July 30, 2025 • 28 mins
Walter Stitt, Jr. was a senior in high school when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He and his friends all assumed they'd be drafted. When that did not happen right away, Stitt enlisted in the Army. He was eventually assigned as a gunner for a tank crew in E company, 33rd armored regiment, 3rd armored division and joined the war just a month after D-Day.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Stitt will tell us how he was injured on his first day in combat but pushed back into action the very next day. He describes combat against Germans while moving across France and fighting against a tank company commanded by a notorious SS officer at the Battle of the Bulge.
Stitt also tells us what life was like in the tank both in and out of combat and how he was wounded a second time in early 1945, ending his time at the front.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Stitt will tell us how he was injured on his first day in combat but pushed back into action the very next day. He describes combat against Germans while moving across France and fighting against a tank company commanded by a notorious SS officer at the Battle of the Bulge.
Stitt also tells us what life was like in the tank both in and out of combat and how he was wounded a second time in early 1945, ending his time at the front.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is Walter Stitt, Junior. He's a US Army
veteran of World War Two, serving in a tank crew
as part of E Company, thirty third Armored Regiment, third
Armored Division. By nineteen forty one, Walter Stitt is a
senior in high school. War is raging overseas, but the
(00:35):
US has yet to join. Then the news comes about
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December seventh, nineteen forty one.
At this point, Stitt knows very little about the war.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
My father had been in World War One, and between
him and doctor McGahn, you talked about his experiences. I
came to know of some of what we're probably going
to get into, but I didn't really understand, you know,
at that point, what it all was involved.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
After graduation, Stitt and his friends got jobs. They registered
for the draft and waited for the government to contact them.
By January of the next year, none of his friends
had been drafted. Stitt was still sure they would go
in the next rounds of the draft, so he enlisted,
but they didn't come until later, and Stitt's decision did
(01:25):
not go over well in his own home either.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
My father just pitched a fit that I would do that,
you know, he said, you waited until your turn came up.
But my mother was more sympathetic, you know, supportive.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Stitt was given notice to report to the train station
in Wheeling, West Virginia, from which he was transferred to
Fort Hayes in Columbus, Ohio. From Fort Hayes, he boarded
a troop train and thirty six hours later he arrived
at Camp Polk, Louisiana and was assigned to his new unit.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
At that point, I was assigned to Headquarters Company, second Battalion,
Armored Regiment of the eighth Armored Division.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Upon entrance into the service, Stitt was assigned to drive
trucks went transferred to Camp Polk. His father suggested he
not tell them about his truck driving experience, but instead
tell them he was a student in hopes they might
send him to school.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I said, I don't want anything with the steering wheel,
and he said, okay, because he had my record that
I was a truck driver. So he gave me a
ticket to where I was to go. Again out and
got the truck and they dropped me off, and the
first person I ran into, I said, what kind of
a unit is this? And he said it's tanks. I said,
(02:39):
oh boy.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Tank driving came naturally to Stit because of his truck
driving experience. Stitt only got one opportunity to drive one,
though this happened in a Chrysler, a fifty seven multi
bank tank, a model no longer used in combat.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I had one opportunity to drive. They took us all
out to the driving room and I said, anybody here
that drove a tractor or truck, please take a step forward.
And I was about the third tank back. Since I
did have that driving experience, knew had a double clutch.
I caught up with those first couple of tanks fairly quickly,
and going up the hill we had the first thing
(03:17):
we came to. I shifted down and some of these
tanks stalled, so I started passing. I could still remember
the lieutenants screaming and yelling and telling us. He told
us not to pass, but I kept on going. And
then he went up and around and went down and
had a dip with water in it, and there was
a tank stuck down in there, and so I passed him,
(03:40):
and then about that time the lieutenant said, Okay, you
can pass if you do it very carefully.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
After scoring one on the gunner's exam, Stitt was made
a tank gunner. When not in a tank, though, Stitt
drove the jeep for the company and battalion commanders.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
One time, if I was riding with the company commander
and we were taking the jeep back to the motor pool,
and I slipped it out of gear without pushing in
the clutch, and gunned a little bit and popped it
in the second and got a real good lecture from
the company commander about how you know it's supposed to
(04:17):
do it without pushing in the clutch. And then later
on he and I were riding down the road and
I saw the end of the paved road after that
was dirt, and I pushed in the clutch, shoved it
in the front wheel drive, and put the clutch back out,
and I got another lecture because the manual said you
were supposed to stop to switch the car and the
front wheel drive.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
In addition to driving for the company commander, Stitt was
given a few other driving jobs. After one particular reunion.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
One day, I was in the motor pool and I
got a call. The first stargeant came down and said, Walter,
they want to see you with the Red Cross. So
I went up to the Red Cross. I wondered what
in the world this could be about, as usually it
was bad news when you got there. I walked in,
told a young woman near my name and she said, oh,
(05:07):
said mister Brumpson wants to see you. Well, mister Brumpson
was my Sunday school teacher who had gotten into the
Red Cross and was stationed there pole. So I went
in and we had a fun reunion, drank a coke
or so, and then I went back down to the
motor pool. Well, then after that, at least three times
(05:29):
mister Brompson would send down to my company commander for
me to go get a jeep and I would take
somebody into the train station or the bus station.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
After thirteen months at Camp Pulk, Stitt was transferred from
headquarters unit to E unit, which gave him experience with
light tanks. Then around May twentieth, nineteen forty four, Stitt
and his company were shipped out, and it's easy for
him to remember exactly when he arrived in the UK.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I landed on D Day. I went over on the
Queen Elizabeth. On D Day we doopped at the Firth
of Clyde in Scotland, and so the next day then
I was down in Wells in Somerset County, and I
was there in Wells for about three weeks, and then
(06:19):
they took all of us replacements down to Portsmouth and
we waited there about another week. So when I got
to France it was about a month after D Day.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Stick joined a tank crew, driving an M four Sherman.
