Carl E. Billings M.d.

One Veteran's Story a Memoir of World War II Carl E. Billings M.d.

On the left on the dust cover is General Maurice Rose, who commanded the 3rd Armored Division. As was customary, two combat teams were traveling on parallel routes as we approached Paderborn, the headquarters of the Waffen SS, the elite troops of the German Wehrmacht. General Rose was crisscrossing the terrain from one column to the other when he encountered an isolated pocket of Waffen SSers, who prepared to take him captive. As he removed his shoulder holster with its 45 caliber weapon, they machine gunned him and killed him which was a sad loss for the division. Several days later on March 31st, 1944 we met the Ninth Army which had come through Holland and closed I the "Ruhr Pocket" thus sealing off a large German industrial area. There is a hospital in Denver Colorado erected in honor of General Rose. In the middle is Brigadier General Doyle O Hickey, the Combat A commander and my combat commander. He replaced General Rose as division commander and shortly thereafter was replaced by General Grow, When President Truman called General Douglas MacArthur home during the Korean War, Hickey was his deputy. On the right is Brigadier General Boudinot, the commander of Combat Command B. As for Liz Fern , when I thought about publishing these letters, I got out all of the negatives that I had had developed-the Germans had no photograph paper to print them-and had them all printed and found that I had a lot of photos of her so I went about trying to contact her. I finally was contacted by one of her grandsons who told me that she and her husband had gotten back together after they came home from the war and had six children. Several years prior to that she had gone to a doctor''s office seeking medical attention and died in his office while waiting to see him. Britt returned to Indiana, took a refresher course at the University of Indiana and then did general practice in Montezuma, Indiana for many years.