured.“When I got there, bodies were all along the beach and nearby roads,” said“That was horrible for* •of scared kids likMis to it hurt to see thepg but to learn to ingore it.”Even worse, said Block was driving over bodies that lay in the middle of roads. He was so traumatized that sleeping and RR breaks were difficult to enjoy.He was among the firstAmerican soldiers to see the aftermathof Hitler’s attempt to eradicate the Jewish race.Shortly afterthe liberation of the concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany, Block arrived at the camp and witnessed a harrowing sight.“There were bodies every where and the ovens were still smoking,” said Block. “The smell was horrible and it hurt to look in the faces of all the people stacked in piles and on truck beds, but it helped seeing it knowing that we had put an end to it. We were proud and profoundly sad at the same time. It was the defining moment of my life.”“My only wish was to make it home,” he continued. “I never got any glory over the war. The glory was just getting home to Port Neches.”Nederland veterans Paul Hempel and Tom Housenfluck remember the close calls they encountered. Hempel was an Infantryman in the U.S. Army in the infamous Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, France.“We had 180 men in our company at first,” said Hempel. “Six weeks later there were 37 of us left alive. The Lord was looking out for me.”Hempel says the enemy was “as close as your left hand” at times. One of those times, he was in front of an enemy tankbut was too close to the tank to be shot by the .tank’s gun. A soldier came out of the tankshooting at him.a buckle off my boot hole-in my radio,” 1. “That tank later and killed my best friend that lay wounded in the same field.”Tom Housenfluck was stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on the Narwahl, what was then the largest submarine in the world. He was above deck in the early dawn when Japan launched their surprise attack on the American harbor on December 7, 1941, known as “the Day that Will Live in Infamy.”“I saw planes coming and thought they were ours until one turned and I saw the big Rising Sun on its belly,” said Housenfluck. “They were flying across our stern dropping bombs. I saw the U.S.S. Arizona blow up. I even saw the whites of a Kamikaze pilot’s teeth as he flew by and grinned at me.”Housenfluck says the bombing of Pearl Harbor is still difficult to talk about 57 years later.“I don’t talk about it too much because there’s not many of us left,” he said. “I doubted if we’d survive the attacks but never doubted victory. War is inhumane and I don’t look back fondly on killing anyone. It was either kill or be killed.”Talmadge Lively and Alex Pellerin, Sr. are not looking back fondly on their way days either.“I’m not proud of it but it had to be done,” said Lively. “I found out thing though: There’s nobody more blood-thirsty than an American on a battle field.”“It was never a question of whether we should or should not fight and possibly give our lives for our country,” said Pellerin. “I’m a proud man because we stopped a Mad-man and we had something to fight for. Without us, especially the one’s that never made it home, this would be another country and another world right now.”
Newspaper Details
Port Neches Midcounty Chronicle
Port Neches, Texas, US
Wed, Aug 05, 1998
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Victoria K.
NA, 02 Jan 2019
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