The Story of Jesse Eric Curtis, Jr.
I, like those before me, was born at an early age. To be exact, the date was July 30, 1921, a Saturday. So I guess I was fated to work hard for my living. At least I wasn’t born on a Wednesday. We lived at 708 N. 2nd Street in Nashville, Tennessee, but soon after moved to Brick Church Road.

The last born male child, I was the eighth of nine children. My siblings, in order from oldest to youngest, were Edna Louis, Theodore Armstrong, Ada Christine, Lake Erie (you can bet she caught some grief in school), James Robert, Paul Elliott, Susie Elizabeth, Bertha Leah, yours truly, Jesse Eric, and Audry Eunice. James died at age 11 and Teddy died after only a couple of months of life. Just goes to show we never know just how long we have allotted on this earth.

At a young age I acquired the nickname “Doodle”. No one was ever able to explain where it came from, but it stuck with me till I entered the Army.

In a large family, it’s easy for one little boy to get lost. Such was not my case. I’ll not say much about my younger years. It was not the happiest of childhoods. My father, for whom I was named, was not a loving man. Cruel might be more appropriate. It was many a time I took refuge behind the skirts of my big sisters. Many years later I found that those same skirts I was hiding behind were themselves the target of my father’s attentions. I will leave it that my father served some time in the penitentiary system for his indulgences.

By the time I turned 16, I had had all of my father I could tolerate. While many young men might have found work and moved out, I took another path. I decided to travel “by the side door Pullman and the sunburnt thumb”. I became what you would call a “hobo”. I travelled around the country riding the rails and hitching the odd ride. To this day, I can think of nothing more comforting than the sweet sound of that lonesome steam whistle. And, coast to coast, Doodle was known in many a hobo jungle.

My freewheeling lifestyle came to an abrupt end on December 7, 1941. When the Nips bombed Pearl, I knew that I had but one response. So, in August of 1942, I signed up. My enlistment papers read “Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law.”

I was sent to Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia, for my boot camp. Many of the guys thought it was hard. I could tell them what hard was and it wasn’t a five mile run in the pouring rain.

After boot, I was assigned to the 561st Field Artillery Battalion, Battery A. Not bad. Seems I’d be much safer sitting back with the big guns and lobbing exploding bullets. Figured if I couldn’t see his eyes, he couldn’t see mine.

I reckoned we would be sent straight into combat, but, as usual, the brass didn’t take their orders from me. Instead they sent us down to Camp Polk, Louisiana. I thought we had big mosquitos up in Tennessee, but these down here…boy oh boy!  Fellow said he saw an alligator eat two for supper. Good thing it was February, I hear they are really bad in the summer.

After a month in the bayou, we were shipped out to Camp Kilmer up in New Jersey. We knew this would be our last stop in the States before we would be catching our ride to Europe. Sure ‘nuff, on the seventh of April, 1944, we boarded the SS Île de France and sailed off to the Old World. It was a luxury liner, but many of us found it anything but luxurious. Crowded and with overheated sleeping facilities, many of us traveled hunched over the rails. We quickly learned to appreciate the naval term, leeward.

A week later, on April 15, we arrived at the lovely port of Gourock, Scotland, on the Firth of Clyde and we were glad to have our feet back on solid ground. Now Ma had always said that we were Scotch Irish so I thought that maybe I’d be seeing some of my kinfolk. Problem was, I couldn’t hardly understand a word they were saying. It was bad enough when I spoke with one directly, but when two of the Scots got to talking to each other, I couldn’t understand the words coming out of their mouths. Oh, I’d catch the occasional “Aye” but other than that you couldn’t give me an extra month’s pay to believe they were speaking English. But I will say that the first time I heard the regimental band on the pipes, I got goose flesh on my arms and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. One of the laddies even talked me into trying on one of those kilts…at least until he told me what he wore, or maybe I should say didn’t wear, under it. I told him, sorry, but no way was I walking around with Willie and the family jewels swinging loose.

On April 16th, we pulled out of Gourock and over to Glasgow where we caught a train to the quaint little town of Nantwich, just south of Liverpool. After about five days of training, we moved over to Whitchurch and then to Llandovery, Wales, with another training layover of almost a month. Next on to Gloucester and, after another week’s layover, we finally made it to Southhampton. This was it. Tomorrow, Thursday, June 29, 1944, we would board an LST for France. Oh yeah, did I say that our stay in merry old England had been wet and cold. Guess it’s true what they said about the English weather back home.

So here we were, at D plus 24, making our way to Utah Beach. We were up at 0100 and boarded by 0430. The weather being agreeable, the trip across was uneventful. Well, except for those three Liberty ships that hit mines. One sank but I believe the other two made it. At 0630 on Friday, our LST anchored close to the beach and at 1100, as the tide ran out, we hit the beach.

Again, I can be thankful that artillery is not in the first wave to hit the beach. My heart went out to those guys that had to run the gamut of crossfire in the exposed beach on D-Day. But now that the beach was open, we could bring in the big guns.

We could still see the Shermans that were caught on the beach as well as some with their turrets sticking just above the water. Many of these had been turned into “amphibious” tanks. I’m not an engineer, but I coulda’ told them that wouldn’t work.

We made our way off the beach, then through Sainte-Mere-Eglise and to St.-Sauveur-le-Vicomte which was our assigned position area. Each village we passed had suffered the effects of the invasion and there were few of the Frenchies about. That night we heard our first artillery and small arms fire off to our south. Welcome to the war.

