"Whenever you're in war you hate to lose them. Don't matter how close
you were to them, it rubs off your back like grease. You hate that it happened,
but you don't think about it - you can't think about it."
[Intro]
As the Second World War reached its pinnacle throughout Europe and the Pacific, Arlin White
anxiously awaited the day when he would be old enough to join the United States Armed Forces.
Even his childhood friend, Johnny Martin, had already left for Europe with the Airborne.
"Johnny Martin was my closest friend. About every one of my buddies was two years older
than I. And they were all gone. I just couldn't wait. Whenever my papers come,
oh man! I called back home, I said, 'I'm in the Army now!' Just happy as I could be."
Arlin fell in with the 97th Infantry Division and was sent to the South Pacific to join the
fight against Japan. But meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the Battle of the Bulge was
coming to an end and staggering numbers of Allied casualties demanded that portions of
the 97th be reassigned to western Europe. By March of 1945, Arlin found himself right in the middle
of an accelerated pursuit of German forces toward Berlin. But the 97th slowed to a halt
when they reached the city of Dusseldorf where fierce enemy fire had the Americans pinned down.
"But we had a very, very brave Captain. That Captain come running down the road,
firing a submachine gun, yelling, 'Come on, guys! Come on!' He didn't just say 'Come on,
guys.' He said, 'Be strong.' Well, we got up. We followed him.
To my left, there was a motorcycle with a side car. And I opened up with my machine gun,
but I was just a shade behind him. And they went into this building - it looked like an old barn.
And I followed them with my bullets going through that barn, and out the other side. And that's what
we was doing when the white flag come up. The two Germans walked out with arms raised. Found
within the barn were several more surrendering Germans, weapons, and secret military documents."
But Arlin couldn't hang around long enough to learn the contents of these documents,
as he and the 97th continued into the streets of Dusseldorf.
"There was three of us guys that stuck together: David Nemo, and Greene,
and myself. So after it was quieted down, we decided to go looking for snipers. Nemo was
on my left, Greene on my right, and me in the center of this road. And all of
a sudden, I heard what sounded like one shot."
A bullet hit the ground directly in front of Arlin. He had been
spotted by a sniper. But the shot that he heard was not from his would-be killer.
Greene, spotting the German sniper just as he took the shot, immediately returned with his own fire.
"Two bullets - one bullet hit my feet, the other hit the German in the face."
Shaken but more cautiously aware,
the men continued through the city. Only a few blocks further,
out of the corner of his eye, Arlin caught a glimpse of a machine gun barrel in a window.
"We were so dead it was pathetic. And I yelled,
"Hit it!" We hit the sides. And one of their men came with his hands
locked behind his head, wanting to surrender. I said, 'Well, that's so wonderful.' I mean,
they could have cut us to pieces immediately. But they decided they wanted to surrender."
Within the building, the three Americans captured heavy machine guns, mortars, two officers,
and more than a dozen soldiers, all more than ready for their part in the war to be over.
"So, with Nemo in the rear, Greene on the one side, and me in the lead,
we took them in to camp."
As they made their way across the Rhineland,
the Allies found the surrender of German forces to be an increasingly common occurrence. But when
a small platoon of the 97th was tasked with a scouting mission in the German countryside,
Arlin would learn that not every enemy was so prepared to lay down their weapons."
"The lead scout was John Girling. And he was a good friend of mine.
He told me that he had to go up that water. Well,
him and the ones following him and a lieutenant all went up that water. And
whenever they come out John was first. And that son of a b---- cut him in half.
And then he run out and threw his hands up, 'I surrender! I surrender!' And that
stupid lieutenant let him live. Well that's the end of my story. I won't talk anymore."
As the Allies neared Berlin, and Germany's defeat was on the horizon,
The 97th Infantry came across a rugged group of American soldiers who had
recently been liberated from a German prison camp. Amid their conversation,
Arlin heard them mention a paratrooper named Johnny Martin. Arlin had heard rumors that
his childhood friend had been captured. Now was his chance to find out the truth.
"I said, 'Do you guys know whatever happened to Johnny Martin?' He was captured. They shot
him down and he was taken prisoner, and taken back to this camp where they held him under guard. And
they says, 'Oh, Johnny tried to make an escape and got killed.' Well, that was all there was to that.
Whenever you're in war you hate to lose them. But you don't lose them like you and I being
friends and I was to see you shot or you killed. That's a different story altogether. In combat,
don't matter how close you were to them, it rubs off your back like grease. You hate that
it happened, but you don't think about it - you can't think about it. After the war ended there,
we lined up, played Taps, said a lot of good things about the ones that had died.
Gave all their names. Then, we all went home. Well, when I first got in to port,
I saw the Statue of Liberty, and I said, 'Honey, I'll never leave you again.'
My first day back home, walked in to my dad and mother. 'Oh, what took you so long?' They said,
'We knew when you left Europe.' Talked a little bit. I said, 'It was really heck about Johnny
Martin.' She says, 'Oh yeah? He got home yesterday.'"
Johnny Martin had been shot down, captured,
and taken as a prisoner of war. But that was the extent of the rumor's
truth. Although he had attempted escape, he was kept alive, and eventually rescued.
"Well, I didn't let the door hit me. Ran right over there. We got together. Just, buddy-buddy."
Hey everyone, I'm Josh from Memoirs of WWII, and I just want to say thank you so much for watching
this episode, and also give you an opportunity to join up with what we're doing. We are dedicated
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