The Souls of Dachau by Chris Gibbons

One of the most infamous concentration camps of World War II was Dachau. This is the story of two Philadelphians who were there the day that Dachau was liberated: one a soldier, the other a prisoner.

Originally published in the April 26, 2015 Philadelphia Inquirer.

Ernie Gross (l) and Don Greenbaum in 2014. Photo courtesy of the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center in Philadelphia.

“All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes – all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worse of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.” (Rod Serling’s ending narration for Twilight Zone episode “Deaths Head Revisited”)

On the day the Americans came, it was a Sunday, and unseasonably cold for late April. So cold, in fact, that just a few days later a light snow would fall. Current Philadelphia resident, Ernie Gross, was only 15 years old and had just been imprisoned at Dachau that morning. Weak and resigned to his fate, Gross told me that he was simply “standing in line outside of the crematory waiting to die.”

As detailed in Dachau Liberated: The Official Report of the U.S. 7^th Army, a few of the inmates from the east side of the compound suddenly noticed a lone American soldier at the edge of a field outside the camp, and he was running towards the gate. Then, more U.S. 42^nd Division soldiers appeared behind him. Unaware of what was happening outside the gate, Gross was puzzled when “all of a sudden, the Nazi guard next to us threw down his weapon and started to run.”

Excited shouts in disbelieving tones echoed within the walls of the compound in multiple languages: “Americans! Americans!” A prisoner rushed toward the gate, but was shot by the Nazi tower-guard. Undeterred, more prisoners ran towards the gate. The American soldiers opened fire on the guard tower, and the SS guards surrendered. One of the guards still held a pistol behind his back, and was shot by an American soldier.

“The Americans were not simply advancing; they were running, flying, breaking all the rules of military conduct”, wrote Dachau prisoner and Turkish journalist Nerin E. Gun. The 7^th Army soldiers, primarily from the 45^th “Thunderbird” Division and 42^nd “Rainbow” Division, had been told by newspaper reporters about the camp, and rushed to liberate it. But nothing could have prepared them for what they would find at Dachau.

Philadelphian Don Greenbaum of the 283^rd Field Artillery Battalion attached to the 45^th Division remembers that as his unit approached the camp they were stunned to find numerous abandoned train rail-cars which contained thousands of decaying corpses. He told me that as the soldiers entered the compound, they were “sickened by the sight of thousands of emaciated prisoners who looked like walking skeletons.” As chronicled in The Liberator by Alex Kershaw, soldiers from the 45th Division moved through the camp and found metal poles where naked prisoners had been tied while guard dogs tore into them, a building where prisoners were subjected to sadistic medical experiments, and stacks of decomposing bodies left to rot because the SS had run out of coal for the crematory.

Lt. Col. Felix Sparks of the 45th wrote in a personal account that “a number of Company I men, all battle hardened veterans, became extremely distraught. Some cried, while others raged.” Kershaw’s book described SS guards and prison “informers” being torn apart by the vengeful prisoners with their bare hands. Enraged U.S. troops started to execute the Nazi guards until Sparks forcefully stopped them. Private John Lee of the 45^th said, “I don’t think there was a guy who didn’t cry openly that night.”

Those interred at Dachau between 1933 and 1945 were considered “enemies of the Reich” for one reason or another. Ernie Gross said that he was there simply because he was a Jew. Prisoners were from over 20 different countries and numerous religious denominations: Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, and Muslims among others. Thousands died there, but the exact number will probably never be known. General Dwight Eisenhower was concerned that someday there would be those who doubted what happened at the concentration camps. He ordered detailed films and photos taken of the camps and requested that representatives from the major newspapers visit the camps so that there would be “no room for cynical doubt.” American soldiers ordered the German citizens from the towns surrounding the labor camps to view the bodies. After visiting the Ohrdruf labor camp, the town’s mayor and his wife returned home and then killed themselves.

