WHEATLAND – The library meeting room in Wheatland was filled to capacity last week to hear the story of a World War II officer who left behind a record of his thoughts and experiences in the war through letters home – some still spattered with mud from the trenches – that were saved from his time serving in the European Theater. The letters, kept in a large briefcase, were opened for the first time in decades when Dr. David Halsey read them after his father, 1st Lieutenant Edward Halsey, passed away in 2017.
“It’s not often we hear from a source who has primary resources, as you will hear [tonight],” said Linda Fabian of the Platte County Historical Society in her introduction of Dr. Halsey, who was sharing the history of his father, a WWII officer in the 409th regiment of the 103rd infantry “Cactus” division.
Dr. Halsey, a retired Wheatland optometrist, said he has read through the “at least 350” letters, three times; learning what he can of his father’s thoughts during the year and a half he spent in WWII as he set up heavy weapon positions (including 88mm mortar and 30mm water-cooled machine guns) on the front lines. Dr. Halsey has researched some of the events mentioned by Lt. Halsey, and last year travelled to Europe to see in person many of the places his dad went during the war. He shared some highlights with the Wheatland audience.
“What I am sharing tonight about WWII has a different twist [than you typically hear],” Dr. Halsey said. “It doesn’t involve D-Day, Berlin or Paris. [Lt. Halsey] was in south France, worked his way to south Germany then into Austria. I will explain why things happened the way they did: because there’s a reason for it.”
Dr. Halsey said, his father, at 23 years old, was one of millions who went to war, willing to give his life if necessary. “He had love and a family. When I say he was willing to give that up, that’s a sacrifice. He was one of the lucky ones because he came home.”
He added, though his father had written so many letters home to his wife, Ella, there was only one letter in the bunch written by her. “My father was in the infantry, where you’re on your feet and only keep what you need to keep alive when you travel,” Dr. Halsey said.
One of those things did, apparently, include family photographs.
Dr. Halsey said there were several requests for photographs, particularly of his wife and son, Steve, who was born while he was fighting in Europe.
An overview
After joining the ROTC in April of 1943, Lt. Halsey earned his rank at officer candidate school in Fort Benning, Georgia, and advanced training at Camp Howze where he was assigned to the 2nd Platoon of Company M in the Cactus division. He then was at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey from which he was sent to Marseilles France on an Italian ship captured from Mussolini. The trip took two weeks in a zig-zag pattern across the Atlantic Ocean to avoid U-Boats and landed on October 1944. He then went to the Vosges Mountains in Eastern France and dug fox holes near Saint Die. With support from the 10th Armored Division (which he said was “nice” because now, “sometimes they didn’t have to walk”), his regiment crossed the Danube River at Ulm, Germany with rubber rafts while avoiding small arms fire and mortars. From there he went to Landsberg, Germany and was wounded in an 88mm mortar bombardment, then taken to recover at a hospital in Nancy, France. He was released back to duty and sent to Innsbruck, Austria where he was transferred to the engineer platoon and sent back to the Landsberg area (where they built housing for displaced prisoners); then LeHavre, France before coming back to the states.
Letters home
In his letters, Lt. Halsey mentions the 442nd Regimental combat team: Japanese-American soldiers who were second-generation Americans (Nisei), who were the most decorated unit in WWII with 21 Congressional medals of honor. He also mentioned the May 5, 1945 battle at Castle Itter in Austria, where a small number of U.S. Allies, Whermacht Germans, and Austrian resistance, fought side-by-side against SS troops (youth Nazi troops indoctrinated by Hitler). The SS were wanting to kill the political and high-profile prisoners that had been held at the castle throughout the war rather than nearby German concentration camp, Dachau.
During a battle while trying to cross the bridge at Innsbrook, Lt. Halsey recalls he was leaning over the side of an open-air jeep, shooting his pistol while the driver wove back and forth on the bridge to avoid enemy fire from SS troops. After the war was over, Lt. Halsey was in charge as mayor of a small town 15 km from Innsbrook, Solbad Hall (now simply Hall, Germany). Apparently the Allies didn’t want a German running the strategically-located town.
Dr. Halsey showed a photo of a letter written by Lt. Halsey from Solgbad Hall which was stamped with the official stamp from the mayor’s office.
One letter sent to Ella Halsey dated 24 April 1945, was 23 pages long, with dates from February through the April of 1945. The letter still has mud from his fox holes ingrained into its fibers. In the letter, Lt. Halsey told his wife they had been moving fast and there was not time for mail service all those months.
Dr. Halsey shared a couple excerpts from his father’s letters at the end of the war:
24 April 1945
“I have a letter I’ve been carrying around for a couple days… The situation is impossible for good service in sending letters to you. We’re traveling fast and there’s no mail service.”
4 May 1945
“During this time I haven’t been able to write I’ve experienced the most exciting, weird, beautiful, frightening, unbelievable, and almost impossible events I ever hope to. I can’t tell them now but some day I’ll tell you.”
6 May 1945
The happiest news I’ve heard in all my army service yet came yesterday – we were told to cease combat – that the war was over… There’s a bunch of square heads still in the hills. They are SS troopers and whether they’ve quit remains to be seen … This day marks the end of a period in my life that has worried me much and I’m so used to it that for some reason I still can’t stop that eternal vigilance and sweating and feeling that these people are killers… I wish I were a hard hearted person. I’ve seen my men killed and maimed, I’ve seen liberated Jews so starved and beaten that they had to crawl on their hands and knees up a two-foot embankment; they were that weak. I’ve seen the inhumane things the krauts do and yet I can’t watch them suffer. I’m glad this terrible thing is over – there’s still a chance for people to straighten out. But I’m so depressed with the stuff I’ve seen that it must be why I’m not the celebrant I should be.”
1 June 1945
“I could live right here in this town – Solbad Hall the rest of my life if you and Steve were here. Innsbruck is only 8 kilometers away and it’s a big city – well, Hall has 15,000 so it isn’t bad.”
A son’s trip to see where his father walked
Dr. Halsey also detailed his visit to Hall, Germany last year. When he showed the old 1945 envelope with the mayor’s stamp to the current mayor of Hall. “We were treated like royalty when we showed up. I wanted to know if there were papers my father dealt with, or that had my dad’s name on it,” Dr. Halsey said.
He, his wife, and the other couple they were traveling with were invited to see the mayor’s office, the archive room with records dating as far back as the 1200s, and other important sites in the town. Dr. Halsey’s visit to the town to learn more about his father’s time as mayor while the town was in Allied control was also reported in Hall’s local online newspaper, “Hallerblatt,” last fall, in an article titled “When Hall was in American hands,” as translated from German.
Though he has yet to find any specific information from the archives in Hall, and there are still unresolved questions he has about that period in his father’s life, Dr. Halsey said it was a trip of a lifetime to walk for just a short time, in some of the places his father walked so many years ago.
After the war, Lt. Halsey went on to finish his law degree at the University of Wyoming, and had a practice in Lusk for four years, during which time he had two more children, David and Mary. He then moved to Newcastle, where he spent another 40 years as a lawyer.
