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International News Title: Celebrating surrender www.svherald.com Celebrating surrender War ravaged Europe sees end of conflict 70 years ago today Bill Hess | Herald/Review bill.hess@svherald.com Thu, 05/07/2015 - 4:52pm SIERRA VISTA — It was 70 years ago today — May 8, 1945 — when World War II ended in Europe. That day, Army buck private Sam Rumore was heading south in battle-ravaged Germany heading for a “repo depot,” after landing at Bremerhaven. “I didn’t see any combat,” Rumore told the Herald/Review. But what he saw was what Hitler and his Nazi henchmen ended up doing to Germany, causing the allied powers to lay waste to the Third Reich, which Hitler had once boasted would last a thousand years. It lasted a mere 12 years, but it was enough time for millions to have died, many of them as victims of Hitler’s racial purifications in which mainly Jews, but others as well, considered to be untermenschen — less than human — such as gypsies and Slavs were systematically butchered in a nearly assembly line manner. “Villages and towns were rubble,” Rumore said, adding refugees, people of many nations, as well as Germans were trying to reach some place, with many trying to return to their homelands after being forced to serve Nazi Germany. The defeated German military were also on the move, especially those who wanted to surrender to Americans and other western allies and “not to the Russians,” Rumore said. Like many young American GIs, he lived through The Great Depression and knew the tough times of that period. Now 88, Rumore said as a 5-year-old he shined shoes for five cents, but sometimes he was stiffed and a person “would give me three pennies.” Those who did would say that’s all they had, he added. Somebody making .80 cents an hour was well paid, said Rumore, who said his father constantly looked for jobs and his mother worked “in sweatshops.” Born to American parents who were temporarily living in Sicily, Rumore remembers the small mountain village and its clear air before eventually the family returned to America. On the wall of his small one-room man cave is a silk map of Sicily. He pointed out the location of the village of his youth. As Europe once again headed toward war, Rumore said American industry benefitted for the need of war material and when the United States got in the conflict in 1941 the need for weapons, food and other materials helped lift the country out of The Depression. It also meant people like Rumore knew when the magic age of 18 came along they would be drafted. Graduating from high school when he was 16, he went to New York University and when he was close to turning 18 he went to his draft board telling them he was ready to enter the military. They agreed. First he went to Fort McClellan in Alabama where he, like many others, trained to be replacements for infantry units. Then it was on to Fort Benning, Ga., where he received additional training as a radio operator. It would be his initial connection with the Army Signal Corps, which would last for more than three decades, when he finally retired as a lieutenant colonel. He initially received a field commission and he served during two other wars — South Korea and Vietnam. But for the purpose of this article, Rumore was asked to remember those days when the war in Europe ended. He searched his memory for the time he was still a teenager who had an older brother — by two years — Frank, now 90, who landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day June 6, 1944, as part of an anti-tank artillery unit and was eventually wounded as American forces moved through France. Rumore said one time when he was talking to his brother, some years after the war, “Frank started crying.” His brother still lives in New York. “He still remembered killing a woman who was shooting at him,” Rumore said. But for Sam Rumore, his duty in Germany at the conclusion of the war was being part of the occupation force and he was assigned to Berlin. He took no part in the shooting war of that period and when in Korea he was in the rear, ensuring communications equipment was available. His under-fire period would come when he served in Vietnam as an advisor to some village militias. As for his service in Berlin after the war, he married a German woman and he and Gladys were a couple for 54 years until her death 13 years ago. Rumore has a photo of him standing near the war-damaged Brandenburg Gate, with the Russian Zone far in the background. Whenever Germans were near Russians “they all looked scared,” Rumore said. The nations of Europe were tired of the war, its human cost, its horrors and they wanted no more of it. That was the importance of Victory in Europe Day, 70 years ago, he said. But, Rumore said, “If it were up to Patton, we would have gone on and fought the Russians.”
Poster Comment: I remember the day well.. - I was helping with a paper drive in the neighbourhood when I saw my mother run out of our house shouting and waving, - it was 'VE Day'. Ten years later, I served in Germany and could still see the results of Hitler's experiment in national socialism. -- I'm not looking forward to seeing the results of ours.
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#1. To: tpaine (#0)
Neither am I! I am old enough that I will most likely not have to suffer with it long, but my children & grand children will. Damn the NWO !!!!! It will not be pleasant.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
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