Unfortunately, as we approach the 80th anniversary of the liberation of many of WW II’s death camps, Eisenhower’s fears have come to fruition. Despite the film records, soldiers’ accounts, survivors’ recollections, testimony of former SS guards, and physical evidence gathered, there are millions around the world who believe the Holocaust never happened, or has been greatly exaggerated. In 2005, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that it was a fabricated legend, and the Palestinian terror group, Hamas, has referred to it as “an invented story.” Here in the U.S., a 2010 Harvard study found that 31 Facebook groups had “Holocaust Denial” as their central purpose. Recent polls in 2018 and 2019 reveal that 10% of Britons, and 4% of Americans believe the Holocaust never happened. “I cannot understand them,” Gross said of the deniers, and Greenbaum added: “I was there. I saw it for myself.”

Amazingly, after all that he’s been through, Ernie Gross still has faith in humanity. He and Greenbaum will often speak together at various organizations as arranged by the Philadelphia Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center, and in 2015, they traveled together to Germany for the 70^th anniversary liberation ceremonies at Dachau. Gross told me that he hoped that his presence there might “change the way people think. Every time you hate somebody, it’s not good. It’s better to help somebody than hate.”

If you ever happen to hear the doubters spewing their Holocaust-denial drivel, remember the stories of the Allied soldiers who witnessed it, the testimony of the survivors and the Nazi guards who experienced it, but more importantly, remember the dead who cannot speak. Then hand the deniers a shovel. And if you fail to challenge them, or if you ever begin to doubt the truth of the Holocaust, grab a shovel for yourself as well. Then, after you’ve buried your conscience, pray to whatever God you worship that you’re never confronted by the souls of Dachau.

Chris Gibbons is a Philadelphia writer. He can be reached at gibbonscg@aol.com

Corpses of prisoners found by U.S. soldiers at Dachau (U.S. Army photo)

U.S. soldiers order German citizens to view the corpses at Ohrdruf (U.S. Army photo)

U.S. soldier stands over the bodies of Nazi SS guards shot by American soldiers at Dachau (U.S. Army photo)

More stories of World War I, World War II, and Korean War veterans can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below:

Deadly Battle’s Final Casualty

Deadly Battle’s Final Casualty (Originally published in the October 17, 2008 edition of the Philadelphia Daily News)

By Chris Gibbons

Charles Whittlesey stood along the rails of the large steamship in the late autumn of 1921, and stared vacantly at the Atlantic Ocean below. Haunted by his experiences during World War I, Whittlesey was consumed by guilt, and his terrible memories of the great Meuse-Argonne offensive had left him with a broken spirit. He probably gazed down at the churning water with a macabre sense of relief as he realized that soon he would no longer have to endure the dreaded nightmares that slowly chipped away at his soul.

– – –

The autumn of 2018 marks the 100^th anniversary of the start of the deadliest battle every fought by U.S. soldiers: the great Meuse-Argonne Offensive of World War I. More Americans were killed during this battle than in any other in U.S. history, as 26,277 Doughboys lost their lives and another 95,786 were wounded. Over 1.2 million American soldiers took part in the 47 day battle in 1918, and it eventually resulted in forcing an end to World War I.

Major Charles Whittlesey commanded 9 units of the U.S. 77^th division. His battalion consisted of 554 men, most of whom were ethnic Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Polish street toughs from New York City, as well as Midwestern farm boys. Whittlesey himself was a Harvard Law School graduate. Because of his social status, one might assume that Whittlesey held himself above these men, but this wasn’t the case. He had the utmost respect and concern for the men he commanded.

On the morning of October 2^nd, the battalion advanced deeply into the Argonne forest of eastern France, but unbeknownst to them, the Allied divisions supporting their right and left flanks had stalled, and they were soon cut-off and surrounded. For the next 5 days the Germans relentlessly attacked the small American force and inflicted heavy casualties. The Americans fought back fiercely and refused to yield. Food, water, and ammunition began to run out as the number of dead and wounded piled up. At one point, the men were mistakenly shelled by their own artillery forces. Newspaper reporters picked up on the story, and dubbed them “The Lost Battalion.”

On October 7^th, a captured American soldier was released with a note for Whittlesey from the German commander. It read in part: “The suffering of your wounded men can be heard over here in the German lines, and we are appealing to your humane sentiments to stop. A white flag shown by one of your men will tell us that you agree with these conditions.” Whittlesey and his second in command, Captain George McMurtry, smiled when they read it because they viewed it as a sign of German desperation. Whittlesey ordered two white panels used to signal Allied planes to be removed lest they be mistaken for white flags. There would be no surrender. Word of the note spread among the men, and some of them yelled, “You Dutch bast****, come and get us!”

