Published Aug. 15, 2002
Hendersonville Times-News

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20020819/NEWS/208190310/0/search

Vet trained as cook found himself in the soup

By Jennie Jones Giles
He was trained to cook for the troops and was told he most likely would not be going overseas, but Fracier L. Griffin found himself putting aside the cook stoves to fire antiaircraft artillery guns across the Rhine River.
Griffin, 79, of Edneyville, was drafted into the Army in January 1943.
He left Henderson County on a bus for Camp Croft, S.C., went to cook and baker’s school at Fort Devins, Mass., spent 16 months at Camp Edwards, Mass., and was at Fort Polk, La.
“I was a cook,” Griffin said. “I was already experienced in cooking from my time at a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) camp in Peachland.”
Griffin, a native of Wilson County east of Raleigh, moved to Henderson County in 1941 after a visit to his brother, who was working in a hosiery mill at East Flat Rock.
He met Vauda Hyder and chose not to return to Wilson. They were married June 13, 1942.
Within a few short months, he left his new bride to join the war effort. After basic training, Griffin was assigned to Battery B, 573rd AAA AW SP (antiaircraft artillery, automatic weapons, self-propelled).

Rhineland Campaign

Griffin left for Scotland on the Queen Elizabeth on Dec. 23, 1944.
“We had an escort out of New York for about a half day,” he said. “That night we began changing courses every five minutes. There was a German sub after us. They fired a torpedo at us, and the guy at radar saw it coming.”
Bunks on the Queen Elizabeth were stacked 24 bunks high, he said. The ship was carrying 2,100 troops.
“I was on the bottom bunk,” Griffin said. “The ship turned so fast that all 24 of those men fell on top of me. The lights went out and I heard water coming in. I thought we were going down.”
The ship made the journey to Glasgow, Scotland, and the soldiers took a troop train to London.
“We stayed there about six weeks and then we crossed the English Channel,” he said. “That was another bad place. Subs sank a lot of troops in there. We crossed safely, but I was scared to death.”
Griffin arrived in France near the end of the Battle of the Bulge and in time to join the fight to the Rhine River.
He wasn’t a cook any longer; he was attached to a gun crew and was shooting at planes.
“It was rough,” he said. “At times we didn’t get much to eat – C rations and K rations – at times we went without food for a couple of days. That was pretty rough.”
Griffin earned one of his two battle stars during the Rhineland Campaign.
“When planes came over, we shot at them,” he said. “That was our job. It was rough through there. I handled the ammunition and fed the guns as they needed ammunition and loaded and unloaded the trucks.”
There were seven men for each gun crew, he said. Some of the men were charged with protecting the gun and crew by keeping the enemy from destroying the guns.
“We slept in tents and had to sleep with our guns,” he said. “We slept in close together to protect each other all the way to the Rhine River.”
Griffin’s unit was assigned to the 7th Army, but they were moved to other units as replacements were needed.
“When men got killed we were asked to go to another unit,” he said. “Once we got to sleep in a castle along the Rhine River. A bomb had dropped through the top and left a large hole in the castle.”
A Belgian prince owned the castle, he was told. They slept in the castle three nights.
“The rugs were plush,” he said. “We didn’t need blankets under us. There were double doors in every room with something like leather on them. It was a beautiful thing.”
For about six weeks 15 of the men were sent to fight with a British group on the Rhine River.
“We could see the Germans on the other side,” he said. “They could see us. The boats would bring up troops on the Rhine and put them out. We’d fire over their heads to protect them. We had large guns, but sometimes we’d lie down on our stomachs and fire small guns.”
Griffin said the British would build fires at night to heat water for tea.
“We weren’t even allowed to light a cigarette,” he said.

Central Europe

Griffin was reassigned to the 7th Army as the Allies crossed the Rhine River.
“I was scared to death,” he said. “They were there to kill us. It was us kill them or they kill us. I slept with my 30-30. I never went anywhere without that gun in my hands.”
Griffin’s unit came upon a concentration camp where the Nazis massacred Jewish women, men and children.
“They were put in this large building, kind of like an apple house,” he said. “They were told by the Nazis they were going to take diseases off their body. They’d strip them naked and hang their clothes out on a line. Some of the women would try to hide their little ones in the clothing. Then the Nazis would run them into this building and turn the gas on.”
Griffin took photographs of the clothes still hanging on a line that seemed to stretch forever and of the grounds of the concentration camp.
“There was a platform about 8 or 10 feet high where the Nazis would walk and look through the windows to see if they all were dead. The platform or walkway went around the room. Then they would open the doors at both ends and take a bulldozer and push them out and into a grave and cover them up. The mass graves were still there.”
Griffin worked in Charlotte several years ago. While there he met a Polish Jew who survived a massacre.
“The Germans lined them up and fired at them,” Griffin said. “He got hit a couple of times and went down. Other people fell on top of him and he stayed there until after dark and got out from under the dead. He found a doctor who stitched him up and kept him for six months. They just lined them up against a brick wall and shot them down.”
Griffin said his unit was guarding a warehouse near the camp.
“It was filled with bacon,” he said. “It was long bacon, wrapped in paper. It took two or three boxcars to carry it all away. They wouldn’t let us use it. They thought it might be poisoned.”
Griffin remembers this because the troops were hungry.
“They couldn’t get food to the troops,” he said. “We came in there too fast.”
While moving through Germany, Griffin’s unit came upon another castle.
“The Germans had a factory there,” he said. “They made ammunition for large guns. The American Air Force came in with the British air force and bombed it at the same time. It was 6 p.m. when they were changing shifts for the evening. The buildings were still smoking when I got there.”

War criminals

After the war in Europe ended, Griffin’s unit was stationed near Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s headquarters. He began using his cooking skills again.
“We were guarding the compounds where they held the Germans who were tried after the war,” he said. “I’d go to the gate every morning and I was allowed to get five or six Germans, bring them outside the gate to do my cooking while I supervised them. There would be 100 or more waiting for me to pick them out. It was really pathetic.
“I had an interpreter who told them what to do,” he said. “They were very good cooks and really clean with their cooking. We used those old Army field stoves that run on gas. They were about 31/2 by 4 feet square.”
Some of the prisoners were tried at Nuremberg, Griffin said.
“They were in a special compound with guards,” he said. “These were the big shots who took orders from Hitler.”
Griffin was at the compound for about eight or 10 weeks. Then his unit began preparing to go to Japan. He was in Germany when the atomic bombs were dropped in Japan.
“We had our shots and were getting ready to go,” he said.
Instead of going to Japan, Griffin returned to the United States.
“When we got to Camp Patrick Henry, Va., they said we could have anything to eat we wanted,” he said. “I had wanted fresh milk since I left home. And I asked for a sirloin steak, and they fixed it. But I couldn’t eat it. My stomach had drawn up. We lived on K rations for about two years and my stomach had shrunk. That steak looked so good and I couldn’t force it down.”
Griffin soon returned to his wife and child in Henderson County.
After the war, he returned to the hosiery mill in East Flat Rock to work. He and his wife had two children, Ed and Josephine, who recently died. When the mill closed he moved to Charlotte to work for 15 years and returned to Henderson County when he retired.
His wife is at the Brian Center.
“For 60 years we lived together,” he said. “I thank God I made it through the war. I’m thankful I’m still here to help her out.”