Robert L. Cheatham Interview

              John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis Military Oral History Project Interview with Robert L. Cheatham by Cadet Brandon Price, October 18, 2006.
©Adams Center, Virginia Military Institute
About the interviewer: Cadet Brandon Price (VMI Class of 2007) is majoring in History. He plans to commission in the United States Army following graduation.
Price – The following interview is being conducted for the First Division Museum at Cantigny and the John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis as part of the requirements for History 393—History of World War II. The interviewer is Brandon Price. The interviewee is Mr. Robert L. Cheatham. Today is the 18th of October 2006. We are conducting a telephone interview from Preston Library.
Price – Thank you Mr. Cheatham. Could you please begin, and give some background on your life prior to entering service?
Cheatham – Well, I grew up in Abbeville, South Carolina and went to Clemson which, at that time, was a military school. I received a commission as a second lieutenant in the ROTC at Clemson. I think that pretty well covers it.
Price – What type of training did you receive prior to joining the First Infantry Division and was it realistic and helpful?
Cheatham – First I got transferred to Air Force pilot training but I failed the examination because I didn’t have the depth perception. My vision was not good enough. Then I was called to active duty as a second lieutenant at Camp Croft, South Carolina where I was given a six weeks refresher course and then assigned to a basic training company at Camp Croft. I stayed there until November. At that time I was designated to go overseas to North Africa. I went to a camp close to Brunswick, New Jersey. I can’t remember the name of the camp. Then I shipped out overseas in November and arrived in North Africa 2
the 26th of December of 1942. I went over as a replacement officer. I believe we were the first group of replacement officers to go over.
Price – You said you were going to discuss when you were assigned to the First Infantry Division?
Cheatham – That’s a long story so I’ll just have to start and finish. I arrived in North Africa the 26th of December and I was in the first group of replacement officers, I believe, that went over to North Africa. I stayed in a replacement officers repo-depot—replacement depot—for two or three weeks. The name of it was Canastel. Then I was sent to Tunisia. It may surprise you but I was sent by boat, actually, up to Bone and then to Constantine and then to Tebessa. On the 13th of February 1943 I was assigned to C Company, 26th Infantry, First Division. When I got there I was an extra officer in the company. In other words, this was really the first combat that that the U.S. Army had had of any amount with the Germans—any direct combat. I want to emphasize that. The First Division had not seen any action, to amount to anything, before that time. When they landed in North Africa the French let them come on in.
I went to the C Company on the 13th as an extra officer in the company and was assigned to the first platoon. The first thing they told me to do was stand on the side of the road and wait for a group of 26th Infantry companies to come back from Fiad Pass, which I did. Then they set up a defense line in front of the wadi and, being available, I decided I would be willing to sit there in front of the wadi with a bazooka. I believe that’s the first time the bazooka was ever introduced into American Army units. After that I was sent back to Kasserine Pass and stayed there. The first day I was given the job of going down to an outpost at the pass and bringing the outpost back to the company.
I was an extra officer in the platoon as the German approached. Kasserine Pass is an ancient pass, known even back in Roman times, that protected that part of Tunisia. On one side of the pass was a big forest-covered mountain and on the other side was another forest-covered mountain, and in the middle was a plain, called the Bled Fasana where the road and a railroad track came through. That’s where Rommel had massed his forces at the entrance to the pass. Rommel did some artillery stuff, etc. but he had his troops climb the mountains over on our left. In other words, my company was assigned to 3
defend a wadi in the valley there and the Germans climbed this mountain to the left and came back down behind us. I was sent by Lt. Wotne—that’s W-o-t-n-e—to go back to the end of the wadi to find out what was going on with the Germans back there. I didn’t know what I was looking for and it was dark. I took a platoon sergeant and we went back there and we didn’t see anything. We came back and he wasn’t satisfied with that and he went himself and by that time the Germans had arrived back there and they shot him and killed him. They also killed Francis DeLacy, a friend of mine, at the top of the mountain. I said “Let’s get out of here” so we went back to company CP.
At the same time the Germans had come back behind us and the company had pulled out and I was left up there with a few people and they said “Come out, comrade; come out, comrade” and that’s when I came out and was captured. It wasn’t much of a good story, but it’s a fact of life. That’s when I became a prisoner of war. That was on the 20th of February of 1943. Do you have any other questions about that?
Price – You said you were captured from your company CP, or from the hill in Kasserine Pass?
Cheatham – The company CP was down in the valley and I was back at the company CP and the company, I believe, pulled out and I was up there with three or four people. The Germans came down behind us and picked me up and they rounded up about 18 or 20 more from that vicinity. During the day the company executive officer was captured. George Juskualiane was captured and Matt Smith was captured—both were majors. They lined us up and this German officer, who spoke perfect English, said he didn’t know why we were over there fighting anyway. They had nothing against the Americans. They just wanted to get after the Jews and Bolsheviks. After that they marched us back down the road. Any question about that?