Once again German Sturmtruppen (Storm Troopers), some equipped with flame-throwers, attacked the defiant Americans. The battalion was enraged as they viewed these weapons as immoral, and they tore into the attacking Germans, some with only their bare hands. The Germans retreated, but Whittlesey’s men were barely hanging on. Finally, on October 8^th, the battalion was rescued by advancing U.S. troops. The relieving soldiers watched in silence as the battered survivors emerged from the forest. “There was nothing to say,” one of them said. “It made your heart lump up in your throat just to look at them.” Of the 554 men who entered the Argonne, only 194 were rescued. The rest were either killed or missing in action. Whittlesey, McMurtry, and 3 others received the Medal of Honor.

The post-war years were difficult for Whittlesey as he was continually troubled by his memories and the decisions he made during the battle. He was a pallbearer in burial ceremonies of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington in 1921, and a friend said that the distraught Whittlesey “thought that the Unknown Soldier might have been one of his own men.” He had recurring nightmares of the screaming wounded, and once had a disturbing dream in which a young soldier’s “cold in death” face touched his own.

On November 26, 1921, Charles Whittlesey had dinner with the captain of the USS Toloa as it traveled from New York to Havana. Shortly after 11pm, he briefly chatted with a few passengers about his experiences during the war. He then excused himself to go to bed. Whittlesey was never seen again. It is assumed that he jumped to his death from the deck of the ship. A search of his room found 9 envelopes containing letters addressed to his family, friends, and the ship’s captain. Whittlesey’s Will stipulated that the original surrender letter from the Germans be given to McMurtry.

The terrible memories would haunt Charles Whittlesey no more. Over 3 years after its conclusion, the great Battle of the Meuse-Argonne had recorded its final casualty.

More stories of Great War veterans, as well as an entire chapter chronicling the author’s search for the Roman Catholic High School alumni who died in World War I, can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below:

Voyager still carries our hopes of finding that we’re not alone by Chris Gibbons

Originally published in the October 27, 2013 Houston Chronicle and the September 5, 2017 Philadelphia Inquirer

“This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.” (Excerpt from President Jimmy Carter’s official statement placed on the Voyager 1 spacecraft)

On Sept. 5, 1977, humanity stood at the shoreline of the ancient cosmic ocean that had been beckoning for generations, and with a massive, rocket-propelled heave, we hurled a kind of message in a bottle out into the vast sea of space. That “bottle” was Voyager 1.

Within its spindly metal framework was a gold-plated audio-visual disc filled with photos, music and messages from the people of Earth. Although its primary mission was to conduct a scientific reconnaissance of Jupiter and Saturn, scientists also knew there was a good chance that the probe would eventually leave our solar system someday and enter the great void of interstellar space.

Consequently, a team of scientists and engineers, led by Carl Sagan, viewed Voyager as a unique opportunity for humanity to send a greeting card into space – a cosmic message in a bottle.

And, like children on a beach, we have patiently watched our bottle slowly drift farther and farther from shore. In 2012, we learned that it finally dipped below the horizon, and we can do nothing more now than simply hope that, someday, our bottle may be found.

Voyager 1 is one of the most successful and remarkable space probes ever launched. It conducted the first detailed studies of Jupiter and Saturn, and its discoveries electrified planetary scientists. As Voyager 1 encountered the Jovian moon Io, it discovered the first active volcano outside of the Earth. It also revealed the ice-covered surface of Jupiter’s enigmatic moon Europa, as well as the complex structure of Saturn’s rings.

Scientists spent years poring over the trove of data transmitted back to Earth by the probe. And although they initially thought that Voyager would cease providing any valuable scientific information after its Saturn encounter in 1980, the rugged probe soldiered on.

Ten years later, Voyager took its final photo – the first “family portrait” ever of the solar system – from a record distance of 6 billion kilometers. The image became famous because the Earth appeared as nothing more than a small “pale blue dot,” inspiring the title of the seminal book by Sagan.

In 1998, Voyager passed another milestone as it surpassed the distance traveled by Pioneer 10, and on August 25, 2012, NASA confirmed that the intrepid probe became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space.

Voyager 1 is now heading in the general direction of the star Gliese 445 and will pass within 1.6 light years of it in about 40,000 years.

