HENRY A. PAPKE
Patriot, Chapter 1919
ARMY, WWII,
Pacific
Henry A. Papke
was born in Kenney, Texas (Austin County) in 1923. He attended Sempronious
School and New Wehdem School, but; as the oldest son in the family he left
school to help provide a livelihood on their farm. After his father died in
1942, Henry trained as a welder and took a job in the Brown Ship Yard in
Houston in order to send money home to support the family. When his draft
notice came, he took a deferment as the family’s oldest child and only wage
earner. However, he wanted to do his part in the war and, after six months,
when the time came to renew his status, Henry turned down the deferment and
was sworn into service in the Army at the Induction Station in Houston on
June 2, 1943.
He went through training at
Camp Roberts, California and was given five days furlough at home plus
travel time required to make the trip by train. During the short visit back
home, he met a girl in Brenham,
Delores Newsom.
He then reported as ordered to Fort Ord, California and from there was sent
to Camp Stoneman, the primary troop staging center for the San Francisco
Port of Embarkation. His time at Camp Stoneman was extended because he had
an operation to relieve difficulty in breathing and it took time for him to
heal. He sailed from San Francisco on March 19, 1944 with a shipload of
other replacements and arrived at the replacement center on Goodenough
Island just off the coast of New Guinea on April 14th. After about a month
there, Henry was flown to Milne Bay in New Guinea by C-47 transport and was
quickly assigned to the 6th Infantry Division that was then engaged in
combat in the Toem-Wakde area of the island.
Henry had been
trained on the 37mm anti-tank gun so he was further assigned to the
anti-tank platoon in the 6th Infantry Division Special Troops. But, since
Japanese armored vehicles did not present a significant threat, Henry’s unit
was not equipped with the 37mm guns. They were instead given the mission of
providing security for the division headquarters. Henry was personally
armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun and a .45 cal pistol.
After securing
hard fought objectives the 6th Infantry Division occupied the coast of New
Guinea from Cape Waimak to the Mega River until December 1944, following
which they participated in the invasion landing on Luzon, at Lingayen Gulf.
Henry was part of the second wave going in on D-Day, January 9, 1945. The
division pursued the Japanese troops into the Cabanatuan Hills and it
remained in combat until the war ended seven months later.
Although the platoon
Henry Papke
was in normally provided a protective perimeter around the division
headquarters, they were frequently pulled out and used as a rapid reaction
force, sent to reinforce any point in the division area that might come
under attack. Of one such mission Henry says, “The Japanese sent a banzai
attack against us that nearly succeeded. One of the enemy soldiers headed
in my direction with fixed bayonet and he just kept coming after being
shot. Fortunately for me, he finally dropped and fell dead right at my
feet. That was the only experience that I had where we were hit with a
large force coming at us like that, but the banzai attack was a common
occurrence during the fighting in the Philippines and throughout the war in
the Pacific. On another mission, we had been sent out to the 20th Infantry
Regiment’s area where a company had come under attack by Japanese tanks. We
were there as infantry support but the Japanese sent no infantry with the
tank force; so we watched as the 51st Field Artillery Battalion set up guns
in the middle of the highway and picked off the enemy tanks by direct fire,
shooting straight down the roadway and turning back the attack, that was
January 31, 1945.
Henry Papke
was wounded on the night of April 6, 1945 when guarding the perimeter of the
division headquarters. A single enemy soldier came at Pvt Nick from out of
the darkness and Henry rushed to Nick’s defense. In an instant, both Papke
and Nick had bayonet wounds and the Japanese soldier had several bullets
from Henry’s Thompson SMG in his abdomen, but still fought hard as the three
combatants grappled. At one point Nick had gotten hold of the rifle and
bayonet and its former owner had possession of the Thompson gun, before
realizing it had jammed and was useless. The Japanese soldier was shot and
killed. Henry’s jungle boot had been sliced through and the bayonet had cut
away part of the ball of his right foot. He was treated at the aid station
and put on light duty for a few days.
After continuous combat to
eliminate the Japanese in the hills northeast of Manila, the 6th Infantry
Division was in the Cagayan Valley and the Cordilleras Mountains when V-J
Day came in August 1945. The division was then moved from the Philippines
to Korea where they occupied the southern half of the U.S. Zone of
Occupation. Henry and the division’s Special Troops were at Inchon, and
Henry observed, “It was a real climate shock coming from the tropics, I
remember how cold it was and most of the troops stayed sick most of the
time.” The division was inactivated in Korea and
Henry Papke
shipped out for home on November 30, 1945. He arrived back in the United
States at Seattle, Washington on December 16, 1945 and then went by train to
Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He arrived at the Separation Center on Christmas
Eve 1945 and was told to go away for a few days if he wanted to, so he went
home. He then returned to San Antonio and was discharged from the Army on
New Year’s Day 1946.
Henry looked for work as a
welder near his home. There was a machine shop in Brenham but they needed a
machinist, not a welder; so he took that VA training course and went to work
as a skilled machinist. Later that year,
Henry Papke
and Delores Newsom
were married in Brenham.
Fifty-six years
later,
Henry Papke
retired as a precision machine operator with LaCoste and Romberg in Austin,
Texas in 2002, after having spent thirty-three years with that firm. Henry
is a Life Member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart who devotes much
time in volunteer service for Chapter 1919 in the Austin VA Outpatient
Clinic. He and Delores have recently celebrated their 60th wedding
anniversary.
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