The experience of riding in a tank was cramped and smelly.
Sometimes and his crew were teased by the infantrymen for
the apparent safety of the tank armor.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Every once in a while we'd be not being shot
out and there'd be infantrymen there and we'd get out
of the tank and smoking cigarettes and talking, and a
couple of times these infantrymen said, boy, it must be
nice to be riding or steal all around you. And
our combat to that was, well, how would I like
to be on target eight foot in the air. No, no, no,
(07:06):
they said, We'll just stare right down here on the ground.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
The tank had a five member crew, the driver, the
bow gunner, the loader, the gunner, and the tank commander.
Down the front on the left side was the driver.
On the right side of the hull was stationed the
bow gunner with a thirty caliber machine gun up on
the turret. On the left side was the loader, and
then on the right side and the front was the gunner.
(07:30):
Behind the gunner was the tank commander.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
We all trained in different roles. There were times during
our training when I was a tank commander. There were
times when I ruined the tank is the loader. So
I knew what the different jobs were and what was
expected of each one of them, which worked out when
I got in combat because my first time in combat
(07:54):
in a tank, I was the loader and now has
that to not only did a load or not have
a hatch to get out. All I had to see
outside the tank was this periscope that I could turn
around this way and up and down. So my view
of what was going on was very limited because usually
I was busy. If we got into a battle, I
(08:15):
had to be ready to grab whatever kind of ammunition
the tank commander called for, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Stet's company had to stay inside the tank at night
for the sake of safety, so they would roll up
blankets as pillows and lean against the side of the tank.
The accommodations were not exactly luxurious.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Did the tank have air conditioning, No, it was cold
in the winter and it was hot in the summer.
Didn't have any toilet facilities, No it didn't. So what
did you do? Well, we had a can, and when
the urge came, you said, give it a can, and
then whoever was on hard had to reach out and
empty the can.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
There were only two ways out of the tank, one
by the tank commander and the other by the bow gunner.
The loader, which was Stitt's position, would always be the
third member out in case of evacuation. At one point
he learned that could be a complicated process, although thankfully
it was not an emergency.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
We were brought back to a rest area off the
front line, and we drove back and forth a few times,
made a good impression for the tank tracks, and we
got out shovels and we dug down about eighteen inches
and put a tarp down here on the bottom. Then
pulled the tank over and we were going to have
a place where we could get down here and play
cards and smoke and have light and not have to
(09:38):
worry about being shot at or hit with artillery or mortar.
But when we went over that escape hatch underneath the
bow gun our seat, it was frozen shut because rusted out,
it was old. We finally managed to get a hammer
somewhere and busted it so we could get out, But
that was the only other exit was underneath the bow
(10:00):
gunner's seat. It was very close because it was just
maybe sixteen eighteen inches from the bottom of that to
the ground.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Once deployed to mainland Europe, it was time for combat
and in his first tank in combat, Walter Stitt Junior
was wounded.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
In that first tank when it was hit. The shell
hit just about the level of the gunner standing here
and the tank commanders standing here, and it went right
through the gunner's middle section and right on through the
tank commander's middle section, so they were both instantly killed.
(10:36):
The gunner fell back and the tank commander fell this way.
And here I am with no absence, no hatch, and
I have to crawl underneath the recoil guard to get out,
and they're blocking my excit and I'm trying to, you know,
we get these two dead bodies apart, which I can't do.
And so in peripheral vision I saw daylight because the
(10:59):
driver was out. I get out of the turret down
in there, out of the tank.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
When Stitt hit the ground, he started running with the
sounds of the enemy ringing in his ears.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
When these tanks were hit. There you are with no helmet,
no gun, nothing, right, smack dab in the front line.
You're you're a target, uh and you're going to be
a standing target. So you're moving. So I jumped out
and I started running the driver balgunner up on the
(11:31):
side of the bank there, and they yelled at me,
what about the Lieutenant Reevey shook my head and then
I started to running in and my foot on a
route or something and tripped and down. I went, shoulder
came out of joint, put them back. But what I did,
and those are my leg was bleeding.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
St saw a light tank and ran towards it, shouting
for them to give him a bandage for his wounded leg.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
They said, come up and get it. As hand came
out of the top of the bandage, and I climbed
up the side of the tank and just se get
up there like that and there's a German shot at
me with a submachine gun, and I turned real quick
and spotted him, and I yelled at the tank commander
and just light tank where he was, and he swung
his gun around, bang and took care of him. So
(12:17):
then I put the bandage on my leg, looked for
a place two that I thought was better than just
stand out there to the open, and so I saw
a half dug fox over.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I ran for that stick laid there in the foxhole,
trying to stay low when a medic arrived. The medic
asked him if he could walk, which he could, and
so he helped him back to a half track which
was carrying other wounded men, and.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
They took us back to the fuel hospital and they
treated my leg, gave you the shot that they always do,
and so your armharts work and your leg does. Then
went outside. They had a tent out there with cotts,
and went out and I stayed overnight there, and next
day I came back, got a ride up to the
(13:03):
company CP. The first sergeant standing here said what are
you doing here? I said, tank got lost? You got here?