The likelihood that another space-faring civilization will someday retrieve Voyager 1 is truly remote. In that extremely unlikely event, it will probably be millions of years from now, when humanity is long gone.

But if Voyager 1 is ever found, we can only hope that those who come upon it will somehow decipher the messages we’ve placed within our bottle. Perhaps they will conclude that on a blue planet orbiting a very ordinary star, there once lived a society of sentient beings whose curiosity and innate desire to explore eventually led them to wade into the mysterious cosmic ocean that surrounded their home.

Perhaps they will also decipher that although the beings from the blue planet recognized that they were a deeply flawed species, one that was prone to violence and a dangerous embrace of superstition, they were also determined to overcome their demons by trying to understand the cosmos and their place within it.

What the retrievers of Voyager 1 could never comprehend is that one of humanity’s primary motivations in sending this message in a bottle was something that couldn’t be placed on a gold-plated disc or etched into the metal chassis of our robot emissary. It is a certain longing that has been troubling us for decades, and it chills our souls whenever we contemplate the size of the universe and the incredible number of stars and planets contained within it.

For each time we have shouted out into the deep, infinite expanse of space and listened for a reply, the only response we’ve received has been a disturbing silence. The bottle couldn’t possibly convey that we have always felt so very alone and desperately hoped that we were not.

AFTERWORD – There are many people who proclaim that the discovery of other intelligent life in the universe would be the single most profound moment in human history. If that were to ever be confirmed, I would have to agree. However, if through some miraculous means we were able to decisively conclude that we are the only sentient beings in the Cosmos, it would not only also be the most profound moment in human history, but, in my opinion, the most disturbing as well.

More stories on the wonders of space exploration and its positive impact on society can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below:

The Roman Catholic High School Alum Who Beat The Champ

By Chris Gibbons

Originally published in the September 25, 2014 Philadelphia Inquirer

Atlantic City – September 11, 1926. The kid from Philadelphia looked across the ring at the much feared and seemingly indestructible heavyweight champion, Jack Dempsey, and for the first time in his boxing career he was visibly nervous. Although it was only a sparring session to help Dempsey prepare for his upcoming title defense vs. Gene Tunney in Philadelphia, Tommy Loughran knew of Dempsey’s fearsome reputation for routinely knocking out his sparring partners. “In the corner, (my trainer) looked at me and said, `What the hell’s the matter with you, Tommy?”, Loughran recounted in a 1979 Sports Illustrated article by Sam Moses. “I can’t understand you. You never get excited about fights.’ “I said, `Joe, this isn’t just a fight.’ “`Don’t worry, Tommy,’ he said, `you’ll knock his block off.’ “I said, `Joe. I sure wish I had your confidence.’

– – –

My continuing search for the alumni of Roman Catholic High School who fought in World War I not only revealed the incredible story of Thomas “Tommy” Loughran from the Class of 1920, but it also enlightened me to a remarkable time in Philadelphia’s history when our city was buzzing with excitement.

By September 1926, Philadelphia’s Sesquicentennial International Exposition, celebrating our country’s 150^th anniversary, had hosted millions of visitors, and preparations for one of the biggest sporting events in our nation’s history were in high gear. On September 23, 1926, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney would meet for the heavyweight championship in front of a record crowd of 130,000 in Philadelphia’s new Sesquicentennial Stadium, later known as JFK Stadium. The result of that fight signaled the beginning of the end for a legendary, larger-than-life sports personality, but it was a little known sparring session just a few weeks before that foretold the fight’s outcome, and led to the rise of one of the greatest fighters in Philadelphia’s rich boxing history.

The son of Irish immigrants, Loughran was born and raised in South Philadelphia as a member of Saint Monica’s parish. At the beginning of his sophomore year at Roman in 1917, Loughran, just 14 years old, was eager to fight for his country in World War I, and enlisted in the Army without revealing his age. It was many months before the Army realized Loughran’s age and released him from the armed services. Rather than return to school, he found work with a neighborhood blacksmith and also began to hone his boxing skills in the gym. Loughran built an impressive record through the mid-1920’s, and was known for his great footwork, speed, and accurate counter-punching. His style was similar to Tunney’s, and Dempsey personally requested Loughran to spar with him in preparation for the big title fight.