Price – Just about the fighting at Kasserine, sir. You said you got to your platoon on the 13th of February and you were captured on the 20th. How much fighting occurred in between that time?
Cheatham – I’d say no actual fighting occurred during that time, except the 19th and 20th.4
Price – Does that count the artillery barrages you mentioned earlier?
Cheatham – I don’t know. I’m sure that the artillery started a little earlier than then. As far as I was concerned it started on the 18th or 19th where my company was, and that was about it. You’ve got to understand, and I can’t emphasize it too much, this was really the first exposure the First Infantry Division or any American forces to fight Germans, and they were not all that well blooded yet. That’s a known fact. You can read that in a dozen books, I can guarantee you that.
Price – Now, once you were captured, what was the first 48 hours of your captivity like?
Cheatham – They took us down to a little town called Farana and they questioned us, but they didn’t question much. The only thing I remember them questioning me about was how much gas we had and I told them I didn’t have any idea. I never did know whether they meant gasoline or poison gas. Then they took us down to a little oasis named Gafsa and had us stay in this camel barn of some kind and we spent the night there. Then they put us on this train in an open car and took us to the town of Sfax—that’s S-f-a-x—on the Mediterranean and put us in this open PW pen. I went to sleep and when I woke up the next morning—and you know how when you wake up sometimes in a strange surrounding and you don’t know where you are and I said “Well, what have I done?”—and we stayed there for about a day and they put us on a train and took us to the city of Tunis. In the city of Tunis they kept us two or three days in this little schoolhouse. Every day they’d march us out to the airport but there was no plane for us so they’d bring us back. Finally they put us on this plane and flew us from Tunis Airport to Palermo, Sicily where we stayed about three or four days.
Price – So they got you out of North Africa pretty quick?
Cheatham – Yes. They were flying troops in to North Africa so they had empty planes available to fly us back. Some of the Americans they flew from Tunis to Italy, but I was in a group that flew to 5
Palermo, Sicily. We stayed in Sicily about three days and then they put us on a train to this terrible camp in Italy named Capua—C-a-p-u-a.
Price – Can you tell me what happened from there?
Cheatham – We stayed in that miserable place in Capua about three or four days and then they put us on a train and took us back out of Italy up to the Brenner Pass. Now these trains I’m talking about were boxcars. They put us in boxcars and took us through the Brenner Pass up to Munich, actually to a little town named Moosburg, right outside of Munich, to a camp they called Stalag 7A. That was where I stayed for two or three weeks.
Price – What did they have you doing in Stalag 7A? What was your everyday activities like?
Cheatham – They had thousands of people there and we were just passing the time away until they could get us where they wanted us. They had separated the enlisted men from the officers and when they found out I was a second lieutenant, they put me on a train and sent me to a British camp named Rotenborg-am-Fulda, which is Oflag 9AZ and I stayed there for about three months I guess. That was a really good thing for us because the British were well organized and knew how to take care of everything so they were good us and we learned how to conduct ourselves properly. From there, they took me to Poland, which was German occupied, to a little town named Scubin—S-c-u-b-i-n—the German name was Altburgund—A-l-t-b-u-r-g-u-n-d. I stayed there from June 6, 1943 until January 21, 1945. Do you want me to tell you what a day was like in Scubin?
Price – Please sir.
Cheatham – First, in the winter you’re always cold; in the summer you’re always hungry. Let me restate that. In the winter you’re always cold and hungry; in the summer you’re just hungry. We had to get up at 8:00 in the morning and we’d go out in what they called “appel” and they’d count us off to be sure they had everybody there. After that we got hot water and could make some coffee. The rest of the day we could do what we wanted to. At noon we had soup and for supper we had a regular meal. At the 6
time if we had had to survive on German rations it would have been a disaster. We’d have never made it. We got American Red Cross boxes and British Red Cross boxes. They were #10 boxes and they had a lot of food in them. I don’t know the number of calories in them, but it was enough to keep us going. It had powdered milk and a D bar and a couple of packs of cigarettes. They had a couple of cans of meat like spam and corned beef and some coffee. So with that we were able to make out alright. It developed into a pretty good place. Do you have any more questions?
Price – Actually, sir, if we could go back—before you got to Scubin—you said you were at Oflag 9AZ. You mentioned there were British officers there?
Cheatham – Yes—a British camp. They had a lot of people picked up in Dunkirk. A lot of people from Australia and New Zealand, also, and they taught us how to take care of ourselves and what to do and what not to do. They had been getting Red Cross boxes and they shared with us and some people maintained friendships with some of those fellows for life. I remember helping them dig a tunnel. I wasn’t digging the tunnel. I was hauling the dirt and hiding the dirt and making maps, etc. We weren’t there but about three months I guess—got there in March and left in June.
