The Boys of the 4th
September 2024
“what a job these boys of the Fourth Armored Division are doing” Pfc Rick Hoffman, 101st Airborne
About the time that my father started his sorrowful journey to a German prisoner of war camp, something new was already stirring behind him. General George Patton, disheartened by being left out of the D-Day invasion, was about to take command of the 3rd Army. Within this army, the 4th Armored Division was assigned to serve on February 1, 1944. The unit, established in 1941, landed at Utah Beach on July 11 of 1944 and six days later was in combat. From there, it never looked back. My father was a 101st Screaming Eagle in the very marrow of his bones but, the “boys of the 4th,” meant something to him.
The 101st Airborne and the 4th Armored Division were the most iconic American units of World War II. They were modern, innovative warrior tribes that evoked the ancient cultures of the dashing cavalrymen and the daring raiders who operated behind enemy lines. The 4th was the most prestigious division in Patton’s 3rd Army. The relentless move towards key objectives and the ability to maneuver with astonishing speed and violence prompted the Germans to call them “Roosevelt’s Butchers.” They were Patton’s spearhead of an Army that refused to repeat the mistake of the entrenched fighting of the First World War. There seemed to be a certain level of detachment as to whether they bypassed you and left you stranded behind their lines or rolled through your entrails. Winning quickly was all that mattered.
In a dramatic moment these two divisions were thrust onto the world stage at a place in Belgium called Bastogne. With many believing that the war was practically won, German Panzer tank units launched a desperate counterattack. Pushing hard through the Ardennes Forest and catching relatively green American troops by surprise, they nearly broke through. The American line was pushed back and held tenuously.
Famously, Eisenhower ordered my father’s division, the 101st Airborne, to race to this Belgian crossroads village and hold it at all costs. These young, handsome American paratroopers, holding fast in their frozen foxholes with diminished supplies, caught the imagination of the world. It seemed as if the outcome of the war hinged on how long they could hold out, but they could only keep Bastogne for so long. The cavalry needed to arrive and that was the job of the 4th. These armored “boys” also captured the admiration of the world by pushing through an impossible timeline and breaking through the Germans lines despite the extreme winter weather of December 1944.
My father was not there, and he hated that for the rest of his life. Instead, he was stuck in a POW camp near the famous city of Dresden in eastern Germany. Friends like Ray Crouch, Sam Goodgal and others were there at Bastogne and earned the honored nickname of “Bastards of Bastogne.” Some friends made it all the way through to Hitler’s famous Eagle's Nest or Kehlsteinhaus at Berchtesgaden.
The men of the 4th, despite their all-important “diversion” to Bastogne, were almost constantly at the pointy-end of the Allied lance. They led the charge eastward and were among the first Americans to liberate a concentration camp at Ohrdruf and push into Czechoslovakia. Two of the most decorated units of the 4th Armored were 8th Battalion led by Lt. Colonel Albin Irzyk. It was the “Rolling 8th” that contributed to the liberation of Ohrdruf. The other was the 37th Tank Battalion. Its commander was Lt. Colonel Abrams for whom the modern Abrams tank was named. It was his unit that broke through at Bastogne and connected with General McAuliffe and the 101st Airborne.
Who were these “boys of the 4th?” One of them offered some colorful insights when he chronicled his life as a soldier in the 4th. His name was Nat Frankel. His book “Patton’s Best” was a graphic, disturbing tale of what it was like to ride a tank through the fire and gore. Like my dad, Nat was a POW. Unlike my dad, his imprisonment was for a brief moment at the end of the war.
His tank was bogged down with mechanical problems. Despite the precarious situation of being alone, Frankel felt he and his crew were safe enough to work on the tank. “We were absorbed in concentration…and simply not bothering to look up…Finally, it was fixed. I ordered the driver to test it, and he was able to push on ahead some twenty feet. I rose to join him. Then I heard it. ‘Halt!’ I was a g**damned prisoner of war! They ordered us to march to our left, which we did.”
Then he was brought before the “highest-ranking German there;” a distinguished captain with “slick strands of gray hair combed straight back.” Frankel’s impression was that he was an honorable man. Later, there was an altercation and a “German dog face” knocked Frankel out with the “butt of his rifle.” Frankel griped that “when I awoke, my watch had come off my wrist and onto his.”
When the gray-streaked captain arrived on the scene, Nat cussed and “snarled out a complaint.” To his surprise, the “captain walked over to the German thieving soldier” and kicked him “in the face.” Frankel, who was able to understand some German, clearly heard the officer’s stern response. “You are a disgrace to the Wehrmacht.”
Frankel gleefully continued, “As indeed he was. Now that officer’s long gray hair retains a symbolic meaning for me; I associate it with honor, integrity, with something so stubbornly decent in human nature that even enlistment in a Hitlerian cause can’t eliminate it.”
Shortly after this incident, they heard the roar of American engines coming down the road. The Germans knew that they had to go, picked up their gear and, made a run for it. Nat Frankel was free.
My father’s story was a bit different in that he spent most of his war “in chains.” His last prison camp was in a town called Hartmannsdorf and when he left there by train, he could hear the roaring of the oncoming American forces. Unknown to him, the soldiers at his heels were the “boys of the 4th.” Desperate for his freedom, he could only hope, pray and scheme as the sound of his army seemed to fade under the rolling wheels of the “40 and 8” railcar he was riding to who knew where.
Before joining his men to make his personal run for freedom, the German captain looked at Frankel. “Auf Wiedersehen.”
“God be with you,” was Frankel’s reply as he saluted him.
“Ja, Gott,” the captain replied with a half-smile and off he went.