– – –

In the first round of the sparring session, Loughran’s footwork and quickness enabled him to avoid Dempsey’s relentless onslaught and his confidence grew. “He couldn’t hit me to save his life, see, and it made him furious”, Loughran recalled in the SI article. “Ooh, was he mad. I’d stay against the ropes and say, `Let’s see if you can hit me, Jack.’ I’d go this way, then I’d go that way; next time he came at me I’d step back, he’d step forward. I’d step back another way. He didn’t know what to do.”

Emboldened by his first round performance, Loughran became more aggressive in the second round and began to land his combinations. “I let him have it on the nose”, Loughran said. “Blood squirted in all directions. He stepped back and cussed me out loud, and when he did, I grabbed him and turned him around and put him up against the ropes. Gees, I poured it on him, I gave him such a beating. I hit him in the belly, hit him with uppercuts, hit him with a hook, caught him with another. I had his eyes puffy, his nose was bleeding, he was spitting out blood. I had him cut under the chin, and I think his ear was bleeding. I don’t know whatever held him up. He always came tearing back in, no matter how hard I hit him.”

Dempsey’s corner stopped the sparring session before their fighter could absorb more punishment. The sportswriters and spectators were stunned. Two weeks later, Gene Tunney used that same combination of footwork, speed, and accurate counter-punching to defeat Jack Dempsey and become the new heavyweight champion. Paul Gallico, the renowned N.Y Daily News sportswriter, reported after the title fight that Loughran “wrote Dempsey’s finish in letters large enough for all of us to see, except that we, too, were blinded by our own ballyhoo and the great Dempsey legend that we had helped to create.”

Loughran would go on to win the light heavyweight championship the following year, and successfully defend it 6 times before vacating it to fight as a heavyweight. He eventually fought for the heavyweight title and lost by decision to Primo Carnera, but his boxing career was truly extraordinary. Loughran had 169 total bouts and fought many middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight champions in his career, including Harry Greb, Jack Sharkey, and Gene Tunney. As a light heavyweight, Loughran defeated two future world heavyweight champions: Max Baer and James J. Braddock. He was The Ring Magazine’s Fighter of the Year in 1929 and 1931, and he was elected to the Ring Magazine Hall of Fame in 1956.

Tommy Loughran died in 1982, and there is a Historic Marker at 17^th and Ritner in South Philly in his honor. He was posthumously inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991, and he is often ranked among the Top 5 Light Heavyweights of All Time by boxing historians.

The stories that I have uncovered in my search for the alumni of Roman Catholic High School who fought in World War I not only inspire me and my fellow alums, but they also seem to resonate with many Philadelphians. In 1979, Tommy Loughran reflected on that long forgotten sparring session against the great Jack Dempsey, and his words from the SI article not only revealed the key to his eventual success, but they also serve as a reminder to all of us as to how we should confront life’s seemingly insurmountable obstacles: “Those two rounds with Dempsey gave me confidence in myself. I learned an important lesson that day: never to be defeated by fear.”

Chris Gibbons is a Philadelphia writer. He can be reached at gibbonscg@aol.com

More stories of notable Roman Catholic High School alumni, famous Philadelphians, WW I veterans, as well as an entire chapter chronicling the author’s search for the Roman Catholic High School alumni who fought and died in the Great War, can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below:

The Lifeguard

By Chris Gibbons – Originally published in the Philadelphia Daily News, August 7, 2007

I recently walked along a deserted beach, momentarily lost in my thoughts until I suddenly came upon a lifeguard stand. It was unoccupied, but as I looked up at the empty wooden seat my thoughts drifted back in time, and in my mind I could still picture the lifeguard.

It’s been over 35 years, but my memory of him hasn’t faded. I can still see him sitting on his stand, with long blond hair and white sunscreen on his nose, slowly twirling a silver whistle around his finger. And I’ll also never forget what he did on that hot summer day in 1972.

For a young kid from Philadelphia’s Roxborough neighborhood, summer was the smell of a freshly mowed lawn, or the squeak of high-top Chuck Taylor’s skidding on the asphalt during a game of wire-ball. Summer was the taste of a hand-me-down baseball glove as you chewed on its frayed laces during a little-league game. It was throwing rocks in the Wissahickon creek, playing wiffle-ball in the driveway, burning cap-gun ammo with a magnifying glass. It was looking up at the stars and wishing that life would always be this good.

