Willard Simon
Born 1922 in Martin County on the family farm near
Fairmont, MN.
94 yrs. old
Currently living in Fairmont, MN
U.S. Army World War II Veteran
Following Willard Simon’s graduation from Fairmont High
School, he decided to join the Army National Guard in the fall of 1940. “We
were going out from Fairmont with our unit on a one year maneuver,” Simon
remembers.
They were shipped to the Army Camp Haan in Riverside, California
where the guard troops were addressed by Col. William “Wild Bill” Frazer. “He
told us we had two choices. We would either go to the Philippines or Kodiak,
Alaska,” he recalled. “’Wild Bill’ said we were all going to Kodiak because he
wanted to shoot a bear!” Simon admitted because of the fierce fighting in the
South Pacific at that time, “I probably wouldn’t be here today if we hadn’t
gone to Alaska.”
When he and his fellow soldiers finally arrived in Kodiak
in the fall of 1941 they became part of Battery H 215th Coastal
Artillery unit training on various anti-aircraft weapons. “I was 22 years old,
standing guard December 7, 1941 when I found out the “Japs” had bombed Pearl
Harbor and we were at war,” he said. “We never had ammunition for the guns up
until that point,” he admitted. “They could have taken us.”
Simon spent three long winters in Alaska during his tour,
and he said weather conditions during each one seemed different. They wore
white uniforms to blend in with the snow as camouflage. “We stole a lot of
stuff from the Navy,” he said chuckling. “We took lumber and paint so we could
build shacks by our guns to try and stay warm.”
He eventually was transferred from Alaska and sent,
via a South American banana boat and by railroad train to El Paso, Texas for desert
training on 40mm guns. In the spring of 1945 he headed to the battlefields of Europe,
sailing aboard the Queen Mary to join up with the famous General George Patton.
“I was in a Jeep on advance patrol in Germany when we had to stop at intersection
because Patton was standing there directing his tanks through the streets,” he
said. “I was about 150 feet from him.”
Simon got to head home by fall of 1945, but he remembered
it took eight days on a troop ship in very heavy seas with 40 foot waves to finally
reach American soil. He was discharged October 17, 1945 and headed back to
Fairmont to continue farming.
Story and Image © 2017 Joseph Kreiss Photography
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