John Albert Thomas Solo Piano

Tribute To A Veteran Of WWII

by his daughter Karen K. Spooner

The following journal entry was written by Pvt. John W. Kellogg in Dec. 1944 in Belgium.

“The morning of Dec. 17th or 18th, memory fails me as to date, I found myself alone with three buddies on the east side of a swift moving stream in the Ardennes, near Clerveau. It had been an exceedingly tough night. The remnants of our battalion had fought all day in a small village east of Clervaux and we had finally been pushed out of the village into the meadow beyond where we dug in for what the morning might bring. The line such as it was had gone far beyond us and as far as we knew we were an isolated unit. We expected nothing but to fight until the end whatever that might be. The outlook was anything but heartening. The village we had just left was but a mass of flame. God knows whatever became of the villagers. The last I saw of them they were all huddled in the basement of the last house in the village. They weren’t a bad bunch. I only hope that when I can look into the face of utter ruin I can be as stoical as they.

To get back to my story : The terrain was fairly well-lighted from the flames of the village and it was possible to see our outfit digging in for quite some distance. We had dug our machine guns in on the perimeter and Johnny Zero, my buddy and I had dug a slit trench nearby and failed it with straw to lie on. We stood guard on the guns for quite some time. When we considered our duty was about up, I endeavored to find our relief. It was quite a job as the ground was covered with slit trenches and the platoons and companies pretty well intermingled. We finally found our relief and them retired to our own private slit trench. Johnny had left his coat with our jeep which was back in the burning village, as were our packs, so my overcoat had to cover the two of us. It had been two nights since I had had any sleep and now I can’t remember whether I dropped off or not, but I recall Lieutenant Mason, our platoon leader telling us to knock our gun down and load it on the jeep of H company and to round up the rest of our boys. As we were pulling out, finding the boys was a difficult job but I know all of our squad was there. The boys burrowed so in the……..”

After about 10 days avoiding the enemy behind the German lines, Pvt. Kellogg was taken prisoner and place in a POW camp. They were forced to march from camp to camp, in snow and wet. John had no overshoes as he had traded them earlier for a loaf of bread. He suffered from frost bitten feet. It was February 22, 1945 when my mother, Margery, received word from him that he was a POW. On April 5th she received a letter saying the Allies had freed him. He reported later that he had been left behind when the Germans fled the coming Allies as he was too ill to walk. He was transferred to a hospital in Liege, Belgium, where he weighed 125 pounds and had pneumonia. Unable to walk, he eventually was able to move about a little in a wheelchair. On May 13th he wrote he was able to take a few steps and on May 30, he was transferred to a hospital in Paris before being shipped to the U.S. He then spent several months in Rhodes Hospital in Utica before returning home to Adams Center.

I was only two when my dad returned home. My brother, Dave, was three. It had been a rough year for my mother and dad’s family. The winter had been terrible; food and gas were scarce. However, nothing was as bad as the winter my father had endured. He had dreamed of banana cream pie and homemade meals. He worried about his brothers and brothers-in-law who were still involved in the war. The people of Adams Center and area prayed for all their men who were serving their country. Some made it home, some didn’t. Those who came home were glad to be there as they struggled to put their lives back together.

Dad was a lawyer and eventually went back to Watertown to practice. I remember many nights when he would come home from work and make the rounds of Adams Center visiting widows, making sure they didn’t need anything. In 1974 when he passed away, we received many calls and letters and people stopping by asking what they owed Dad for legal work he had done for them. My mother would smile and say they owed nothing. Dad left no bills for many folks. He was just glad to be able to serve –first his country, then those who needed his help at home.

I never heard Dad say a bad word about anyone. He never spoke ill about the Germans. He was a proud American. On this Veterans Day, let us remember those who have served
this country and those who serve it now to protect our country and to make a better world for all the peoples of the world. God Bless America!