He said, anybody get hurt? I said yes, said review
and no lieutenant and so all war he said, just
take it easy, just lie down, take it ees.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
That's Walter Stitt Junior. He's a US Army veteran of
World War Two. He served in a tank crew as
part of E Company, thirty third Armored Regiment, third Armored Division.
When we come back, we'll find out that his recuperation
from this injury was extremely brief. We'll tell you about
all the combat that followed in just a moment. On
(13:41):
Veterans chronicles.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Sixty seconds of Service.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
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Speaker 3 (13:59):
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(14:20):
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Speaker 1 (14:42):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is Walter Stitt, Junior. He's a US Army
veteran of World War Two. Served in a tank crew
as part of E Company, thirty third Armored Regiment, third
Armored Division. Just a moment ago we talked about on
his first day in a tank, Walter Stitt was injured. However,
(15:04):
his recuperation was incredibly brief, as a first sergeant came
up to him and explained they needed him back in action.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
The first sergeant came up and said, Walter said, I
hate to do this to you, but I said, you
know how everything tight? I said, now, he said, okay,
you're the guvernor, and so I got the gunner and
the driver and the val gunner who had gotten out
over there, Sergeant Jones, who had been ordered out before
he was there. So the four of us who had
(15:34):
been in that tank the day before when it was
shot and blew up, we're right back the next day.
Within within twenty four hours, we were back up on
the front.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Line, now back in action. Stitt explains what it was
like to be in combat against the Germans.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
We stopped one day in this half track on a
railroad overpass, and I looked down and I saw german
run across the railroad tracks. He came up all the
woods up over the traction back in the wood, swung
the thirty caliber round, and when the next one came up,
I fired him. He gone. Third one came out, fire him,
(16:10):
he's gone.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Later that night, the company sat on the railroad overpass
when somebody screamed tanks. While waiting for the tanks, the
group leader decided he didn't want to be on the
street with the tanks coming towards them. He decided to
move to a field where they formed a circle. Stitt
and his companions waited the night out without seeing the Germans.
But the next morning they heard the tanks and again
(16:33):
sounded the alarm.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
There wasn't a thing we could do. We didn't have
enough to fight tanks with with a one Masuka and
a couple of machine guns, but they were our tanks.
We heaved a big sigh of relief and had breakfast
and relaxed again.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
The company had relaxed too soon, because suddenly somebody else
screamed the alarm that a German column was coming up
the road.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Sergeant Vasquez jumped up in a half track, had a
fifty caliber, swung it around and as soon as he
got sight of that first truck, he's cut down on that.
I moved to thirty CALIBERU on the other side so
I would have a shot when he hit that first
vehicle rolled into a ditch, and then the rest of
them stopped. A couple of them started running. We shot
at him, and then the rest of them surrendered.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Stitt's tank company then moved on toward the Battle of
the Bult and that's where they fought against a German
tank company led by the notorious SS Colonel Joachim Piper.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
They were under orders not to take prisoners because they
couldn't feed him, they couldn't take care of them, and
slowed him down, and the word came down that they
were not taking prisoners and so then it was really
a fight, you know, the demo us, because if we
had to give up, knew what was going to happen
(17:52):
to us.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Stit's revulsion for Colonel Piper and the German soldiers who
served with him reached a new intensity after he learned
of a massacre they committed in Belgium.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
The Germans came in. The men in the village had left.
The only people left were the women and children. Took
them all into a bar and shot them all, and
one of the little two year old girl or mother
fell on her laid on her ble all over and
the Germans thought she was dead, and they left, and
(18:24):
that was the only one survivor of the women and
children in that village.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
The US animosity towards the Germans was obviously already high,
and this increased it all the more. Stitt says he
felt no guilt in killing that.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
One afternoon, my tank was sitting here, of light tank
over here a big open field of pasture, and at
the top of the hill there were trees, and these
SS troopers were coming out of there, and we killed
a lot of them. When we went back for that
fiftieth anniversary, one of my friends, who was a light
(18:58):
tank commander who had gotten a feld commissioned to be
a lieutenant, asked one of the villagers, says, when you
were up on that hill after we left, said how
many bodies did you find? He said seventy, which I
thought was an awful lot. We didn't kill a lot
of those ses troopers and didn't feel a bit bit
about it. It was war and these people were out
(19:20):
to get us, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
After this battle, Colonel Piper's men slipped through their ranks
and returned to Germany. While waiting in reserve, Stitt's company
remained in the tanks to avoid anti personnel bombs being
dropped by the Germans.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Both sides, the Germans and the Americans were running a
little and all kinds of supplies and tanks on infantry, food, everything.