Price – They were digging a tunnel to escape?
Cheatham – Yes, that’s what they were trying to do. The day after we left the Germans came in and went right straight to the tunnel and closed it up. They never did know what happened.
Price – How were you guys trying to dig this tunnel?
Cheatham – It would take a book to say that. You dug a hole in the ground and made a little room there under the ground with whatever tools you could get. They had an air pump that pumped air into the tunnel so you wouldn’t suffocate while you were in there and they had a little cart that dragged the dirt back, etc.7
Price – How did they do all this without the Germans finding out?
Cheatham – The Germans must have found out because the day after we left they went straight to it. You just learned how to do things like that. In other words, you don’t do anything like that unless you have security—somebody on guard all the time, watching for Germans. When they would come in the door, you’d quit working on it. That kind of thing can go on a long time.
Price – I just found it amazing that they could get an air pump in there and the Germans not even find out.
Cheatham – We had a tunnel after we got to Oflag 64 and the Germans used to go out and explode demolition charges all along the fence to try to collapse it. You’ve heard of the “Great Escape”—that movie and so forth.. Well, after that took place we were told by the American authorities to quit doing that.
Price – Can we go back to Scubin then?
Cheatham – Yes.
Price – Did that one have an official name as well sir? Was that a Stalag camp as well?
Cheatham – Oflag 64—O-f-l-a-g. It had previously been a British camp and they had moved them out to make room. All American ground force officers were located in that camp.
Price – There were no other officers or enlisted men from another nationality?8
Cheatham – Well, we had a few French there once or twice, but, basically, it was an American ground force officers camp. We had several full colonels, a number of lieutenant colonels; it ended up we had 1,500 people.
Price – Now, you said you were free to move about the camp during the day. What sort of activities did you engage in?
Cheatham – The YMCA provided us with a lot of materials for sports. We had a little theater that they provided material for. They sent us books for a library. So we had all that going on. We even printed a monthly newspaper—about the size of one page here, about four sheets—called The Item. The fellow that was in charge of that thing was named L Frank Diggs. He died two or three years ago. He was, later, the senior editor of the U.S. News and World Report. Before the war he had worked for the Washington Post.
Price – It sounds like you were receiving a lot of support. You mentioned the Red Cross and the YMCA. Did you get to contact any of your family or friends?
Cheatham – Oh yes. We wrote letters. We had three letters a month and two cards—something like that. We sent those home. When I was first captured, my people were notified that I was missing in action. Then, about two months later, they received word that I was a prisoner of war of the German government. I filled out all those cards, etc. and sent them in. We got mail from America too.
Price – I know you mentioned in one of our previous conversations, that you were freed twice.
Cheatham – Let me kind of explain that a little bit. On January 21, 1945 the Germans knew the Russians were approaching from Warsaw. They got us up and started us marching back to Germany and a number of our people escaped and went toward the Russians. I was planning to but I got my plans stopped by what happened to my buddy who was going with me. They sent him back through9
Yugoslavia. At any rate, in one place, the German guards took off and left us free and I was given to understand that we were supposed to stay there and not take off or to go back to Russia. Late that day some Latvian SS troops came in and took over and started us marching.
We marched a long way—450 miles in the ice and snow and stayed in barns. We got to Hamelburg, Germany—not a German POW camp. General Patton, on March 25th, or something like that, of ’45, sent this small reinforced armored infantry company 60 miles behind the lines to free us. When they got there they were surprised to see we had 1,500 people there. They thought it was about 300 and they couldn’t go out and ride back on a tank. They knocked the gates down and most of the people had gone back into the camp and I got myself a seat on the tank and I was going to take off and go back with them but the Germans blew the tank column away and when they did that I took off back through the woods. Later that day I got picked up again. That’s the two times I was free.
Price – That’s incredible, sir. Let me get this straight. You marched 450 miles from Scubin to Hamelburg?
Cheatham – We marched 450 miles—maybe 350—I don’t know exactly. At any rate we came to this town of Porchim—P-o-r-c-h-i-m—and they put us in a boxcar and sent us to Hamelburg. At Hamelburg, that’s when General Patton sent that group of people into rescue us. They rescued us for a day, but that’s all. Patton’s son-in-law was in our camp and his name was John Waters. He was the executive officer under the senior American officer. He was a really smart individual. He could have escaped himself but he didn’t want to do that. He was going to stick with us because he knew we needed him. He was there and he got hit during that thing when Patton sent those people in but he got back all right. He ended up a four-star general and I think that’s pretty good.
