A GENTLEMAN BY ACT OF CONGRESS: Memoirs of a Foot Soldier in WWII

By David E. Patterson

When I first thought to write these chapters, it was as a wide-eyed boy again, listening to my father tell stories of heroism, destruction, adventure, honor, and glory. As I read through the memoirs again, I found renewed excitement, but it was accompanied by an adult viewpoint. A bit disappointing, but I realized it was inevitable. As time goes by, we all change. Knowing of human suffering, pestilence, indignities, and calamities in my time, it all became real.

I want to tell my father's war tales to honor his memory and lifetime. Few people have lived a life, fought, and survived a war, then successfully returned to that life. His story has always inspired me. Now I want to pass that on to as many as can appreciate it too.

Melvin Francis Patterson was a part of the "Texas Army," the Thirty-Sixth Division in WWII. He grew up in Texas and joined the Thirty-Sixth in the National Guard before the war. When the time came the division was mobilized and sent to North Africa. From there, they invaded Italy and made a name for themselves by slugging it out against the German Army through the mountainous region in the "heel" of Italy then on through Rome. Not long after the Normandy Invasion, the Thirty-Sixth invaded Southern France; then as the German Army retreated toward Germany, the Thirty-Sixth Division raced around it and closed the trap. Once in Germany, they continued the fight until surrender in 1945.

Most people have heroes. I have always admired the Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh, and Eddie Rickenbacker. Each blazed a trail and failed consistently. Each rose again and again. Next to the Savior, my father has always been my biggest hero. Follow me here and see if you might find an inspiring story as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889826552

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter 1: It Was a Pitiful Sight

Chapter 2: Here, You Keep It!

Chapter 3: The Mists of Gibraltar

Chapter 4: The Sea Became Calm

Chapter 5: One Cannon Round Landed Right Between My Feet!

Chapter 6: The Americans Were Now on Their Way to Rome

Chapter 7: The Invasion of Southern France

Chapter 8: Valiant Men, Valiant Soldiers

Chapter 9: No Other Army in History

Chapter 10: It Seemed as if the World Had Come to an End

Chapter 11: Spring Was on the Way in 1945

Chapter 12: Greater Love Hath No Man

Chapter 13: Seeing Germany

Chapter 14: There Were Still Real Gentlemen in the World

Chapter 15: The Way Home

Tragedy

Postscript

Acknowledgments

About the Author

A GENTLEMAN BY ACT OF CONGRESS

Memoirs of a Foot Soldier in WWII

David E. Patterson

Copyright © 2023 David E. Patterson

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2023

ISBN 979-8-88982-654-5 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88982-656-9 (hardcover)

ISBN 979-8-88982-655-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter 1

It Was a Pitiful Sight

Since 1915 in the United States, there have been 14,209 boys named Melvin. In 1919, there were 3,348 male babies given that name. By 2020, there were only 321. Quite a drop in popularity. Today, the District of Columbia ranks first in the nation with a healthy 0.063 percent of newborns named Melvin. The state of Texas ranks twenty-second with only 0.001 percent of newborns given that name.

Why the statistics? Just to point out that times change and, along with it, attitudes, points of view, and values. But noting that the generation born in the decade that produced what has become known as The Greatest Generation contained at least one man born to be called great by at least three generations who shared his lineage.

The Melvin in this story was a regular guy. He was born in a house located in a rural area close to a wide spot in the road they called Manvel, Texas. His early years were spent on that property a few miles from his cousin's home. His cousin, Bob, lived on a dairy owned by his father. The surrounding area was covered in grazing land and rice fields. There were waterways through the area. Some were canals for watering the rice and some were ditches that fed into Mustang and Chocolate bayous.

Melvin grew up quite literally on the land. As a little boy, he would stop and take naps on the ground wherever he was. His faithful dog would always stand watch over him. In those days, parents did not have to worry about human trafficking or neighborhood pedophiles, at least not in the countryside.

When Melvin was about five years old, he played all afternoon in the hot sun and decided to take his nap in the middle of a pasture of tall grass and weeds. He was not visible from the surrounding areas, and his mother could not track him down with her own vision. So knowing the faithful dog would be with him, she called for him. He would bark as she called out until she walked up on Melvin fast asleep.

Melvin and Bob grew up as boys and spent much time together roaming over the fields and prairie of the Manvel area. One of their favorite things to do was spend the day fishing in the bayous and canals. First though they would make a fire, then hunt down some prairie chickens, a wild bird about the size of a guinea. After shooting a couple of birds, they would quickly remove the insides then pack them in clay from a nearby canal. By then, their fire was reduced to coals, suitable for cooking. The clay balls containing the birds would be buried in the coals, so they were completely covered. Then the two would go find a likely spot to catch some panfish.

