Vet receives Bronze Star after 63 years
By Greg Bischof - Texarkana Gazette via The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Nov 12, 2008 5:39:17 EST

TEXARKANA, Ark. — After 63 years, former Army Cpl. J.D. Elliott of Texarkana, who served in Europe during World War II, has received his Bronze Star.

Last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs finally sent the 82-year-old Elliot his citation in the mail.

“Back in April of this year, my parents received a letter from the VA,” said Brenda Pearcy, Elliott’s daughter.

The letter stated the VA had researched World War II servicemen’s records and found out that in some units, like the 69th Infantry Division in which Elliott served, only a few soldiers who earned a Bronze Star actually received one.

“I was one of those placed on the waiting list for the award,” Elliott said. “I was surprised to get it but at the same time, I was a little angry, too, because I knew that a lot of other men who deserved the Bronze Star have already passed away.

“And I knew there were a lot more men who deserved it more than I did,” Elliott said.

Born in Dover, Ark., in 1926, Elliott had to quit school at 15 to help support his family when his dad died in 1942 after the family moved to Clarksville to farm.

Elliott worked a series of assorted jobs to help support the family, including shoveling gravel and driving a dump truck.

Elliott was working at a grocery store in Lonoke when he received his draft notice in April 1944. After being inducted and sworn in, Elliott journeyed down to Camp Hood near Killeen, Texas — now Fort Hood — for basic training. The Army then sent him to Mississippi for six weeks of additional training and eventual assignment to the 69th Infantry Division.

“We camped out (in Mississippi) with the chiggers, mosquitoes and snakes,” Elliott said.

The Army then sent the 69th to New Jersey, where they boarded at troopship bound for Europe.

Elliott’s outfit landed at Winchester, England, where they stayed for two months before shipping out to Le Havre, France, in late November 1944 and moving on to Paris by March 1945.

“We were sent to (a) tent city outside of Paris, but we called it mud city because our cots would sink in the mud while we slept on them,” Elliott said. “After spending about two weeks there, we started out for the front lines on freight-train boxcars when we heard that President Roosevelt had died (April 12, 1945). The boxcars were called 40 or Eights, because they could hold either 40 soldiers or eight cattle.”

The Army deployed Elliott’s unit on the Dutch-German border near the Siegfried Line, a line of concrete tank barriers and pillbox fortifications, built by Germany and extending from Holland’s border with Germany southeast to the Swiss border.

Elliott eventually crossed into Germany on an Army Corps of Engineers-constructed pontoon bridge built across the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany.

“Once across the Rhine, the only real combat resistance ... was sporadic as we pushed on across the country,” Elliott said. “There was snow on the ground and we traveled mostly through forestland.”

One afternoon, shortly before the war ended, Elliott was on his way to a supply truck to collect fresh socks and underwear when a German artillery shell came screaming down and exploded in mid-air near him and about seven other men.

“Those shells were called Screaming Mimis,”’ Elliott said. “Me and the other men fell down around a jeep as shrapnel went everywhere.”

Elliott was wounded in the hip.

“I was still able to walk but they called for medics and they took me to a first aid station.”

Elliott underwent surgery at the aid station and eventually received ambulance transport to an Army hospital tent outside Paris.

Shortly after recovering from his wound, the Army sent Elliott back to the front lines, where he and the rest of a patrol got lost in the forest overnight before finding the rest of their unit the next morning.

“It was never so good to hear familiar voices when we found other members of the 69th,” Elliott said.

A few days later, the war in Europe ended and Elliott’s unit met units of the Russian Red Army on Germany’s Elbe River.

While stationed in Germany for a short time after the war to receive his discharge points, Elliott got to witness history by sitting in a Nuremberg, Germany, courthouse balcony for one night. There, he observed some of the War Crimes trial proceedings.

“I got to see three of the German leaders going to trial that night,” Elliott said. “Security was so tight. We were searched four times before we could go up to the balcony.”

Elliott received his discharge at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis in mid-1946. Later he received his GED and went to college on the G.I. Bill.

Despite having to wait 63 years for the Bronze Star, Elliott said he has no regrets because he had better things to do and wanted to get home instead of waiting for his citations after his discharge.

“I had a baby girl waiting for me here,” Elliott said, referring to his then-13-month-old daughter, Brenda.

Ellie