So we took a good position there to hold the place,
and then the next whole month of October we just
held the line.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Eventually the tanks got the order to move out, so
Stitt's company moved forward to relieve the famed of brothers.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I was in the fifth tank. My tank commander was
low level as far as rank was concerned, and so anyway,
as we turned the corner and started down this road downhill,
it was a t intersection. Here's this German column going by,
and so the tank commander, who was a lieutenant Lieutenant
(20:23):
Hope Orally, exposed shell in the cannon and told the
driver to speed up downhill. So the driver went downhill
as fast as he could turn the corner. The last
thing in this German column was the truck pulling an
anti tank gun, one of those German eighty ags. They
could shoot an airplane, they could shoot it for artillery. Well,
(20:44):
it took time for their crew to get out of
that truck, back around, get the ammunition out of the truck,
put it in the gun, and by that time it
was too late because our first tank came round the corner,
hit the gun and the people who were there, and
then put another one in into the truck.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Under the stress of fire, the truck exploded. This left
Stitt and his company trying to find a way around
the wreck and costing them a valuable forty five minutes.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
In the tank, you had two options as far as
turning in a turret. One you could do it by hand,
which was fairly fast, and the other one you could
flip this little switch and do it electronically, just switch
a handle and the thing would go. Now there was
a little slower, but it worked.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
As they went around the wreck, Stitt turned off the
electricity for the turret due to its noisiness.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
I forgot that I had it shut off, and I
just the gun was loose. So the gun came around
stuck in the bank. So then we had to back up,
get up on the road, and then we had to
go out and look and make sure there was no
dirt in the gun in the barrel, and then we
took off as fast as we could go down to
(21:54):
the tree pont to catch up with this German column.
Well readed to catch up with our other four tanks.
And when we got down in the village, the first
four tanks had gone under a railroad underpass and on
the other side. When the Germans decided they'd had time
to get set up. And so when they said, well
(22:14):
there's four tanks, that must have been all there was,
they picked them all off and killed Lutenant hoped this
is first day in combat, which was said, so my tank.
Then they just we stopped. We didn't go under the
other pass. We just joined the next four or five
tanks that came along, and we got in their putum.
But that was the first time that my stupidity saved
(22:36):
my life.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
It was at this point that they headed south to
meet General Patton's troops coming up the other way. To
get to Bastone. They would take a different village every day,
and on Stitt's final day in combat, they pulled into
the village a fraser. As they entered the Belgian town,
Stitt's tank commander ordered him to throw a grenade into
a house to scare out hiding German soldiers.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That chased the German out of the front and shot him,
and we pulled away from the house acrossed the road
up over a little stone fence. The infantry was getting
smaller fire from another house, so he ordered me to
put the gun around this way, and I did, and
about that time German stood up with a bonzer foulest
(23:21):
bazukah and fired and missed our tank. But here were
these infantrymen standing there, and a bunch of them got
stuff in their legs.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Stitt's commander called for a gun and stick brought it around.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I'm looking through the periscope like this, and I could
see the guy over here, but I couldn't get the
exes over to him. And he fired that second shot,
and I was leaning way forward to do the gunnery,
and the show right behind my head, and all of
the momentum went back this way, and I killed the
tank commander instantly. He slammed his fist into my back
(23:56):
and fell on me, and then slumped down into the tank.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
With their commander dead, the driver and the loaders all
jumped out of the tank. Stick followed close behind, but
while still under fire from different houses down the road, and.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I screamed at these instrument I said, get in the house.
So we ran back in the house, and then I
screened at him began to get away from the windows.
And I've laughed about ever since I said here, I
was a corporal and that the only time I got
to pull my rank on anybody was to yell at
thosed infantryment.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Stick began to care for his men's wounds when he
felt something running down his face. It was blood. His
companion said it didn't look that bad, but they both
realized they needed to find him a medic.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
And so the one kid theer ah was like breaking bad.
Of course, Banie tim up and we had this field
to walk across, so I said, get on my back.
So I carried him across the field onto the road
up in the woods where we couldn't get shot at,
and we were standing and Jeep came up and major
(25:04):
in there who had been shot, and they stopped, picked
us up, took us to the aid station, and then
took off again.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
It's injuries were worse than he realized, because when he
told the medic his companion needed attention, the doctor was
triaging things very differently.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And about that time the door opened a guy you know,
not got room for one more. And the doctor looked
over at me and said you go with him? And
I said, sir, I said, he's really real bad. He said,
I said you go with him. Okay, he said, I
go out and get in the amlace. He take me
back to the field hospital. They ran me and sat
down and start pulling pieces of steeled out of my head.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
The doctor told Stitt to take it easy, but his
commander came in not long after and told it was
time to get back to it. The company commander told
Stitt he was going to make him the new tank commander,
which would automatically raise his rank to sergeant, but Stitt
told him he was content being a gunner. Unfortunately, Stick
wouldn't get the opportunity to stay on as a gunner
(26:04):
or be a tank commander because after trying to get
up from bed, he passed out.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
The amblance came and they took me back to the age,
and there somebody made the diagnosis that had enough, and
so they sent me on to Paris, then on back
to the coast in the ship and went back to
England and then spent the rest of my time over
(26:29):
there with the ninety fifth Bomb Group. The last second
moon when I left was January the sixth, and I
never went back after January the sixth, now the third
Armor Division and tashed force slowly went right back to
the position we were in before the bulge, and then
(26:49):
went on towards Cologne. I think I did what I
was called to do. I guess I could be proud
of that as a tank gunner, I performed what I
was supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Walter Stitt Junior He's a US Army veteran of World
War Two. He's served in a tank crew as part
of E Company thirty third Armored Regiment, third Armored Division.