To many Philadelphians, summer also meant the Jersey shore.

In July of 1972, my family vacationed in Ocean City. I remember running to the beach as soon as we arrived. The expanse of ocean that greeted me was overwhelming. I was one of 11 children and our home was crowded, but the ocean represented room, and freedom, and possibilities.

That was also the day I first saw the lifeguard. His incessant whistling, and arm-waving was the start of my disdain for him He reminded me of my teachers as he continually interrupted the fun with his shrill whistle: move over, come in closer, and stop throwing wet sand at your little brother.

One day, my little brother Pat and I were bodysurfing. The waves were unusually rough, with the two of us frequently getting tossed around by the surf. After getting pounded by a huge wave, I stood up, cleared the water from my eyes and noticed that I couldn’t find Pat.

I thought he’d been right next to me before the wave hit. Finally, I saw him. He was farther out than he should’ve been. I quickly realized that he was in water well above his head, and he was struggling. He was definitely struggling.

I started to swim out to him, but the water was too rough, and my skinny body wasn’t making any headway. Pat was being pulled out into deeper water as he must’ve been caught in a riptide. I began to panic and started to scream for help. I was thrashing around, and swallowing the salty seawater. Pat was clearly in trouble, continually going under and resurfacing. I was trying to scream, but was gagging so badly that I couldn’t.

I looked out again, and for the first time, I didn’t see Pat. My God, I thought to myself, my little brother has drowned!

Suddenly, something shot over my right shoulder. It knifed into the water just ahead of me, barely making a splash. It quickly emerged, arms and feet flailing like a powerful machine. It was the lifeguard, and he was moving like a torpedo toward my brother. I’ll never forget how quickly he got to Pat.

The lifeguard got Pat out of the water and back to the beach. Pat was OK, but he was spitting up water. A few people gathered around him and I knelt down next to him. We looked at each other and didn’t say anything.

We both had tears in our eyes, but for different reasons. He was a pain in the neck, but he was my little brother and I loved him, and he’d come within seconds of losing his life. You’re supposed to look out for your little brother, but I failed. I looked up at the lifeguard and hoped he could understand what I wanted to say, but couldn’t. I think he did.

In a heartbreaking twist of fate, just a few days after we returned from our vacation, my oldest brother Jack drowned in the Schuylkill River while swimming with friends. Nothing would ever be the same again for my family.

A house in a Philadelphia neighborhood wailed in sorrow that night, and the awful sound of it drifted across the hills of Roxborough. Some of the other houses heard it, and they began to sob as well. It was during that terrible night that a wishful image first came to my mind and continues to haunt me to this day.

It’s an image of a lifeguard stand. It sits on the banks of the Schuylkill River. Sitting atop the stand is a young kid, with long blond hair and white sunscreen on his nose, slowly twirling a silver whistle around his finger on a hot August day in the summer of ’72.

Chris Gibbons is a Philadelphia writer. gibbonscg@aol.com

More stories of growing up in Philadelphia, as well as the harrowing stories of America’s war veterans, and the triumphs of space exploration can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below:

The Hidden Truths Within a Picture

The Hidden Truths Within A Picture

By Chris Gibbons – Originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, December, 2014

“That wasn’t right! My father yelled as his booming voice filled our living room. “You can’t do that to people!”, he shouted at the TV.

“Jesus”, I thought to myself. “What the heck is up with Dad?” It was sometime in the early 1980’s, and a news program had just shown a video of an infamous incident that occurred years earlier, during the Vietnam War.

It’s a chilling video to watch. A North Viet Cong prisoner is standing along a roadside with his hands tied behind his back. A South Vietnamese officer then quickly positions himself next to him, raises his pistol, and fires a point-blank shot to the prisoner’s head. His lifeless body crumples to the ground.

“He’s a God-damned son of a b****! That wasn’t right.” my Dad said again. I was somewhat stunned by his angry reaction. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that he knew the man who was shot. I looked at Dad’s hands, and noticed that they were slightly trembling.