World War II: Homefront

While I’m on the topic of WWII, here is something my grandma wrote regarding life on the homefront during WWII. I have a whole new appreciation for her after reading this.

By Margery H. Kellogg
Adams Center, NY
10/14/82

 

Before Pearl Harbor everyone in America was aware of the war in Europe and, depending on their personalities more or less concerned about it. Attitudes varied from an isolationist feeling that, come what may, Americans should not again involve itself in a foreign war, to a depressing feeling of inevitability that sooner or later that involvement would come.

It came with a shock the day of Pearl Harbor and the immediate Declaration of War, and within days the machinery was set in motion that was to change everyone’s lives to some degree. Prior to Pearl Harbor a number of the more adventurous, or concerned, types had joined the Canadian Air Force or the R.A. F., but now there was a patriotic rush to enlist. Then the draft took those who did not voluntarily enlist; at first the young and single, then the married but without children, and later the young 30’s, even married and with children. Nearly every home suffered some sort of disruption.

The recruits were hurried to “boot camps” for about 6 months’ training before assignment. There was an urgent need for officers, and the “cream” were picked for O.C. S. (Officers’ Candidate School) from where they were sent to the field of battle to be referred to sneeringly by the veterans as “90-day wonders.”

At home Civilian Defense posts were established. Men were taught to identify airplanes in the air and manned spotting posts. There were blackout exercises when all buildings were to be completely dark, and civilian defense agents patrolled the streets to discover and warn violators.

As the men left the homes many women went to work for the first time. As the demand for war goods and munitions increased and the work force was depleted by the draft, many women went to work in factories besides replacing men in civilian jobs. If their husbands were in the service, these women often returned to their family homes with small children, and grandparents were pressed into service as baby-tenders while the mothers worked. Household help became a thing of the past as more lucrative jobs opened up for women.

Day care centers for children were opened up. For instance, the Red Cross ran one in Watertown in the old Hygienic Dairy building, picking the children up about 8:00 a.m. and returning them home in late afternoon in an old converted ambulance.

Soon many food scarcities developed, and the O.P.A. (Office of Price Administration) was set up. They issued ration stamps for meat, sugar, coffee, and gasoline; also butter that I remember. People saved grease in cans and turned it into stores for credit.

Nearly every home had a Victory Garden and housewives canned vegetables for the winter. Very little jam or jellies were made because of the shortage of sugar.

Each member of the family had a book of ration stamps, and theses were pooled and spent with great care. They did not, of course, take the place of money, like food stamps, but only entitled you to the purchase of a certain quantity . They must have been a real headache to storekeepers.

As rubber was used for the war, new tires were almost non-existent, and tires and inner tubes were patched and repatched, as nervous drivers tried to keep their automobiles moving. Car-pooling came into use, riders paying their way with cash and gas ration stamps.

Black market (illegal) operations in scarce goods sprang up, both at home and overseas where soldiers were hungry for things like cigarettes and chocolate.

At home storekeepers formed the habit of holding items in which there was a shortage “under-the-counter” for favored customers.

Some housewives kept chickens for the first time, for meat or eggs, or bought eggs when cheaper and more plentiful, and put them in crocks of water glass for use later. They didn’t spoil, but their flavor was somewhat affected.

Women experimented using honey or maple syrup in baking instead of sugar, and eagerly swapped new recipes.

As clothing grew scarcer, people wore clothes longer and made them over. Runs in stockings were mended or rewoven. As always in wartime women knitted.

The U.S.O. (United Service Organization) set up canteens and places of recreation for soldiers stationed near or on leave, and women and young girls volunteered their services to help run these.

Blood banks were established, and everyone who was able gave blood.

More public transportation was needed for goods and people, and to replace vehicle traffic, and old train cars and engines were pressed into renewed service.

The nature of college campuses changed as young men left to go in the service, or young professors were called up.

There was a shortage of doctors and nurses at home, as they were more urgently needed overseas or in veterans’ hospitals.

