Published Feb. 5, 2001
Hendersonville Times-News
Lessons of War
By Jennie Jones Giles
War and military life taught George Gash a lifetime of lessons. He learned of the seriousness of war and its consequences, about pride in country and self, of racism and comradeship and many things about himself.
“The Army is a tremendous learning field,” he said. “I learned how to deal with myself and others – all a person’s habits and faults, the good and the bad, show up.”
Immediately after graduation from high school in 1943, Gash left his hometown of Hendersonville for Fort Bragg. He was assigned to the Corps of Engineers and received training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and Camp Ellis, Ill.
He learned to operate and maintain many kinds of heavy equipment, from bulldozers to road scrapers, to build and fix roads and airstrips, and he became an expert in demolition.
The 1317th Engineer General Service Regiment – an all-black regiment – left Camp Shanks, N.Y., for England on the Queen Mary. The men onboard knew they were traveling toward a war, but “we were too young and too crazy to realize war is a serious business,” Gash said.
Bombs and rockets
They set up camp directly in the path of the German Luftwaffe bombing of London.
“We were right in the path of the bomb run,” Gash said.
And they were next to the 8th Air Force, where hundreds of planes were coming in and out on bombing missions in Europe in preparation for D-Day.
With German bombs falling and the noise of American B-17s and B-51s constantly coming and going, the noise and tension were difficult for some of the men to deal with, Gash said.
Gash was in England on D-Day, when the Allies invaded mainland Europe.
“We were loading and unloading materials and we were unloading the dead on this side,” he said.
Then, one week after D-Day, Hitler’s forces sent the first “flying bombs” into England, what Germans called the “Vengeance Weapon” and the British called buzz bombs – the V-1 rockets. Again, Gash’s regiment was directly in the path.
To Gash, this was one of his worst experiences of the war, when the constant noise, fear and lack of sleep began to wear on the men’s nerves.
“They were falling all around us; we couldn’t sleep,” he said. “We would hear the buzzing and see the light.” Of course, he added, “you never hear the one that kills you.”
Later, Germany sent the V-2 rockets, which were silent, and the men could only see the light on the rockets as they flew overhead.
Rhineland and central Europe
In February 1945, Gash’s regiment was sent to France. They arrived at the French port of Le Havre and began the trek toward the 1st Army.
They caught up with them just as the Battle of the Bulge was ending.
“We were moving so fast we wouldn’t hardly know where we were today from tomorrow,” Gash said. “There was no time to sit and really worry about anything.”
Gash’s regiment’s job was to keep everything moving – men, supplies, vehicles. They stayed behind the infantry to open up roads and rail tracks that had been blown up from bombing and artillery fire. France had taken a beating from bombing on both sides.
“Everything was blown up,” Gash said.
They also tried to delay enemy troops trying to advance upon the Army from the rear by blowing up rail tracks and roads. It was a cycle of blowing up roads and tracks, only to then rebuild them.
They made airstrips so the Allied planes could land.
“Our greatest risk was in the minefields and checking out bridges for explosives,” Gash said.
His regiment had the job of defusing mines and explosives and clearing minefields left by the Germans.
They moved through France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, finally crossing into Germany to the Rhine River.
Once while in Belgium, Gash said, they had to enter a long tunnel and carefully check it for explosives before the rest of the Army could proceed.
The bridge at Remagen
The Germans had succeeded in destroying the bridges across the Rhine River wherever they retreated.
So, it was a shock to the 1st Army to arrive at the Rhine near Remagen and discover the Ludendorff railroad bridge over the Rhine still standing.
The 9th Armored Division attacked and, although the German defenders tried to knock out the bridge, the Allies managed to take the bridge before it was destroyed. The Allies finally had a bridge across the Rhine River.
Although the bridge collapsed March 17, 1945, several pontoon bridges had been built by then and most of the 1st Army had moved to the east shore of the Rhine.
“The Germans tried to destroy it,” Gash said. “But not all the charges exploded and the Army raced across it.”
As the Army swiftly moved further into Germany, Gash’s regiment began rebuilding rail lines and roads throughout the area for the quick movement of supplies.
Gash remembers the devastation the war brought to France and Germany. He saw the war’s effect on the German children.
“The children of Germany took what we threw out in the garbage,” he said. “War is terrible and it affects people who are really not involved in it – innocent people.”
Gash had no time to savor an Allied victory in Europe. His regiment was ordered to Marseilles, France, where they departed for the Pacific Theater, where the Allies were still fighting the Japanese.
The unit was en route to Okinawa when it was diverted to New York.
“When we dropped the second bomb (the atomic bomb on Nagasaki), we were told to watch the shadow of the ship as we headed to New York,” Gash said.
A segregated Army
Gash served in an Army that reflected the segregation of American society at that time – separate barracks, mess halls, training areas and recreation facilities.
But when fighting in Europe, it was impossible to keep the units totally segregated.
“We were all the same when we got to the front,” Gash said.
Combat had forced the Army to discard its policy of segregating white and black soldiers.
So it was a shock to Gash and his fellow soldiers when they arrived at Fort Claiborn in Louisiana to await their discharge.
“We were really shocked,” he said. “There were signs everywhere, only the post office and church weren’t segregated.
“Even the German POWs wouldn’t speak to us,” he said. “That was a shock.”
There was an “altercation,” Gash said, between the German POWs and the black soldiers.
“But I came back out of that,” Gash said, “because I realized and remembered that my life and depended on the fellow with the gun beside me or behind me.
“The Army taught me we were all placed in the same position, and out of it came a comradeship that couldn’t be broken.
“The war did a lot to break down some laws,” he said.
“When I got back to Hendersonville, I ran into some problems and had to overcome some of them,” he said. “But I had learned that racism comes down to the person.”
Some of the memories of the war are as vivid today as if it was that day, Gash said.
“It takes a little while to get over it,” he said.
Gash said he believes Americans should be proud of their country.
“Take pride in being an American,” he said, “even if things aren’t perfect.”
Gash has lived in Hendersonville since the war, working for a time at the Hendersonville Country Club and the Elks Lodge and eight years for Belk’s when the store was located on Main Street.
In 1965, he went to work for Kimberly Clark, retiring in 1990.
He married Bernice McClough, and they have a son, Michael, who also served in the Army for several years. Gash also has a daughter, Linda Jones of Philadelphia, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.