2014 marks the 45^th anniversary of the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize for a photo taken of one of the most infamous incidents of the Vietnam War as South Vietnamese general Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem. AP photographer Eddie Adams and an NBC cameraman filmed the execution, and Adams’ still picture of the incident soon appeared on the front pages of newspapers and evening news telecasts across the U.S. The picture outraged the American public, and it seemed to galvanize the growing anti-war sentiment. The picture soon became a symbol of the apparent brutality of the U.S. supported South Vietnamese regime. In 1969, Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.

But the picture didn’t tell the whole story, and Adams later came to regret the damage that it did to Loan. The Viet Cong prisoner who he shot was reportedly part of a “death-squad” that targeted the families of South Vietnamese policemen. According to witnesses, the prisoner was captured near a ditch where 34 bound and shot bodies of policemen and their families were found. Adams later said, “I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn’t say was, “What would you do if you were the general at that time?” Adams later apologized to Loan and his family.

General Loan eventually escaped Vietnam, and opened a pizza restaurant in a Virginia suburb. Unfortunately, he couldn’t escape his past. Word got out to an angry public of who he was. Someone once wrote an ominous message on the restaurant’s walls, “We Know Who You Are F***er.” Loan eventually had to close the restaurant because of the negative publicity. He died of cancer in 1998, leaving a wife and five children. Adams sent a note to the family that read: “I’m sorry. There are tears in my eyes.”

As for my Dad’s reaction that day, I assumed that, like so many Americans at that time, the execution in Saigon was the final straw. The Vietnam War had once sharply divided the nation, but by the late 1960’s even its staunchest supporters had seen enough. I concluded that my Dad finally realized this as well, and seeing the video again that day must’ve brought back those bitter feelings of anger and betrayal. I quickly forgot about the incident, and never asked my father about it.

It wasn’t until many years later that I finally came to understand the hidden truths behind the picture, not only the story of general Loan, but my Dad’s story as well. We had a quiet moment alone in 2008 on the 55^th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, and I asked him if he could tell me of his worst experience during the war. He said it would be too difficult for him to tell me the worst, but there was one incident that still haunted him. Shortly after his company had set up a defensive perimeter around their base in South Korea, two frightened and dirty Chinese prisoners were brought before a company sergeant. This sergeant was a WW II veteran who my father and the other young soldiers in his company admired and looked up to. “We were very young, and often scared,” my Dad told me. “But he helped us get through some of the toughest times during the war.”

The sergeant needed to understand how these two Chinese soldiers had gotten through so he could fix the weakness in their perimeter. If they escaped and revealed the weakness to the enemy, the lives of his men could be at risk. “Ask them how they got through!”, he barked to the interpreter. The prisoners replied that they didn’t “get through”, but were separated from their outfit, and simply hid in covered fox-holes when the Americans moved into the area. The American soldiers unknowingly piled the dirt and barbed wire right on top of them, and the prisoners simply climbed out later and surrendered. “I don’t believe them. Ask them again!” shouted the sergeant, as he raised his rifle and pointed it at the head of one of the prisoners. My father believed the prisoners and was shaken by the horrible scenario that was now being played out in front of him and his fellow soldiers. Again, the frightened prisoners told the same story.

The sharp sounds of gunshots echoed across the Korean sky, as two lifeless bodies crumpled to the ground.

“It wasn’t right”, my Dad said softly as he remembered the incident and vacantly stared ahead. I looked down and noticed that his hands were slightly trembling.

(Postscript: I originally wrote this story in 2008. I sent a copy to my Dad prior to publication to ensure that my facts were correct. After reading it, he immediately called me and told me that he didn’t want it published because one of the soldiers who witnessed the incident with him was severely traumatized by it. “He was never the same again, he had a lot of issues from it,” my Dad said. He told me that even after they returned home, his friend continued to struggle and the remainder of his life was difficult. My Dad was concerned that seeing the story in the newspaper might adversely affect his friend’s already fragile psyche.

My Dad passed away earlier this year, and before he died I asked him if I could ever publish the story. He didn’t mention his friend this time, possibly because he had passed away. My Dad simply responded, “When I’m long gone.” It was then that I knew that the picture and its hidden truths would now haunt me as well, as I realized that there were actually two young soldiers who witnessed the execution that day who were never the same again.)