I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi. This
(27:25):
is Greg Corumbus and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information,
please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow
the American Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter. We're
at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube
(27:46):
channel for full oral histories and special features, and of course,
please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get
your podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and please join us
next time for Veterans Chronicles
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is Walter Stitt, Junior. He's a US Army
veteran of World War Two, serving in a tank crew
as part of E Company, thirty third Armored Regiment, third
Armored Division. By nineteen forty one, Walter Stitt is a
senior in high school. War is raging overseas, but the
(00:35):
US has yet to join. Then the news comes about
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December seventh, nineteen forty one.
At this point, Stitt knows very little about the war.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
My father had been in World War One, and between
him and doctor McGahn, you talked about his experiences. I
came to know of some of what we're probably going
to get into, but I didn't really understand, you know,
at that point, what it all was involved.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
After graduation, Stitt and his friends got jobs. They registered
for the draft and waited for the government to contact them.
By January of the next year, none of his friends
had been drafted. Stitt was still sure they would go
in the next rounds of the draft, so he enlisted,
but they didn't come until later, and Stitt's decision did
(01:25):
not go over well in his own home either.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
My father just pitched a fit that I would do that,
you know, he said, you waited until your turn came up.
But my mother was more sympathetic, you know, supportive.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Stitt was given notice to report to the train station
in Wheeling, West Virginia, from which he was transferred to
Fort Hayes in Columbus, Ohio. From Fort Hayes, he boarded
a troop train and thirty six hours later he arrived
at Camp Polk, Louisiana and was assigned to his new unit.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
At that point, I was assigned to Headquarters Company, second Battalion,
Armored Regiment of the eighth Armored Division.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Upon entrance into the service, Stitt was assigned to drive
trucks went transferred to Camp Polk. His father suggested he
not tell them about his truck driving experience, but instead
tell them he was a student in hopes they might
send him to school.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I said, I don't want anything with the steering wheel,
and he said, okay, because he had my record that
I was a truck driver. So he gave me a
ticket to where I was to go. Again out and
got the truck and they dropped me off, and the
first person I ran into, I said, what kind of
a unit is this? And he said it's tanks. I said,
(02:39):
oh boy.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Tank driving came naturally to Stit because of his truck
driving experience. Stitt only got one opportunity to drive one,
though this happened in a Chrysler, a fifty seven multi
bank tank, a model no longer used in combat.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I had one opportunity to drive. They took us all
out to the driving room and I said, anybody here
that drove a tractor or truck, please take a step forward.
And I was about the third tank back. Since I
did have that driving experience, knew had a double clutch.
I caught up with those first couple of tanks fairly quickly,
and going up the hill we had the first thing
(03:17):
we came to. I shifted down and some of these
tanks stalled, so I started passing. I could still remember
the lieutenants screaming and yelling and telling us. He told
us not to pass, but I kept on going. And
then he went up and around and went down and
had a dip with water in it, and there was
a tank stuck down in there, and so I passed him,
(03:40):
and then about that time the lieutenant said, Okay, you
can pass if you do it very carefully.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
After scoring one on the gunner's exam, Stitt was made
a tank gunner. When not in a tank, though, Stitt
drove the jeep for the company and battalion commanders.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
One time, if I was riding with the company commander
and we were taking the jeep back to the motor pool,
and I slipped it out of gear without pushing in
the clutch, and gunned a little bit and popped it
in the second and got a real good lecture from
the company commander about how you know it's supposed to
(04:17):
do it without pushing in the clutch. And then later
on he and I were riding down the road and
I saw the end of the paved road after that
was dirt, and I pushed in the clutch, shoved it
in the front wheel drive, and put the clutch back out,
and I got another lecture because the manual said you
were supposed to stop to switch the car and the
front wheel drive.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
In addition to driving for the company commander, Stitt was
given a few other driving jobs. After one particular reunion.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
One day, I was in the motor pool and I
got a call. The first stargeant came down and said, Walter,
they want to see you with the Red Cross. So
I went up to the Red Cross. I wondered what
in the world this could be about, as usually it
was bad news when you got there. I walked in,
told a young woman near my name and she said, oh,
(05:07):
said mister Brumpson wants to see you. Well, mister Brumpson
was my Sunday school teacher who had gotten into the
Red Cross and was stationed there pole. So I went
in and we had a fun reunion, drank a coke
or so, and then I went back down to the
motor pool. Well, then after that, at least three times
(05:29):
mister Brompson would send down to my company commander for
me to go get a jeep and I would take
somebody into the train station or the bus station.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
After thirteen months at Camp Pulk, Stitt was transferred from
headquarters unit to E unit, which gave him experience with
light tanks. Then around May twentieth, nineteen forty four, Stitt
and his company were shipped out, and it's easy for
him to remember exactly when he arrived in the UK.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I landed on D Day. I went over on the
Queen Elizabeth. On D Day we doopped at the Firth
of Clyde in Scotland, and so the next day then
I was down in Wells in Somerset County, and I
was there in Wells for about three weeks, and then
(06:19):
they took all of us replacements down to Portsmouth and
we waited there about another week. So when I got
to France it was about a month after D Day.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Stick joined a tank crew, driving an M four Sherman.
