WWII vet: Safe return due to mom’s ‘prayers’

Scott Swanson

Sheridan Arnold grew up in harsh conditions on the North Dakota prairie on a farm that slowly failed due to the drought conditions of the 1930s.

Born Jan. 11, 1918 in Berthold, N.D., one of nine brothers and three sisters, he learned early what it took to survive in a climate where winters would leave water frozen in the house, despite the coal fire that burned all night.

“You had to be tough to live there,” he said.

So maybe that’s why he relates his experiences as an artillery soldier in World War II with a steady calm, matter-of-factness.

Then, too, when a fellow is 95 and spent his entire career working in the woods and in the mills around Sweet Home, he’s seen a lot of water go under the bridge.

He speaks precisely, citing dates and details crisply as he recalls his experiences.

The Arnold family moved to Sweet Home in 1938 after they lost their farm.

“We didn’t have grain for seed. The drought was on from 1924. We had two tractors but we couldn’t afford fuel for them so we farmed with horses,” he recalled.

In June 1941, Arnold was drafted into the Army, just months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Four of his brothers also served in the war.

Charles was a pilot, flying planes off aircraft carriers in the South Pacific and receiving multiple commendations for his service.

Another brother, Duane, was also in aviation, serving as gunner on Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighters – radar-guided aircraft interceptors that monitored aircraft flying into Washington D.C., he said.

Alfred served with the Army Corps of Engineers in North Africa, building airports, while William was stationed in England with the U.S. Army Air Corps.

Arnold said he was trained at Ft. Knox, Ky., then sent south to Louisiana with the 1st Armored Division in what was, at the time, the largest maneuver for U.S. Troops.

“When the war broke out, we were on 20-minute alert,” he said. “They thought the Japanese were going to invade California, so we were going to send half our (M2) Half Tracks, trucks and scout cars to stop them.”

Shortly thereafter, in 1942, his unit was sent overseas, to Ireland.

“They were afraid that the Southern Irish would join (the Axis forces) because they didn’t like the British,” Arnold said. “We were sent to stop them if we could.”

After about three months in Ireland, they crossed the North Channel on raft-like vessels, he said, and landed in Scotland, where they stayed for six weeks. Then, in November 1942, they were sent to North Africa, landing about 50 miles from Oran, Algeria. His only real engagement under fire occurred shortly thereafter.

Two French officers arrived at Arnold’s company, which specialized in communications.

“They had their families in a town about 15 miles away and they didn’t want their houses shelled,” he said. “They asked the American officers to send a truck down to direct artillery fire so it wouldn’t hit their homes.

“I was a T/5 and drove a Half Track. My officer came after breakfast and told me to get my Half Track up right away.”

Arnold set out with a U.S. officer and the two Frenchmen in the Half Track. They were attempting to overtake an American truck convoy when they came under German artillery fire.

“Their shells were falling short, so we called for help and (U.S. artillery) must have hit them because they stopped,” he said.

Farther along, they came under German fire again and this time their scout vehicle was hit.

“I had to stop and the French and American officers bailed out and ran across the road and fell in the ditch. I crawled across the road and reached the ditch.”

That’s when he realized he’d left his Thompson submachine gun in the back seat of the vehicle.

“I crawled back to the car and got the machine gun,” he said. “I got back to the ditch, then realized they would probably throw grenades. I started running up the hill, back and forth, and fell in a hole. There was a gun in it and I realized that it was probably the one that had fired at our scout car.”

The Germans shot at him, but he fired back and “they gave up,” Arnold said.

That was his sole experience in actual personal direct conflict, he said, though they were “bothered” by German Stuka dive bomber attacks.

One time, he said, the whole division was on the road when they were strafed by the Germans’ 20 mm cannons.

“They blew a lot of guys’ arms and legs off,” he said. “They killed a lot of them.

“When it got bad, they’d hit us four or five times a day.” he said. “We’d fire back with .50 caliber machine guns. When it got real bad, they gave us two guns that had 37 mms and 230 mms mounted on them and were radar-guided.

“I read after the war that this outfit had shot down over 100 German planes. One German plane came straight down. I thought it was going to crash right into us.”

There was more to come. Arnold’s outfit was sent to Italy, where the Allied invasion began on Sept. 3, 1943.

“Part of our division was landing at Salerno but the rest of us landed at Anzio, just north of Naples,” he said. “The Germans had blown up their ships in the harbor so we couldn’t get in.”

By all accounts the battle at Anzio was one of the longest protracted battles of the war with over 25,000 battle casualties – killed, wounded, missing, or taken prisoner – on each side of the conflict. The Americans lost 13,000, Arnold said.

He recalls the troops listening to BBC radio at night to find out what was going on.

“They said the Americans might lose the beachhead tonight,” he said. “We didn’t know what to believe.

“I believed in God. My mother prayed for all of us and she brought us home through her prayers.”

They were shelled by the Germans for three days and three nights, he said, before air support helped shut down the attack.

“The Germans shot our planes down, but they kept coming, 15 to 20 of them would come over and bomb, then 20 minutes later another 15 or 20. Wave after wave.”

They eventually pushed into northern Italy, pushing 84 miles through the German forces on one particular day, he said, and capturing a hospital and “all the big generals up there.”

The war hadn’t been won yet, though, by a long shot.

“They sent two men from each company for food for the troops,” he said. “I left right away. As we drove down the road, German troops opened fire.”

However, Arnold said, he survived unscathed and the enemy soldiers were eventually rounded up.

“They were the first ones to give up,” he said. “The war ended in Italy before it ended in France and Germany.”

Returning to Oregon, Arnold worked in the woods and in the mills for Willamette Industries until he retired. He married Margueritte Reed in 1946 and they had two children, Roger, who lives in Sweet Home, and Sandra, of Milwaukie.

It’s clear that Arnold, the oldest of his surviving siblings, hasn’t lost much of his mental acuity at 95.

He doesn’t have a lot from the war except his memories and “one or two” souvenirs he’s lost track of.

“I didn’t take a camera with me,” he said.

He says he’s not as sure about America’s current military engagements and supports efforts to pull out of them.

“That’s one thing the president is doing right,” he said, directing a steady gaze at an interviewer.

World War II was a justifiable conflict.

“It had to be done,” he said.

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