Just doing the job for which he volunteered
Article Photos
By Julie Brennan
For The Express
Editor's Note: In the latter part of 1940, a young man from Castanea joined the Pennsylvania National Guard as a prelude to his Army service when World War II commenced a short time later. Roy M. Hanna fought valiantly overseas. He was the recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross (a bronze cross which includes an eagle in the center and the inscription 'For Valor' - the Army's second highest award, given for extreme gallantry and risk of life in combat) for his extraordinary heroism after being shot down during a battle at Anzio, Italy. But he says he's no hero, just "another soldier doing the job for which I volunteered." Instead, Roy credits the people at home who supported the war effort, the military nurses who worked endless hours to treat the wounded, and his fellow soldiers who didn't make it back, as the true heroes. Following is Roy's fascinating account.
By mid summer of 1940, the United States Congress was preparing a Draft Bill that would require all eligible men to serve one year in the armed forces. I had already graduated from Penn State and was working for Sealtest Milk and Ice Cream Company in Altoona. On Oct. 21, 1940, before being drafted, I joined the Pennsylvania National Guard in Altoona and became a private in Company G, 110th Infantry Regiment.
Four months later in February 1941, all of the National Guard units throughout Pennsylvania were ordered into Federal Service for one year of military training and were relocated to Indiantown Gap Military Reservation near Harrisburg. The Pennsylvania National Guard, then known as the 28th Infantry Division, began its training as a Division.
But the Division was far from being ready for combat. Our basic arm was the World War I Springfield rifle, and we did very little rifle firing on the range because of the limited supply of ammunition.
However, within a short period of time supplies started rolling in and the training intensified. This included participating in military maneuvers in A.P. Hill, Virginia, and then later the Carolinas. On the way back from the Carolina maneuvers I was riding in the back of a GI truck listening to music on a small radio. The music was suddenly interrupted and a news flash announced that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. It was Dec. 7, 1941. The next day President Roosevelt declared war on Japan and one week later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. And our status changed from "one year of military service" to "for the duration."
A few weeks later, over the Christmas holidays, I received my first furlough. I hitch-hiked a ride back to Altoona and on Christmas Day married my girlfriend, Janice Stier. We borrowed her family's automobile and drove to Atlantic City for our honeymoon. Five years later we continued this honeymoon. This coming Christmas we will celebrate our 68th wedding anniversary.
In February 1942, the Pennsylvania 28th Infantry Division was moved from Indiantown Gap to Camp Livingston, La. In May, I applied and was accepted into the Officer's Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Ga.
Upon graduating from OCS I was discharged as a staff sergeant and accepted a commission in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant. From there, I went to the Parachute School, also at Fort Benning. After becoming a paratrooper I was assigned to the 504 as the platoon leader of the machine gun platoon in the 3rd Battalion.
In October 1942, the 504 and 505 Parachute Regiments were moved to Fort Bragg, N.C., to become the paratrooper section of the newly-designated 82nd Airborne Division.
Eleven months after the 82nd was designated Airborne, we jumped into Sicily, the first troops to invade Continental Europe in WWII. Over the next 21 months the 504 was credited with 280 days of combat.
The early part of September 1943 the 82nd was in Tunisia, North Africa. It was there that I received a letter from Jan informing me that our first daughter, Stephanie, had been born.
On Sept. 9, the 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment, reinforced with the addition of the 3rd Battalion of the 504 (my unit) was scheduled to jump into Sicily at 11 at night inland from the coastal town of Gela. The main invasion forces were to hit the coast early the next morning. Our assigned mission was to block off highway intersections leading to the coast, secure a small airfield, and generally disrupt the enemy communications.
Late that day in Tunisia, 2,400 paratroopers with full combat gear loaded on 160 C-47 troop carrier planes and headed out over the Mediterranean Sea. We knew our mission but had no idea that our flight plan was to fly over the coastal town of Gela that was occupied by the enemy that naturally had plenty of anti-aircraft guns. In combat we jumped at an altitude of 500 feet, and so I assumed we were flying at an altitude of about 1,000 feet and at a speed of around 100 miles per hour as we approached the coast.
We had already received the red light indicating that we were 10 minutes before jump time. I was the jumpmaster, standing in the open door of the plane with my men standing up behind me ready to jump. And, as any dummy should have anticipated, the enemy anti-aircraft guns began firing as we approached the coast. I helplessly stood in the door watching our planes full of paratroopers being shot down and watching tracers and flack going all around us. As far as I know, nothing hit our plane.
