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Retired vet shares his WW II story |
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Tuesday, 10 November 2009 |
 Paul Sims/SDN Retired West Point veterinarian Mark Hazard recalls his journey from Mississippi State University to the battlefields of Europe for Starkville Rotarians Monday. Club officials invited Hazard, a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, to continue talking about his recollections next Monday. By PAUL SIMS
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Mark Hazard remembers Dec. 7, 1941.
He he’d been working at Mississippi State University, feeding experimental hogs. The Bulldogs had recently won their only Southeastern Conference football title to date that year.
Japanese forces attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. He and some friends were sitting at a bullring when they heard the news.
The next day, the United States declared war on Japan. Within four days, the U.S. issued a declaration of war against Germany, who had been sinking American ships in the Atlantic. Hazard describes the Germans as not “a friendly type” of people.
Hazard, a retired West Point veterinarian, shared his recollections as a veteran World War II with Starkville Rotarians Monday.
“The whole nation came together,” he said, adding it didn’t matter if a person was poor or if they had some money. “We were all Americans.”
Hazard says: “If you weren’t ready to fight there as a stigma on you.”
He and several friends signed up for advanced Reserve Officer Training Corps, but they were all called up as privates.
After basic training, they could apply for Officer Candidate School and “about all of us did ... .”
He remembers being told there were three things which were absolutely expendable – rations, ammunition and infantry platoon leaders.
Hazard cited a statistic that infantry platoon leaders went 17 days before getting wounded or killed.
He later boarded a transport and went to Great Britain, then traveled on to France. He recalls offloading at Omaha Beach after the Normandy invasion and seeing the “debris of war” left behind.
Hazard reached the top of the bluff at Omaha and saw the graves of those who lost their lives in the fighting on D-Day.
“That told us immediately we weren’t on a Boy Scout trip,” he said.
He was assigned to the 79th Infantry Division as a replacement officer.
“We went straight to the front,” he said, adding that 15 days after he’d left New York he was in combat.
He recalled seeing his unit go a month without ever taking off their clothes. They ate mostly K-rations, or canned foods.
An infantry division had about 15,000 people – 6,000 doing the fighting and 9,000 in support roles. Of those doing the fighting, Hazard’s unit lost 24,000. Every night, they received rations, ammunition and replacements.
Rotary Club officials invited Hazard – the author of “World War II, as I Remember” – to return to the club’s meeting next Monday to continue telling his story. The club meets at 11:45 a.m.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 11 November 2009 )
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