I turned the page of the calendar from January to February this morning and as I did, I recalled that sixty-five years ago this Thursday my father returned to combat after nearly three months in the hospital.
It was February 4, 1945 when 1st Lt. Bill Elvin rejoined the 80th Infantry Division. The Division was exhausted from the Battle of the Bulge and was about to launch an attack across the Sauer River in Luxembourg. The war was dragging on.
On November 8, 1944, Dad had been wounded in Rouves, France. He was moved quickly to Paris and then to a hospital ship that took him to Ellesmere, England, on the Welsh border. He spent the next three months in the hospital there.
The sniper's wound made a moon-shaped crater in his forearm that was too wide for stitches. Infection was a constant problem, and when he looked down he could see the tendons in the gaping wound.
When the day came for Lt. Elvin to return to the war, what must it have been like for him? To know you had to return to the chaos of war after months in a hospital with people (nurses!) looking after you, tending to your wounds, making sure you got three squares a day — and where you'd been temporarily relieved of your awesome responsibilities. And thank heavens, your feet were warm and dry.
Clayton Warman of the 80th Infantry, had also been wounded, hospitalized for a time, and then returned to the front a few months later. Even though you knew what awaited you, he told me — the cold hard winter, the deprivation and most of all, the likelihood of being wounded again, or killed — the Army prepared you to go back, and also, you wanted to return to help out your buddies. It didn't feel right to be lying in a bed while they were fighting the war.
I said that if it were me, I would dread the very thought of going back. Clayton paused and said slowly, "Well, Jan, you woke up every single morning with that feeling. That feeling of dread was nothing new."
The badge is that of the 80th Infantry Division, also known as "The Blue Ridge Division." That's what the three blue mountains are on the badge.