By the time they had a nice mess of fish, the birds would be cooked and ready. The boys would crack open the clay and pull the skin and feathers off that was pasted to the hardened clay. They would then have only the meat and bones left for a hot lunch.

The two cousins learned to shoot, hunt, fish, and track across the prairies. Occasionally, they would be given permission to sleep out for the night under the stars. They grew to appreciate nature and understand their place in it.

By the time he was old enough to attend junior high, his father had moved the family to Houston where he took a job at Howard Hughes Tool Company. Melvin attended public schools up until leaving high school without finishing, something he later said was a huge mistake. His father and mother were religious, and by adulthood, he had a strong belief in God. However, that does not mean he was a perfect little angel in school. As a matter of fact, he was known as a scrapper. He would fight, quite literally, at the drop of a hat as it were. He often dipped girls' ponytails in inkwells at his desk in school. Back in those days, kids wrote occasionally with ink but dipped in by a quill-type pen. No ballpoint pens in those days. That's how he came to meet his sweetheart, whom he married later in life.

Back then, boys carried a pocketknife all the time. They were considered a man's hand tool and not a weapon as schools seem to think these days. Boys were taught how to use them and just what they were intended to be used for. In most families, the boys were not allowed to earn one (notice I said earn) until they could exhibit constant proper care and use. Melvin, of course, had long since learned the usefulness of a knife on the prairies.

Well, back to school now. Melvin was accused one day of carving in the desktop where he was sitting. The teacher had spotted him admiring his knife when he should have been doing his work and put the two things together. Unfortunately, his teacher was not convinced of Melvin's training and honesty, and it was a trip down to the principal's office, at which time the knife was confiscated.

The next day, his father, who was working third shift, delayed his sleep cycle to go with his son to fetch back the knife. In that interview (I think a fly on the wall that day would have had an earful), his father explained that his son does not lie. If his son said it was not he who carved in the desk, then it was so. The knife was returned.

In later years, during the Second World War, when both of his sons were in the European conflict, Melvin's father, Percy, would talk of his younger son, Bud, worrying over his health and well-being. At one point, Melvin's mother complained, as moms worry over all their cubs, that Percy did not care about Melvin. Percy replied that he did not worry over him because Melvin knew quite well how to take care of himself. He was a fighter, scrapper, survivor, and believed in God. That all the above characteristics were what made men great, a credit to their country, and half the foundation upon which nations grow and prosper. The other half were the strong wives of such men, whom he already had. (He also added that she was the same such wife—a very wise man!)

By the time Melvin and his wife, Ione, were married in 1938, at the age of nineteen, he had already joined the National Guard. He had also risen to the rank of sergeant. He had a full-time job, and he with his new bride lived in a garage apartment next to his parents' home.

As most know, the US was trying to come out of the Great Depression era. Political and military issues inflamed Europe and the Pacific. After several years of success, a new recession hit the nation. Unemployment rose back up to 19 percent. Labor law was changed by congress so that the new minimum wage became forty cents per hour for a forty-four-hour working week.

In September, a hurricane hit the East Coast with no warning, causing forty-foot waves on Long Island, New York. Sixty-three thousand people were left homeless with seven hundred dead.

The day before Halloween, Orson Welles broadcasted a dramatization of The War of the Worlds. It was produced as a series of real news bulletins that sent many into hysterics. Meanwhile, most of America cheered when the Great Joe Lewis knocked out Germany's Max Schmeling in the heavyweight championship.

In Europe, Germany had invaded Czechoslovakia and begun its strategy of persecuting the Jewish people. British prime minister Neville Chamberlain held talks with Herr Hitler that allowed him to occupy that nation in return for peace, Peace in our time.

In the summer of that year begins the first story of Sgt. Melvin Patterson's military years.

Back in that time, as reported above, things like radar and weather forecasts on the TV had not been invented yet. So storms and such had a bad habit of sneaking up on people. They could not look ahead to see what was headed their way, especially, out in the boonies. It was Melvin's first maneuvers, at a camp in Louisiana, and another hurricane caught his company in its fury. Most of the men were city boys who had no experience with camping, let alone survival skills. The National Guard was there to teach them, much like the same experiences of Lord Baden Powell half a century earlier in England. He saw the need to train boys to survive before they got into military service. It would save the government and save lives. Needless to say, a hurricane was an extremely quick survival lesson for these men.

Melvin was in charge of a squad of soldiers, and they slept and stored their equipment in a canvas tent. He had seen hurricanes before on the prairie where he grew up.