Our pilot put the plane in such a steep climb that I had to hang onto the side of the door frame to keep from falling out. After a short time we got the green light signaling us to jump and out we went. The highest jump I ever made, I would guess, at well over 2,000 feet. Our parachutes were designed to open immediately and so we drifted around up there like feathers in a breeze.
When I finally landed it was in a tree, my first tree landing. This was an experience in itself. Here I was all alone hanging in a tree in enemy territory in the middle of the night. The only sound I heard was a dog barking in the far off hills. After cutting a few parachute risers with my switchblade and unhooking my parachute harness I discovered that I was only a few feet off the ground. I headed in the direction of where I thought my men would be scattered.
I hadn't walked 50 yards before I was halted with our password "George."
I answered "Marshall" and got this response: "I'm sure glad that's you, because I can't get this damn M-1 together."
The M-1 rifle was the basic weapon of the infantry soldier. When jumping into combat the M-1 was disassembled into three parts and carried in a flat type carrier that was strapped to the side of the trooper's leg. Why this soldier couldn't put his M-1 together I'll never know, because I thought every paratrooper could disassemble and reassemble an M-1 with his eyes closed.
The strange part here was that he wasn't one of the men from my plane; he was a new replacement that joined "H" Company in Africa. I put his gun together, put a shell in the chamber, and sent him to try to collect my men while I went to look for our machine guns that were dropped separately from the belly of the airplane (being heavier and having smaller parachutes the guns probably dropped straight down).
A short time later I heard one shot, the only one I heard that night. It seems that the soldier, who now had a loaded gun, was challenged by one of my men, fired one shot, and took off. I don't know his name and never saw him again. I will add that he was the first and last paratrooper that I ever saw or ever heard of who ran from danger!
I didn't find our machine guns but did collect nine men, seven from my plane and two from Company "I." The next three days we spent behind enemy lines trying to find our way back to our units. We did have a couple of light skirmishes, in which I had two men wounded, one man shot through the side of his neck and the other through his thigh. Three days later all 10 of us joined what was left of our battalion.
After we got generally reorganized we walked half way around the island of Sicily getting into small firefights and collecting hundreds of Italian soldiers as prisoners. As soon as the German soldiers retreated all the Italian soldiers would raise a white flag.
The invasion of mainland Italy was made by the British 8th Army and the American 5th Army at Salerno. My machine gun platoon was attached to "H" Company for this mission.
We were taken into Miori Beach, north of Salerno, on Landing Craft Infantry (LCI), troop-carrying boats with exit ramps down the sides. After landing we traveled up a roadway through vineyards and hills to set up a defensive position along a ridgeline and watched the war progress up the Salerno Valley.
The Germans knew we were there and shelled us regularly with artillery. At night a few Germans would come up the slope and fire their machine pistols in the air, I suppose just to harass us. If they got too close we would throw a few hand grenades in their general direction and they would leave us alone.
From our defensive position, we moved off the mountain and met a column of our armored tanks headed toward Naples. We jumped on top of the tanks and road into Naples. The streets were lined with waving and shouting Italian civilians. We jumped off the tanks and allowed the women to hug us. My hugs were mostly from women of a certain age, maybe 50 or 60 years old.
The 82nd Airborne Division had orders to leave Italy and go to England to get ready for the Normandy Invasion. General Clark, commander of the 5th Army, decided to keep the 504 in Italy as his special mountain troops. After a few months in the hills we were pulled back to Naples to get new replacements and be apprised of the planned invasion at Anzio.
During the latter part of January 1944, the 504 was part of the large American and British military invasion that was designed to come in from the sea behind the German forces and cut off their supply lines.
For several days all three Battalions of the 504 were engaged in some heavy fighting along the Mussolini Canal. The 3rd Battalion, my unit, was replaced and ordered to deploy to the northern sector of the beachhead to secure the right flank of the British 1st Guards Division. During the month of February we were involved in some of the most continuous fighting of the war as division after division of German troops tried to drive us back into the sea.
During one period the entire 3rd Battalion of the 504th was trying to hold a front line position along a railroad line and "H" Company had been cut off by a German counterattack.
"I" Company, with a normal strength of 132 men, had been reduced to about 60, and all of their eight officers were gone. Our Battalion commander directed me to leave my machine gun platoon, go to "I" Company, gather up some men and flank the Germans so that "H" Company could get back into position.
