America in WWII - (Page 25) A were trying to bomb London. They sent us to Kilkeel, Ireland, in County Down, where we trained a lot! Then they sent us to France to Utah Beach [in the June 6, 1944, Normandy invasion]. We were the second division to go in; before that they put my brother Roger in another infantry regiment. I was in the anti-tank company of the 10th Regiment, 5th Infantry Division—the Red Diamond division [named for its shoulder patch]. Roger stayed in the 2nd Infantry Regiment. We took Saint–Lô! Then Metz! Across the Siegfried Line! Crossed many rivers, then we were sent to Bastogne and stayed in the Hürtgen Forest! I won two Bronze Stars. In France, I got hit by an air burst from a railroad gun. I also got the Purple Heart. In Germany— where we liberated a concentration camp—I got hit by a Nebelwerfer rocket [a rocket from a carriage-mounted, six-barreled German launcher] and was sent to a hospital in Luxembourg; but no blood, no Purple Heart. I was then sent to Paris and started working in a car company, dis- WAR STORIES A FARMER WHO MILKED SPIDERS FOR SILK S AMERICA GEARED UP to fight World War II, experimentation was the rule. An energetic search for substitutes for strategic materials led to one of the most inventive periods in American history. Some ideas were flawed; license plates made from soybeans quickly became meals for hungry dogs. But other ideas were highly successful. Spider silk, used for decades in fine optical instruments, was adapted with great success into the production of war materiel, notably the Norden Bombsight. The little-known technique of “milking” spiders for silk was first tried in France in 1710, but proved too costly for commercial use. In 1760, however, American David Rittenhouse developed a means of using spider silk strands as crosshairs for optical instruments. His surveying items were used to chart the Mason-Dixon Line. Spider silk provided the highest quality sight lines for telescopes and other instruments during the next century. In the 1930s, spider silk was used by the US A patching limos to generals. I drove singer Jane Froman around Paris to entertain the troops. I drove Colonel General Alfred Jodl to Reims for the Peace Treaty; he signed for Germany. Harold, the oldest of my brothers, serviced planes that dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Donald was in Europe (as was Roger), Merlin was in Italy, Lewis Jr. was on many supply planes to Russia. After four years overseas, I was sent home and signed up to go to Japan, and was sent to Milwaukee as a prison guard. But then Japan surrendered and I left the army in 1945, after serving five years. Back to Fort Custer and then home to Wisconsin! Robert Paulson, wartime sergeant, anti-tank company, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Division, Third Army, Loves Park, Illinois OCTOBER 2007 AMERICA IN WWII 25
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