My mom's dad was a captain in the US Army during WWII, and a major during the Korean War. He was creative and funny. I know this because he kept a scrapbook with various souvenirs from WWII, and the captions were great. One pinned copy of the military's newspaper was labeled Steers and Stroops.
My aunt was in dire straits at one point and had to sell the scrapbook. However, she clearly kept some individual pieces, because she's been sending them to me as presents over the past few years. Today I received one of General Maurice Rose's rank stars, along with her recollections of my grandfather's role. Score one for Aunt Nancy.
I knew that my grandfather had been in the Spearhead Division. I did not know that he was General Hickey's attache. Here's my aunt's full note on the star. Its direct provenance isn't described. I'll give my grandfather the benefit of the doubt and assume he wasn't light-fingered.
Jamie,
This star pin belonged to General Maurice Rose. He's the three-star general who was pinning daddy's bronze star on him in the picture I sent you. General Rose is a bit of history. He was one of the three American generals who came into Cologne, Germany right behind the French. The French did the worst of the fighting at Cologne against the Germans and liberated Cologne.
Another of the three American generals was General Hickey. Daddy was his attache. And Daddy was at Cologne. There's a picture of the three generals standing on the steps of the Cologne Cathedral after it had been bombed out. War is awful. Some, through out history, I suspect, are just powerplays by men with whopping big egos trying to expand their territories. Others were probably defending what territory they had. But this war was necessary. Hitler's intent was to take over the whole world. He had to be stopped. Very evil man.
There's a u-tube video of actual footage of the American soldiers coming into Cologne right after the French had moved on. I guess it's still on u-tube. I haven't seen it in a few years. (there are several; here's one)
General Rose was in a jeep with a few others on a "road" they thought was clear. A tank came up over a mound where it had been hiding. General Rose stood up in the jeep to address them. He realized they were in trouble. The Germans said something to him, but he didn't understand German well enough and he interpreted it as "lay down your weapon," or something like that. As he was taking his pistol out of its holster to lay it down, they shot him.
