The Ritchie Boys

Memories of War

Determined to be a “man,” I joined the U.S. Army in 1942. It was not patriotism that motivated my enlisting: I dreamed of revenge and steel myself for the courage I needed to face my childhood tormentors, who had now grown into Nazi soldiers. The sweet smell of vengeance beckoned. Inducted into the U.S. Army at Fort Dix, I received my basic training at Camp Crowder: spent time at the University of Illinois in ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program); then more training at Camp Ritchie, the Army Intelligence training center. I received final instructions in England. Nine days after D-day in June 1944, Sergeant J. Simon Lewin and his convoy sailed out of the same European port I had departed nine years earlier for America.

In my wildest dreams of revenge, I could not have imagined returning to Europe with such an awesome armada. Watching the tanks rumble up Omaha Beach. I wished I was part of them. However, various army tests must have convinced my superiors that their rather frail soldier would better serve in another capacity. The Third Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company, to which I was ultimately assigned, was a conglomerate for all manner of intelligence and psychological warfare. It was composed of mostly European refugees. After landing in Normandy, my task would be to persuade German soldiers to surrender—by loudspeaker and leaflet—and, on occasion, to interrogate prisoners. Our reports would find their way to the OSS (the Office of Strategic Services). a predecessor of the CIA. My gear included the standard infantry rifle (the M1), which I found far too heavy and managed to replace with a much lighter carbine, certain that I would have a chance to use it.

Dying a hero’s death was perhaps always been the coward’s way out of ordinary existence. But just before landing on Omaha Beach, our convoy came under enemy air attack and we were ordered belowdecks. I was well trained and obedient, but common sense told me that if our ship were to get hit, then everyone below would drown. In the darkened bowels of the vessel, which only increased the intensity of the nearby exploding bombs, I trembled—my heart pounding so hard I thought my chest would burst. I loaded myself, not only for being a coward but a hypocrite as well, until the “all clear” sounded.

Sometime later, I got my long-dreamed-of revenge. In a street in Brest, the German submarine base at the top of Brittany, I was scouting for a vantage point from which to broadcast some entrenched soldiers into surrender. Suddenly I found myself caught in enemy fire. Crouching in a doorway, I lifted my rifle and took aim at one German soldier firing from a window. But I was shaking and in a cold sweat. “Don’t pull the trigger—squeeze it,” we were instructed in basic training. I did not so much aim my rifle as point it, and the moment I pulled (not squeezed) the trigger, I bolted and ran. After I stopped shaking, I wondered What if, even with trembling fingers, I had killed him? There were a few other such incidents in the rest of my time during the war, with no improvement in my aim. Trying to ease an uncertain conscience, I often reflect that the worst part of war might not be to get killed but to kill someone. To take a life, even if it’s in battle.

-An excerpt from Si Lewen’s Parade An Artist’s Odyssey