I went to the "I" Company command post and asked them to collect some men from their foxholes and line them up along the reverse side of the railroad tracks. In the meantime, I went to the second floor of the building that housed the command post. Enemy artillery had knocked a large hole out of the north side of the second floor. Looking through that space, I used my field glass to make my plans for our counterattack.
Perpendicular to the railroad track, a dirt road ran into the wooded area where the Germans that had "H" Company pinned down were dug in. Probably 300 yards straight out the road from our jump-off place was a house that I knew housed a few German snipers. A large drainage ditch ran along the left side of the road for about 150 yards, where there was an American armored tank that had been knocked out and vacated. This was going to be our first stopping point.
"I" Company had lined up about 25 men. I told them the plan and off we went. When we got to the vacated tank, I sent two troopers up on a small knoll with instructions to fire as rapidly as possible into the house once we were in position to charge the house.
A ditch just a bit beyond the tank was our next approach. We charged over to the house. The Germans must have been distracted because to this point, there was no evidence they knew we were coming. After the use of a few hand grenades through the windows, we removed that obstacle.
Our next objective was the wooded area at the back of the house. I was running out a hedgerow and, just as a rabbit ran across in front of me - making me pivot- I was shot.
The bullet entered the upper part of my chest where, just minutes before, I had a hand grenade hanging. I was glad I had used it! The bullet passed down through my lung and exited through the lower part of my back. It never touched a bone.
Shortly thereafter we got word that "H" Company was back into position and for us to come back to the main line. I wasn't "collapsed unconscious" as my citation reads, but I did find myself on the ground on two different occasions and wondered how I got there.
The attack was successful and the 25 men earned me my Distinguished Service Cross.
I had a quick ride to a British tent hospital where I spent the next three days because the sea was too rough to transport me back to Naples. Then a boat ride back to a Naples hospital that the Americans had taken over to spend another 58 days there.
Two months after landing on the beach at Anzio, the 504th was relieved. My battalion commander sent a couple men in a Jeep to the hospital to pick me up and take me back to my unit. The 504th then boarded a new British luxury liner temporarily converted to use as a troop ship, the Capetown Castle, and off we went to England.
We rejoined the 82nd Airborne Division in England, but did not take part in the Normandy Invasion. The 504th stayed in England as a reserve unit and trained our new recruits so that we would be ready for our next mission.
Over the next several months we were credited with another 82 days of combat, starting with the Market Garden campaign in Holland and activity in Central Europe. As the war was ending, the 82nd Airborne Division moved to Berlin to occupy the Allies sector there, but I decided that, after 28 months overseas, it was time for me to go home.
Because of my "high point" status, I received a priority trip back to the States and my wife, Jan, and our 22-month-old daughter, Stephanie.
Roy's story doesn't end there. Today, he and his wife Janice are retired and living in North Carolina. Their daughters Becky, Stephanie and Amy proudly sponsored Roy's banner in Downtown Lock Haven's "Hometown Hero" streetlight banner program. And Roy continues to play an active roll in speaking out for World War II veterans.
Accounts of his military service appear in several books, including "All American, All the Way: The Combat History of the 82nd Airborne Division in WWII."
In 2005, he was keynote speaker for the dedication by the Golden "K" Kiwanis Club of the Clinton County World War II Memorial located on Water Street across from the Courthouse.
Just this past September, he was one of six World War II veterans from his 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division to be invited to the Netherlands to commemorate the 65th anniversary of Operation "Market Garden" (the largest airborne operation ever launched in history), the invasion of Holland by the Allied Airborne Command to liberate the Dutch following four horrific years of German occupation.
The week-long celebration included a Sept. 19 ceremony during which Roy and his fellow paratroopers took part in a commemorative boat crossing of the Waal River (65 years ago to the day Roy's battalion had crossed the river under heavy enemy fire).
In addition, the group met with other invited dignitaries, including General David Petraeus, Commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), who presented Roy with one of his medals for excellence, and Queen Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands since 1980.
Says Roy: "The greatest reward to me during this entire week was that every man, woman and child that we met gave us a very warm reception and thanked us for their freedom. This 'Anniversary Celebration' is sort of like our 4th of July, except to the Dutch people it is not just another day to not go to work or school, but a day to celebrate the day they were freed from the Nazi oppression."