Families tried to keep in touch with their men through frequent letter-writing. Special forms were used which were reduced in size by photography and sent to A.P.O. addresses to be forwarded. Families did not have knowledge usually of just where their soldiers were.

Nearly every home had a small flag in the window with a red border and a blue star for each member in service, to be replaced by a gold star if that person happened to be killed. Groups of “Gold Star Mothers” were formed in an attempt to find comfort through sharing grief.

Banks were usually quite cooperative about expending loans for postponing mortgage payments, a much needed courtesy because government allowances to families were not high- $50 per month for a private, plus $10 for each child.

Of course, the most difficult things were psychological- the loneliness and the worry. News did not travel fast, and a letter, perhaps mailed two weeks before and often heavily censored, was not very reassuring. It was difficult to explain to young children why their fathers were gone from their lives, or why their mothers were so tired, tense, and anxious.

Each night the paper was eagerly read for war news which usually was no longer up-to-date. The local paper carried casualty lists, always read with dread and perhaps momentary relief, or grief for a friend. Each ring of the telephone was answered in fear and trembling, and a telegram a horror not to be faced.

V.E. day in the spring of 1945 (the end of the war in Europe) was an occasion for great rejoicing. VJ day, the next August ( the end of the war in Japan) found people with very mixed emotions, relief that the war was over, although many of the occupation troops would not be coming home for a long time, and horror that the atom bomb had had to be used.

But sooner or later, the men, or at least the survivors, came home, most of them to find that home was not what it used to be and that both husband and wife had changed. The soldier husband and father was haunted by memories he would never forget, frequently depressed during the day and having nightmares at night, bearing scars, certainly mental and often physical, of what he had suffered and seen. Now he had to fit into a civilian life which must often have seemed trivial, even frivolous, and to fit himself back into a job or begin to build up a profession.

Perhaps he found his marriage had foundered, unable to stand the strain of long separation.

His wife was a different person, hardened by daily fear and new demands. Perhaps she had run the family business for the first time, or gone to work to earn real money; she had coped with pumps and furnaces and automobiles that wouldn’t work, with snow to shovel and leaks in the roof, with food shortages, and family illness and perhaps death- all with no husband to lean on. She had sometimes looked for relief or comfort in ways of which she was now ashamed.

Sometimes his children remembered and happily accepted him. Sometimes they didn’t remember and feared or even resisted his intrusion into their lives.

It took a lot of patience and forbearance to keep a family intact. Those who did were probably stronger for it, but with the memories of the holocaust in Germany, the bombings in Britain, the tragedies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the wholesale death and destruction, besides their personal losses and hardships, it would be hard for them ever to imagine anything worth going to war for ever again.

World War II: Lost!

In my last post I stated that I would write next about my encounter with God on the Yosemite trail. Before I do that I need to give you some important background information. Below is the account my grandfather, John Kellogg, wrote regarding the events leading up to his capture by the Germans in World War II. My aunt Karen sent this to me around Memorial Day this year after I expressed my regret that I never got to know my grandfather.

(unfinished – found papers in his desk)

The morning of Dec. 17th or 18th, memory fails me as to date, I found myself alone with three buddies on the east side of a swift moving stream in the Ardennes, near Clerveau. It had been an exceedingly tough night. The remnants of our battalion had fought all day in a small village east of Clervaux and we had finally been pushed out of the village into the meadow beyond where we dug in for what the morning might bring. The line such as it was had gone far beyond us and as far as we knew we were an isolated unit. We expected nothing but to fight until the end whatever that might be. The outlook was anything but heartening. The village we had just left was but a mass of flame. God knows whatever became of the villagers. The last I saw of them they were all huddled in the basement of the last house in the village. They weren’t a bad bunch. I only hope that when I can look into the face of utter ruin I can be as stoical as they.