Rain! We had been here for five days and nothing but rain. At least it’s warmer than England. We had spent the first few days digging in. I dug my slit trench just a little deeper than regulation. Sleep better that way. Today, July 3, 1944, we were given our first firing order “Battalion five volleys” and our 12 guns fired in unison. One of the guys in our battery had to be taken to the hospital with a case of hysteria. And we were yet to take fire.

At exactly 1200 hours on July 4, all guns in France were ordered to fire a simultaneous volley at our enemy in celebration of Independence Day.

We soon settled into our routine, moving from village to village, one day rain, the next clear. Equipment taking the wrong road or sliding off the narrow muddy roads. As ordered, we would provide supporting fire and fire at night to harass the Germans. The locals, who were glad to see us, would offer up the occasional chicken or pail of milk. We were appreciative as the C rations were not much to our liking. In turn, we would give them a little chocolate if we had it.

We slugged our way through the French countryside over the next few months. I still find it hard to pronounce all of the French names - Montmartin-Sur-Mer, Le Vieux Bourg, St. Brieuc, Sens-de-Bretagne, Chateauneuf, Avesnes-Sur-Helpe. On October 1, we passed into Belgium and through the town of Bastogne and bivouacked about 6 miles east of town. The terrain had turned quite hilly and the people here looked more prosperous than the French. We had a great welcome from the locals along the road.

We stalled here and, as October turned to November and then the middle of December, it was clear that we would not be in Berlin by Christmas as we had all expected. The ground had frozen hard a week or so back. The only bright spot was Thanksgiving. Not only did we get real eggs for breakfasts but we had turkey, potatoes, corn, cranberries, salad and cherry pie for dinner.  Coulda' used some of Ma's cornbread dressin'.

On Saturday, December 16, we were awakened early by the sound of buzz bombs flying over. Word came that the Germans were attacking our front and we took heavy artillery fire all day. It was cloudy and cold. It would remain that way for some time. We would find out latter that this day would be remembered as the start of the Battle of the Bulge.

Much has been written about this battle and I will not try to add more detail here. Let me just say that with the cold and the wet and the constant shelling from German artillery and tanks, if war is Hell, then we were at the seventh level. Though we were pushed back, we held on and on the day after Christmas, “old blood and guts” Patton, along with his 3rd Army, relieved Bastogne and, though the battle was not officially over until January 25, we were finally back on the offensive.

We were now free to roll and roll we did. On February 7, 1944, we officially crossed into Germany. By now the Russians were moving in from Poland in the east and we had the Krauts in our grasp. By April 15, we had made our way to the little town of Giesenslage. We were only about 90 miles from Berlin and we were all anticipating the end to this crazy war.

We awoke on April 16 to a clear and warm day. It had been a year and a day since we set foot in Scotland. Even though the Russians had started their attack on Berlin, someone had neglected to inform the Germans that they were defeated. Planes were flying over all day, strafing and dropping hundred pounders. By 2100 we crouched in our foxholes and hoped that they would cease so we could get some rest. I heard a couple of 100 pounders hit nearby.

On that day, just three weeks before V-E Day, Major Andrew J. Gordon, Executive Officer, Headquarters Battery, of McAlester, Oklahoma, who was himself awarded the Soldier’s Medal and a Bronze Star, wrote in his diary:

Monday, April 16th: Giesenslage. Clear, warm. One year ago landed in Scotland. "A" bombed - 4 dead. Another day of many happenings. The MSR was cut in our rear by tanks & convoys are getting heavy strafing. Our AA was pulled to guard road. German planes over all day, coming in low. About 1830 I was on way to new OP with Turner in truck, we were strafed by ME 109's flying about 50 feet. At 2105 plane came in low and dropped 4 100 lb. bombs on "A" Btry. - 2 men killed - Slowey & Curtis, 12 injured, 11 to hospital…Later tonight learn that two more of "A" men, Hutchinson, who had arm off and leg mangled, and Neal, fragment in neck, died on way to hospital.
The toll of WWII is estimated to be as many as 85,000,000 total dead, both military and civilians. For the United States, 420,000 gave their lives. Along the road near Giesenslage, Germany, one of the dead was T/5 Jesse Eric Curtis, Jr, serial number 7084342, just three months shy of his 24^th birthday, my great uncle on my mother’s side of the family. For his service, he was awarded a Purple Heart posthumously. He was interred at the Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten, Holland. Though it was decreed that those that fell in the European Theater reside there, for reasons I have not been able to determine, he was returned to his native Tennessee soil in December of 1948. He now sleeps peacefully in Section 1, Plot 208 of the Nashville National Cemetery on Gallatin Road in South Madison, just minutes from where he spent his childhood.

The above story, while containing some fabrications, is based on family knowledge of Uncle Jesse’s early life and on the diary of Maj Gordon, the Battalion Timeline and “Its Battalion History” presented in the pages of the 561^st Field Artillery Battalion web site at http://561stfieldartillerybattalion.org/history.html. My thanks to those that put this site together. And to the 420,000 Americans who, along with Uncle Jesse, gave all to rid this earth of the evil of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Please honor their sacrifice.

George Flew
25 September 2014
Knoxville, Tennessee

Notes: In November of 1942, my father, Frank, also did his basic training at Ft. Oglethorpe. Did Dad’s and Uncle Jesse’s paths cross?

For a detailed accounting of the 561st at the Battle of the Bulge, please read “Its Combat History” at https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/9642863/major-gordons-ww-ii-diary-561st-field-artillery-battalion-home-page