The experience of riding in a tank was cramped and smelly.
Sometimes and his crew were teased by the infantrymen for
the apparent safety of the tank armor.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Every once in a while we'd be not being shot
out and there'd be infantrymen there and we'd get out
of the tank and smoking cigarettes and talking, and a
couple of times these infantrymen said, boy, it must be
nice to be riding or steal all around you. And
our combat to that was, well, how would I like
to be on target eight foot in the air. No, no, no,
(07:06):
they said, We'll just stare right down here on the ground.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
The tank had a five member crew, the driver, the
bow gunner, the loader, the gunner, and the tank commander.
Down the front on the left side was the driver.
On the right side of the hull was stationed the
bow gunner with a thirty caliber machine gun up on
the turret. On the left side was the loader, and
then on the right side and the front was the gunner.
(07:30):
Behind the gunner was the tank commander.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
We all trained in different roles. There were times during
our training when I was a tank commander. There were
times when I ruined the tank is the loader. So
I knew what the different jobs were and what was
expected of each one of them, which worked out when
I got in combat because my first time in combat
(07:54):
in a tank, I was the loader and now has
that to not only did a load or not have
a hatch to get out. All I had to see
outside the tank was this periscope that I could turn
around this way and up and down. So my view
of what was going on was very limited because usually
I was busy. If we got into a battle, I
(08:15):
had to be ready to grab whatever kind of ammunition
the tank commander called for, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Stet's company had to stay inside the tank at night
for the sake of safety, so they would roll up
blankets as pillows and lean against the side of the tank.
The accommodations were not exactly luxurious.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Did the tank have air conditioning, No, it was cold
in the winter and it was hot in the summer.
Didn't have any toilet facilities, No it didn't. So what
did you do? Well, we had a can, and when
the urge came, you said, give it a can, and
then whoever was on hard had to reach out and
empty the can.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
There were only two ways out of the tank, one
by the tank commander and the other by the bow gunner.
The loader, which was Stitt's position, would always be the
third member out in case of evacuation. At one point
he learned that could be a complicated process, although thankfully
it was not an emergency.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
We were brought back to a rest area off the
front line, and we drove back and forth a few times,
made a good impression for the tank tracks, and we
got out shovels and we dug down about eighteen inches
and put a tarp down here on the bottom. Then
pulled the tank over and we were going to have
a place where we could get down here and play
cards and smoke and have light and not have to
(09:38):
worry about being shot at or hit with artillery or mortar.
But when we went over that escape hatch underneath the
bow gun our seat, it was frozen shut because rusted out,
it was old. We finally managed to get a hammer
somewhere and busted it so we could get out, But
that was the only other exit was underneath the bow
(10:00):
gunner's seat. It was very close because it was just
maybe sixteen eighteen inches from the bottom of that to
the ground.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Once deployed to mainland Europe, it was time for combat
and in his first tank in combat, Walter Stitt Junior
was wounded.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
In that first tank when it was hit. The shell
hit just about the level of the gunner standing here
and the tank commanders standing here, and it went right
through the gunner's middle section and right on through the
tank commander's middle section, so they were both instantly killed.
(10:36):
The gunner fell back and the tank commander fell this way.
And here I am with no absence, no hatch, and
I have to crawl underneath the recoil guard to get out,
and they're blocking my excit and I'm trying to, you know,
we get these two dead bodies apart, which I can't do.
And so in peripheral vision I saw daylight because the
(10:59):
driver was out. I get out of the turret down
in there, out of the tank.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
When Stitt hit the ground, he started running with the
sounds of the enemy ringing in his ears.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
When these tanks were hit. There you are with no helmet,
no gun, nothing, right, smack dab in the front line.
You're you're a target, uh and you're going to be
a standing target. So you're moving. So I jumped out
and I started running the driver balgunner up on the
(11:31):
side of the bank there, and they yelled at me,
what about the Lieutenant Reevey shook my head and then
I started to running in and my foot on a
route or something and tripped and down. I went, shoulder
came out of joint, put them back. But what I did,
and those are my leg was bleeding.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
St saw a light tank and ran towards it, shouting
for them to give him a bandage for his wounded leg.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
They said, come up and get it. As hand came
out of the top of the bandage, and I climbed
up the side of the tank and just se get
up there like that and there's a German shot at
me with a submachine gun, and I turned real quick
and spotted him, and I yelled at the tank commander
and just light tank where he was, and he swung
his gun around, bang and took care of him. So
(12:17):
then I put the bandage on my leg, looked for
a place two that I thought was better than just
stand out there to the open, and so I saw
a half dug fox over.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I ran for that stick laid there in the foxhole,
trying to stay low when a medic arrived. The medic
asked him if he could walk, which he could, and
so he helped him back to a half track which
was carrying other wounded men, and.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
They took us back to the fuel hospital and they
treated my leg, gave you the shot that they always do,
and so your armharts work and your leg does. Then
went outside. They had a tent out there with cotts,
and went out and I stayed overnight there, and next
day I came back, got a ride up to the
(13:03):
company CP. The first sergeant standing here said what are
you doing here? I said, tank got lost? You got here?
