Willie and Joe

Here's a link to a description of Bill Mauldin's last days, with an hilarious description of Mauldin's meeting with Patton.

Behind the Lines - When Mauldin Met Patton


-well worth reading.

-whatever

-Lou

 

Lou,

What an excellent article !

You help restore faith in my memeory ! He was alone untill that post was put on Military.com. Old soldiers looking out for each other in their 80's, bless em all.

It's the first hand accounts of WW2 meetings, discussions and events like this I hope is never lost or forgotten.

Best Regards,

 

-whatever

-Lou

 

Here's another good one....



These two kind of bring home how rough it was on the front - even when they weren't actively engaged in combat, they were still living outside, in foxholes, trenches or tents, eating mess grub when they could get it, and 'C-rations and whatever else they could scrounge up when they couldn't -


- rough living by any standard.

-whatever

-Lou

 

"We'll go away an' stop botherin' you boys now. Jerry's got our range."


This pretty much agrees with some comments Dad made - I asked him once "Did you guys cluster behind the tanks as they advanced?" and he looked at me like I was out of my mind and said 'Are you KIDDING??? No way - tanks drew fire! We were glad to see them show up, but we sure didn't want them anywhere NEAR us!"


-whatever

-Lou

 

Bought the two volume Willlie & Joe a couple of moths ago, and I've been reading it ever since. What I find interesting is after the first couple of reads, I've been looking beyond the humor of the Willie & Joe cartoons, to what Mauldin called "reading in between the lines." How, for Mauldin, the destruction of buildings, and of the landscape stood in place of the casualties, trying to hear and see what Mauldin is saying underneath. As a added bonus for me, I've been reading Rick Atkinson's book: The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, and by going back-and-forth between Mauldin and Atkison, my understanding of both books have deepened.

 

I visited my dad's grave at Arlington Cemetery yesterday for his birthday. As I do everytime, I stop at Bill Mauldin't grave to thank him for his contributions (he's buried in Section 64 also, about a dozen rows from my dad) - here's a photo I took last Memorial Day weekend (the Cemetery puts a flag on all the graves for Memorial Day).

 

"Just give me the aspirin. I already got a Purple Heart."

Bill Mauldin, Stars and Stripes (1944)​

 

“Awright, Mike, you been waitin’ to drive a while..




I'm thinking they just spotted a Tiger on the horizon.


-whatever


-Lou

 

“The battery is out of HE. Kin you use a couple tons of leaflets?”




-whatever


-Lou

 

Bill Mauldin, on the American G.I. and 'The Greatest Generation'

“They were human beings, they had their weaknesses and their flaws and their good sides and bad sides. The one thing they had in common was they were a little too young to die.”
​

-Lou

 

Look how young he drew the Lieutenant.

-whatever

-Lou

 

Pretty accurate for a "90 day wonder", I'm sure.

 

What were these "90 day" wonders? Were they replacement officers? So they did 4 months of basic, 3 months of officer's training and then were sent to Europe to lead platoons???!

That makes them worse trained than new German officers in 1944. Except for the fact that many of these were actually veteran senior NCOs that graduated from the 2 year course. (cut down to 1 year by 1944)

 

That's always been my basic understanding, Wolfy. I think there was a fair degree of variability as to what the individual's training or experience might have been prior to OCS though.

 

"Them rats! Them dirty, cold-blooded, sore-headed, stinkin' Huns! Them atrocity-committin' skunks ..."


It's not entirely clear in this low-res reproduction, but Willie and Joe are looking into a wine shop that was destroyed before the Germans evacuated the area.

-whatever

-Lou