To get back to my story : The terrain was fairly well-lighted from the flames of the village and it was possible to see our outfit digging in for quite some distance. We had dug our machine guns in on the perimeter and Johnny Zero, my buddy and I had dug a slit trench nearby and filled it with straw to lie on. We stood guard on the guns for quite some time. When we considered our duty was about up, I endeavored to find our relief. It was quite a job as the ground was covered with slit trenches and the platoons and companies pretty well intermingled. We finally found our relief and then retired to our own private slit trench. Johnny had left his coat with our jeep which was back in the burning village, as were our packs, so my overcoat had to cover the two of us. It had been two nights since I had had any sleep and now I can’t remember whether I dropped off or not, but I recall Lieutenant Mason, our platoon leader telling us to knock our gun down and load it on the jeep of H company and to round up the rest of our boys. As we were pulling out, finding the boys was a difficult job but I know all of our squad was there. The boys burrowed so in the hay in their holes that it was impossible to tell if there was anyone in the holes or not. I missed some of the boys in the other squads and it was difficult to say if some were left sleeping there or not. We finally found one of H Company’s jeeps and loaded the gun. I doubt very much if that jeep ever got back to our lines. Orders were given in a very low tone and passed from one to another. We filed away from the area, single file. Except for the burning village, it was extremely dark and very difficult to maintain contact. The hills in the Ardennes are reforested and covered with drainage ditches. We went down one single file. Our leader found that that way was blocked and we reversed the line of march and fled back to the top of the hill. Originally I had been near the head of the line, but when we reversed file, I was near the end. We slowly filed down another ditch and across a road. Our march was continuously halted as the way would be blocked and we would have to wait until whatever was holding us up moved on. When we finally crossed the road, the crossing was made available by men with bazookas who knocked out jerry patrol tanks which we found burning and exploding on the road. The march at this point was down at a position which might be called a half crouch. We filed down another ditch and eventually came to a railroad. We marched single file along a northerly direction. It was quite misty and here the line moved fast making it more difficult than ever to maintain contact with the man preceding me. Finally the line left the railroad , went over a fence and came to the edge of a swift moving stream. Here things were in what might be called something of a mess. Someone up the line had lost contact in crossing the stream and there were several hundred men milling up and down the stream not knowing what to do. We were in a valley which was paralleled by roads covered by Jerry patrols. These patrols were continually throwing up flares and covering the intermediate area with guns. I decided for myself that I would rather be on the other side of the stream. My sergeant and I picked out what looked like a likely spot to cross and I started out. I’d say at this spot the stream was about ten feet across. I had on my overcoat around which was my ammunition belt and in addition had my Carbine. I took one step which wasn’t too bad, but which informed me that I was up against a terrific current. I took another step and went in over my head and was swiftly swept downstream. As luck would have it my carbine was full and when I finally came to my wits I held that out and Ledycat Eaton, our instrument man, grabbed the butt and pulled me out. All went very fine, but I was still on the wrong side of that stream and time was marching on. Our Section sergeant, Hardy Balls, as we affectionately called him, lined us up and we started to march north along the stream. We marched fast, too fast for me with my soaked clothing and I had to drop out to take off my overcoat. I had a very good coat, by the way, it came nearly to my ankles and when soaked one can well imagine my handicap. By the time I had my ammo belt off, the coat off and the ammo belt back on, the line had disappeared, all except three fellow who stuck with me. These were Sergeant Eaton, our instrument man, Private McCarlay and one of our Ammo bearers, whose name I should well know but memory fails me. We tried to figure out where the boys went but soon found the terrain near the stream impassible and we did not care to march up the track.

The story remains unfinished. From what I recall, my grandfather later stayed behind to help a sickly soldier who was hiding in a barn when the Germans investigated and heard a cough. My grandfather was captured and spent far too long in a prison camp where he was starved to the point of eating his tooth fillings. Eventually he was freed and returned to the States with head full of gray hair. There’s so much more I could write about, but this is sufficient preparation for writing about my encounter with God on the Yosemite trail.