He said, anybody get hurt? I said yes, said review
and no lieutenant and so all war he said, just
take it easy, just lie down, take it ees.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
That's Walter Stitt Junior. He's a US Army veteran of
World War Two. He served in a tank crew as
part of E Company, thirty third Armored Regiment, third Armored Division.
When we come back, we'll find out that his recuperation
from this injury was extremely brief. We'll tell you about
all the combat that followed in just a moment. On
(13:41):
Veterans chronicles.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Sixty seconds of Service.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
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Speaker 3 (13:59):
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(14:20):
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Speaker 1 (14:42):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is Walter Stitt, Junior. He's a US Army
veteran of World War Two. Served in a tank crew
as part of E Company, thirty third Armored Regiment, third
Armored Division. Just a moment ago we talked about on
his first day in a tank, Walter Stitt was injured. However,
(15:04):
his recuperation was incredibly brief, as a first sergeant came
up to him and explained they needed him back in action.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
The first sergeant came up and said, Walter said, I
hate to do this to you, but I said, you
know how everything tight? I said, now, he said, okay,
you're the guvernor, and so I got the gunner and
the driver and the val gunner who had gotten out
over there, Sergeant Jones, who had been ordered out before
he was there. So the four of us who had
(15:34):
been in that tank the day before when it was
shot and blew up, we're right back the next day.
Within within twenty four hours, we were back up on
the front.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Line, now back in action. Stitt explains what it was
like to be in combat against the Germans.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
We stopped one day in this half track on a
railroad overpass, and I looked down and I saw german
run across the railroad tracks. He came up all the
woods up over the traction back in the wood, swung
the thirty caliber round, and when the next one came up,
I fired him. He gone. Third one came out, fire him,
(16:10):
he's gone.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Later that night, the company sat on the railroad overpass
when somebody screamed tanks. While waiting for the tanks, the
group leader decided he didn't want to be on the
street with the tanks coming towards them. He decided to
move to a field where they formed a circle. Stitt
and his companions waited the night out without seeing the Germans.
But the next morning they heard the tanks and again
(16:33):
sounded the alarm.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
There wasn't a thing we could do. We didn't have
enough to fight tanks with with a one Masuka and
a couple of machine guns, but they were our tanks.
We heaved a big sigh of relief and had breakfast
and relaxed again.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
The company had relaxed too soon, because suddenly somebody else
screamed the alarm that a German column was coming up
the road.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Sergeant Vasquez jumped up in a half track, had a
fifty caliber, swung it around and as soon as he
got sight of that first truck, he's cut down on that.
I moved to thirty CALIBERU on the other side so
I would have a shot when he hit that first
vehicle rolled into a ditch, and then the rest of
them stopped. A couple of them started running. We shot
at him, and then the rest of them surrendered.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Stitt's tank company then moved on toward the Battle of
the Bult and that's where they fought against a German
tank company led by the notorious SS Colonel Joachim Piper.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
They were under orders not to take prisoners because they
couldn't feed him, they couldn't take care of them, and
slowed him down, and the word came down that they
were not taking prisoners and so then it was really
a fight, you know, the demo us, because if we
had to give up, knew what was going to happen
(17:52):
to us.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Stit's revulsion for Colonel Piper and the German soldiers who
served with him reached a new intensity after he learned
of a massacre they committed in Belgium.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
The Germans came in. The men in the village had left.
The only people left were the women and children. Took
them all into a bar and shot them all, and
one of the little two year old girl or mother
fell on her laid on her ble all over and
the Germans thought she was dead, and they left, and
(18:24):
that was the only one survivor of the women and
children in that village.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
The US animosity towards the Germans was obviously already high,
and this increased it all the more. Stitt says he
felt no guilt in killing that.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
One afternoon, my tank was sitting here, of light tank
over here a big open field of pasture, and at
the top of the hill there were trees, and these
SS troopers were coming out of there, and we killed
a lot of them. When we went back for that
fiftieth anniversary, one of my friends, who was a light
(18:58):
tank commander who had gotten a feld commissioned to be
a lieutenant, asked one of the villagers, says, when you
were up on that hill after we left, said how
many bodies did you find? He said seventy, which I
thought was an awful lot. We didn't kill a lot
of those ses troopers and didn't feel a bit bit
about it. It was war and these people were out
(19:20):
to get us, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
After this battle, Colonel Piper's men slipped through their ranks
and returned to Germany. While waiting in reserve, Stitt's company
remained in the tanks to avoid anti personnel bombs being
dropped by the Germans.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Both sides, the Germans and the Americans were running a
little and all kinds of supplies and tanks on infantry, food, everything.
