DONALD C. MORRISON
Patriot, Chapter 1919
Army,
WWII, Europe
Donald Morrison was
born in Stoughton, Wisconsin in 1926 and in his early childhood years he
attended the Brick Church Grade School in Walworth County. In March 1935,
his family moved to Sharon Township and they were living on a farm there in
1944 when Donald graduated from High School in Darien. He wanted to go into
the Navy right after high school, but didn’t pass the physical. Donald’s
father told him that if he really wanted to get into military service he
would have to leave the farm and take a job in town, because the draft board
would not take farmers because of their importance to the war effort. He
took his father’s advice, got a job, and immediately got drafted. When he
reported in, every third man was being taken by the Navy, but Donald was not
lucky and on August 21, 1944 he was sworn into the Army, entering active
duty from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
He went by train to Fort Sheridan, Illinois and from
there was ordered to Camp Wheeler, near Macon, Georgia, and that was a
four-day train ride. He immediately went into the standard 16-week Basic
Training course. The Battle of the Bulge occurred at that time and
casualties were heavy. So, Donald’s training course was terminated at the
end of the 14th week, cut short in order to speed additional Infantry
replacements to Europe. Donald was given four-days furlough and got to fly
home. That was the first time he had ever been on an airplane and it was a
memorable trip. He recalls that the thermometer was at 20 below zero when
the plane landed in Chicago.
After the brief home leave,
Donald Morrison
reported in at Fort Meade, Maryland and was sent to Camp Miles Standish in
Massachusetts from which he sailed from Boston Harbor on January 8, 1945 on
the Ile de France, a former luxury liner that had been converted to use as a
troop carrier. The vessel arrived safely in port in Scotland on January 17,
1945 and the troops were sent across the length of the island on a
day-and-a-half journey by train to the port of Southampton in the south of
England. After only an over-night there he was shipped across the English
Channel to Le Harve, France. From there, the replacement troops he was with
were moved by truck convoy across France and into Belgium. Donald had
finally reached his unit of assignment and it was bitterly cold with deep
snow on the ground when he arrived and reported in to Company K, 38th
Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division.
He wasn’t there long. Donald says, “I had only been
in Company K for just a few days when I came down with the mumps and was
sent to the hospital. In the hospital it was found that I also had
frostbitten feet. It was some time before I was sent back to division, and
I hadn’t been back more than 48 hours before I came down sick again. I went
on sick call with 104 degree fever and they sent me back to the hospital.
I had Scarlettina and it was another three-weeks before I had recovered well
enough to go back to Company K. But finally, this time I was back to stay.”
Donald Morrison was a
Light Machine Gunner in Company K and he remained with them until after the
war in Europe was over. He was wounded in Germany on March 23, 1945.
Company K was in the attack west of Koblenz, moving through the hills
parallel to the Rhine River when they came under fire from a German 88mm
gun. A shell detonated close by and Donald was hit. He fell unconscious,
bleeding from a wound to the face and it appeared that he had also been hit
in the chest. Believing him dead, the remaining men in his gun team picked
up the machine gun and continued forward with the company as it advanced.
Later, as he slowly regained consciousness, Donald first found himself all
alone, and then he quickly found the strength to hurry after his comrades.
Upon catching up to them, some of the men in his squad “looked like they
were seeing a ghost.” A company medic treated his head wound and then
examined him, searching for the wound under the large hole torn through the
pocket of his jacket. But, there was no wound. Instead, the medic retrieved
from his pocket the New Testament that Donald had carried into combat. An
88mm shell fragment had penetrated half-way through and was embedded in the
little pocket Bible. The sharp edged, inch-long piece of steel had been
stopped directly over the first book of Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 10,
which reads, “ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace
toward me was not in vain.”
Donald says, “No question I would have been dead if I
had not carried my Bible. I was not a particularly religious man at the
time, but after that, I knew there had to be a God. I was just very
thankful for another chance.”
The division continued the advance, from Koblenz
toward Leipzig, encountering sporadic resistance, and
Donald Morrison had
several more close calls as they moved across Germany. East of Leipzig,
resistance became heavy and as they reached Grimma, he lost his Assistant
Gunner, wounded when hit by a German “potato masher” grenade, but, Don
himself made it all the way through to V-E Day without ever being wounded
again.
When the fighting ended, the division was moved into
Czechoslovakia and Donald’s Company K was stationed in the village of
Dobrany, near Pilsen, from May 6th until July 7, 1945. Initially, his unit
guarded several thousand German prisoners, and then in July the 2nd Infantry
Division was re-deployed back to the United States.
Donald Morrison sailed
for home on July 13, 1945 and he remembers passing by the Statue of Liberty
as his troop ship came into harbor on July 20th. From reception at Camp
Kilmer, New Jersey, he was sent to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, near home. From
there he was quickly granted a 30-day furlough home with another six-days
travel allowed before reporting to his next duty station, Camp Swift,
Texas. From September 1945 until April 1946, Donald was at Camp Swift, and
then returned to Camp McCoy where he was processed through the Separation
Center. He was discharged from the Army in the grade of Corporal on April
12, 1946 and returned home to the family farm near Darien, Wisconsin.
For
over twenty years after the war, Donald worked in various jobs. He says, “I
farmed for awhile, then went into the construction business, worked in
sales, and then took a job with Allstate Insurance.” His wife was
seriously injured in an automobile accident and was hospitalized for 14
weeks. After that, the cold winters in Wisconsin bothered her a great
deal. They visited Austin, Texas in 1969 and found the weather much more
agreeable for her condition, so they moved here in 1970. Donald went to
work for the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector in 1973. By the time he
retired in 1991 his office had become the Travis County Appraisal District.
He has been a Life Member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart,
affiliated with Texas Capital Chapter 1919 for the past seven years. |
