Published September 2004
Hendersonville Times-News

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20040905/EXTRAS02/409050370/0/search

Hudson, comrades back together and part of Apple Parade

By Jennie Jones Giles
George Edward Hudson plans to join his former Army buddies from the 808th Tank Destroyer Battalion as they line up Monday for the King Apple Parade.
“If it’s not raining and I’m able to get up there, I will,” the 84-year-old World War II veteran said Thursday.
Hudson, who lives in the Bob’s Creek community, is one of three county residents participating in the battalion’s national reunion here this week. Sixteen men from Henderson County were assigned to the battalion and served in the European Theater.
George “Buck” Lyda of Edneyville and Foy Israel of Hoopers Creek will join the surviving soldiers in activities this week.

Hudson reminisces

Hudson, whose family has lived in the community bordering the state line for generations, worked on the family farm until he was drafted by the Army in 1942.
“I’ve farmed about all my life,” he said.
Members of the battalion finished basic training at Camp Bowie in Brownwood, Texas, and moved to Camp Hood in Kileen, Texas, for advanced training. After training, they were assigned to Camp Phillips in Wichita, Kan. The young men then moved to Camp McCoy in Sparta, Wis., where they trained for winter weather.
In August 1944, the battalion was crossing the Atlantic to Great Britain in a 65-ship convoy. By September, they were crossing the English Channel for Utah Beach in Normandy, France.
“I was the No. 2 man on the tank, loaded guns,” Hudson said.
He was inside the tank most of the time, but occasionally, when stopping for the night, he could see the action and, also, the countryside of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Austria.
“One time the Germans were shelling us,” he said. “We had a fox hole we had dug and I ran and jumped into it. Just as I fell a shell hit my helmet. It made a dent in it.”
When they first began fighting in France, the men were using half-tracks, which pulled three-inch guns, Hudson said.
“We ran over a bunch of mines and it blew out everybody but me,” he said. “We had a big can of cocoa in there and it sure made a cloud. It blew one boy’s rifle in two, the stock came off of it. Some were hurt bad.”
Hudson’s tank was never hit by direct enemy fire, but he remembers vividly other tanks being hit and men who did not survive.
“One tank pulled up on a hill and the Germans fired and hit it,” Hudson said. “A friend from Texas burned up. He couldn’t get out.”
Hudson said he was lucky to be inside a tank, where he was protected.
“The boys in the infantry really had it rough,” he said. “They would walk by and say, ‘Well, I guess I’ll get it today.'”
Hudson returned home with pictures of bodies stacked one upon the other at the concentration camps in Germany.