So we took a good position there to hold the place,
and then the next whole month of October we just
held the line.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Eventually the tanks got the order to move out, so
Stitt's company moved forward to relieve the famed of brothers.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I was in the fifth tank. My tank commander was
low level as far as rank was concerned, and so anyway,
as we turned the corner and started down this road downhill,
it was a t intersection. Here's this German column going by,
and so the tank commander, who was a lieutenant Lieutenant
(20:23):
Hope Orally, exposed shell in the cannon and told the
driver to speed up downhill. So the driver went downhill
as fast as he could turn the corner. The last
thing in this German column was the truck pulling an
anti tank gun, one of those German eighty ags. They
could shoot an airplane, they could shoot it for artillery. Well,
(20:44):
it took time for their crew to get out of
that truck, back around, get the ammunition out of the truck,
put it in the gun, and by that time it
was too late because our first tank came round the corner,
hit the gun and the people who were there, and
then put another one in into the truck.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Under the stress of fire, the truck exploded. This left
Stitt and his company trying to find a way around
the wreck and costing them a valuable forty five minutes.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
In the tank, you had two options as far as
turning in a turret. One you could do it by hand,
which was fairly fast, and the other one you could
flip this little switch and do it electronically, just switch
a handle and the thing would go. Now there was
a little slower, but it worked.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
As they went around the wreck, Stitt turned off the
electricity for the turret due to its noisiness.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
I forgot that I had it shut off, and I
just the gun was loose. So the gun came around
stuck in the bank. So then we had to back up,
get up on the road, and then we had to
go out and look and make sure there was no
dirt in the gun in the barrel, and then we
took off as fast as we could go down to
(21:54):
the tree pont to catch up with this German column.
Well readed to catch up with our other four tanks.
And when we got down in the village, the first
four tanks had gone under a railroad underpass and on
the other side. When the Germans decided they'd had time
to get set up. And so when they said, well
(22:14):
there's four tanks, that must have been all there was,
they picked them all off and killed Lutenant hoped this
is first day in combat, which was said, so my tank.
Then they just we stopped. We didn't go under the
other pass. We just joined the next four or five
tanks that came along, and we got in their putum.
But that was the first time that my stupidity saved
(22:36):
my life.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
It was at this point that they headed south to
meet General Patton's troops coming up the other way. To
get to Bastone. They would take a different village every day,
and on Stitt's final day in combat, they pulled into
the village a fraser. As they entered the Belgian town,
Stitt's tank commander ordered him to throw a grenade into
a house to scare out hiding German soldiers.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That chased the German out of the front and shot him,
and we pulled away from the house acrossed the road
up over a little stone fence. The infantry was getting
smaller fire from another house, so he ordered me to
put the gun around this way, and I did, and
about that time German stood up with a bonzer foulest
(23:21):
bazukah and fired and missed our tank. But here were
these infantrymen standing there, and a bunch of them got
stuff in their legs.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Stitt's commander called for a gun and stick brought it around.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I'm looking through the periscope like this, and I could
see the guy over here, but I couldn't get the
exes over to him. And he fired that second shot,
and I was leaning way forward to do the gunnery,
and the show right behind my head, and all of
the momentum went back this way, and I killed the
tank commander instantly. He slammed his fist into my back
(23:56):
and fell on me, and then slumped down into the tank.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
With their commander dead, the driver and the loaders all
jumped out of the tank. Stick followed close behind, but
while still under fire from different houses down the road, and.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I screamed at these instrument I said, get in the house.
So we ran back in the house, and then I
screened at him began to get away from the windows.
And I've laughed about ever since I said here, I
was a corporal and that the only time I got
to pull my rank on anybody was to yell at
thosed infantryment.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Stick began to care for his men's wounds when he
felt something running down his face. It was blood. His
companion said it didn't look that bad, but they both
realized they needed to find him a medic.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
And so the one kid theer ah was like breaking bad.
Of course, Banie tim up and we had this field
to walk across, so I said, get on my back.
So I carried him across the field onto the road
up in the woods where we couldn't get shot at,
and we were standing and Jeep came up and major
(25:04):
in there who had been shot, and they stopped, picked
us up, took us to the aid station, and then
took off again.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
It's injuries were worse than he realized, because when he
told the medic his companion needed attention, the doctor was
triaging things very differently.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And about that time the door opened a guy you know,
not got room for one more. And the doctor looked
over at me and said you go with him? And
I said, sir, I said, he's really real bad. He said,
I said you go with him. Okay, he said, I
go out and get in the amlace. He take me
back to the field hospital. They ran me and sat
down and start pulling pieces of steeled out of my head.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
The doctor told Stitt to take it easy, but his
commander came in not long after and told it was
time to get back to it. The company commander told
Stitt he was going to make him the new tank commander,
which would automatically raise his rank to sergeant, but Stitt
told him he was content being a gunner. Unfortunately, Stick
wouldn't get the opportunity to stay on as a gunner
(26:04):
or be a tank commander because after trying to get
up from bed, he passed out.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
The amblance came and they took me back to the age,
and there somebody made the diagnosis that had enough, and
so they sent me on to Paris, then on back
to the coast in the ship and went back to
England and then spent the rest of my time over
(26:29):
there with the ninety fifth Bomb Group. The last second
moon when I left was January the sixth, and I
never went back after January the sixth, now the third
Armor Division and tashed force slowly went right back to
the position we were in before the bulge, and then
(26:49):
went on towards Cologne. I think I did what I
was called to do. I guess I could be proud
of that as a tank gunner, I performed what I
was supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Walter Stitt Junior He's a US Army veteran of World
War Two. He's served in a tank crew as part
of E Company thirty third Armored Regiment, third Armored Division.
I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi. This
(27:25):
is Greg Corumbus and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information,
please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow
the American Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter. We're
at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube
(27:46):
channel for full oral histories and special features, and of course,
please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get
your podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and please join us
next time for Veterans Chronicles
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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