Price – How far did the armored column get out of the camp before the Germans started attacking it?10
Cheatham – Not more than about 10 or 15 kilometers. Then they turned around and stopped on this hill and they were getting ready to take off. I got myself a seat on a half track and just as they were getting to take off the Germans just blew them away—the whole thing.
Price – With what, sir? Was it an air attack or artillery, or another armored?
Cheatham – It was the artillery and infantry—88s and so forth and antitank weapons. I got about half a mile back in the woods and got picked up again.
Price – How long were you at Hamelburg, sir?
Cheatham – I think I was there for about two months. They put us on a train and took us down to Nuremberg. We stayed in Nuremberg about three days, and then they marched us back down to Munich. One time, while we were walking out on the road, a couple of P-51s came over and dropped some bombs and strafed us and we lost a few people. We were walking from Nuremberg to Munich and the weather was warm and we had plenty to eat and the Germans knew the war was over so we made it alright. We got to Moosburg—Stalag 7A—which was the first place I came to in Germany.
Price – How long were you at Moosburg the second time?
Cheatham – I think it must have been three or four weeks. On April 29th the Third Army came in and knocked the gates down and we were free. General Patton showed up that afternoon and said hello to everybody. We waited to catch a plane out for about a week or two and we got food, etc. That was on April 29, 1945.
Price – So you got out April 29, 1945?
Cheatham – Yes.11
Price – What happened from there, sir?
Cheatham – From there I went over to this airport where the C-47s were flying us out and they flew us back to what was known as Camp Lucky Strike, right outside of LeHavre. I had run into a friend of mine in Hamelburg that I grew up with in South Carolina and Eisenhower came out there and said “We don’t have the ships to get you home quick, but if you fellows want to you can just take off across the countryside.” So we went into Paris and had a big time for a whole week—hitchhiked into Paris and had a big time. Went to the Place de Pigalles. Do you know what the Place de Pigalles is?
Price – No sir.
Cheatham – That’s the red light district of Paris and we owned the place, too. We’d just won the war and we went all over town and they had a rainbow grill where we got plenty of food. We walked up and down the Champs d’Elysses. This friend of mine has been back several times because he liked it so much, but I never could go back—no time and no money.
Price – I bet the French girls were pretty excited to see you guys sir.
Cheatham – Well, they had seen a lot of us by then so we weren’t anything new. You didn’t realize this was all going to be about a POW story though. That’s not what you wanted, I don’t think.
Price – Actually, sir, this is great.
Cheatham – I’ll tell you another little story that I am proud of, but I have my regrets about a little bit. While we were at this airport in Ingelstadt, Germany and a number of planes were coming in, I walked down the road about a kilometer or two and knocked on this German farmhouse and told them I wanted something to eat and needed a place to sleep. This elderly German couple just invited me in, fed me, let me sleep on a feather bed mattress, got me up the next morning and fed me breakfast again and I 12
went on back. I’ve often wished I’d gotten their names so I could have repaid them for that. I tell people that and they said “Were you harmed?” and I say “No, I wasn’t harmed.” I think that’s a pretty good story, don’t you?
Price – Yes sir, certainly. Going back to the P.O.W. camps. The German treatment of the prisoners of war—it sounds like it was actually pretty decent.
Cheatham – The camp that we had in Poland, which was really occupied Poland, we had a senior American officer named Colonel Thomas Drake and he was a tough customer. He told the Germans in no uncertain terms that he was running the place on the inside and they could run it on the outside so they just let us do what we wanted to. Of course you can’t forgive them for the fact that they didn’t give us any food and we were freezing all the time, but other than that I never saw anybody get a beating or anything like that. I saw a dead Russian when I was walking and they just let him lay there.
Price – Well, sir, I think that’s all I have for you. Is there anything else you’d like to add for the record?
Cheatham – I’d like to emphasize that Kasserine was really the first combat that the Big Red One had had with the Germans. It took a little bit to teach us how to do. But after we learned what we had to do and after we’d been blooded, it made a lot of difference. I could add that the general commander of the American troops in Tunisia was fired after Kasserine. That was General Fredendall. There are a dozen books that have been written about it. He was fired when Patton first came to Tunisia and that’s when he took over.
Price – Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Cheatham – I would add that the date I was captured my company executive officer, Zoltan Takacs was captured and two majors were captured in addition to some enlisted men. We lost Tom 13
Wotne—killed—and Francis DeLacy was dead. I regret that I didn’t last longer but I don’t regret what I did—I’ll put it like that.
Price – I certainly don’t see how you could have any regrets. You were a great service to your country.
Cheatham – Well, it’s just too bad that things ended up the way they did. On the other hand, I survived, and I guess that’s what counts.
Price – Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Cheatham – Yes, I want to say that at no time during my 26 months as a POW did I ever doubt that we would win the war and that I would then go home.
Price – O.K. Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Cheatham.