Chris Gibbons (gibbonscg@aol.com) is a Philadelphia writer. gibbonscg@aol.com

The Forgotten Hero of the Forgotten War

The Forgotten Hero

By Chris Gibbons – Originally published in the December, 2015 edition of Philly Man Magazine

Although it was 20 years ago, Paul Sweeney still remembers that momentous evening well. On July 28, 1995, the Marine Barracks outdoor facility in Washington D.C. was filled to capacity as the attendees patiently waited for the awards ceremony to begin. Dignitaries in the audience included former Marine aviator, astronaut, and United States senator, John Glenn, Jr. A Marine announcer asked for everyone’s attention. The guests quieted.

“Lieutenant Edward Seeburger, center walk”, the announcer said. The Marine Corps band’s drums beat a military cadence and bugles echoed across the barracks. All eyes then shifted to a gray-haired man in his early 70’s, sharply dressed in a navy-blue suit, as he stood and proudly walked towards the center stage with a noticeable limp, the result of an old war injury. Tears filled the eyes of his family members as they watched Seeburger approach the stage where Marine Commandant Charles C. Krulak waited to present the graduate of Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic High School with the prestigious Navy Cross – only one grade below the Congressional Medal of Honor. “It was quite a moment to see”, Seeburger’s son-in-law Paul Sweeney told me recently, but when you consider what Edward Seeburger did during the Korean War’s Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, it is hard to believe that this award was overlooked and nearly forgotten.

On December 2, 1950, First Lieutenant Edward Seeburger, a veteran of WW II, was leading the remains of his Dog Company Unit as they desperately fought their way south to reach the U.S. held Korean town of Hagaru. Of the 220 Marines originally in his Company, only about 20 were still fit to fight as the rest were either dead or wounded. Out of seven officers, only Seeburger remained. The men were not only fighting the enemy soldiers, but the weather as well. The snow impeded their progress in temperatures that plummeted to minus 20.

Seeburger was near the lone tank at the front of the convoy when it was suddenly attacked by well positioned Chinese troops with small arms, automatic weapons, rockets, and mortars. “One minute there was no action, and then there was artillery and mortar fire,” Seeburger said in a 1995 Philadelphia Inquirer article. ”We couldn’t move. Everybody stopped.”

The Marines took cover, but the American tank gunners could not see where the enemy fire was coming from. The convoy was being decimated. Seeburger knew that he had to do something or he, and his men, would die on the frozen Korean hills. He climbed on top of the lead tank so that he could locate the enemy positions, exposing himself to the enemy fire. “Somebody had to give them some direction,” he said in the article. “We were being hit from both sides and the front. I told them to open up with their weaponry to help our men out.”

Seeburger’s direction was working as the tank’s guns began to neutralize the enemy positions. Suddenly a bullet tore into his right knee, knocking him to the ground. The soldiers advised him to go back with the other wounded, but Seeburger refused. The official Navy Cross citation reveals what happened next: “With well-entrenched machine guns defending a roadblock to the front, and with his ranks depleted by eight further casualties, and he himself painfully wounded and unable to walk, he staunchly refused evacuation, and directed his men in an enfilade movement which wiped out the obstruction and enabled the entire column to move forward. By his great personal valor and dauntless perseverance in the face of almost certain death, First Lieutenant Seeburger saved the lives of many Marines…”

For his actions, Seeburger was immediately recommended for the Navy Cross by his Major, James Lawrence. However, unknown to Lawrence, the paperwork was destroyed when a regimental building burned down. Lawrence long assumed Seeburger received the award but was stunned to learn over 40 years later that Seeburger never received it. Lawrence then spoke to Navy officials and his recommendation was approved.

Edward “Bud” Seeburger from the R.C.H.S. Class of 1940 proudly received the Navy Cross that night in 1995, and it also coincided with the formal dedication that day of the new Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. How fitting it was that on the day that the “Forgotten War” was finally recognized, one of its forgotten heroes was finally honored as well. Sweeney told me that Seeburger never really talked about that night in Korea until he received the award. “It couldn’t have been in a better setting,” Seeburger said in a 1995 Philadelphia Daily News article. “It was quite an honor. My daughter and grandkids are able to see me get this award whereas, 45 years ago, they would not have been around for this…it’s amazing to me.”

Seeburger worked as a park police officer, and then later as an engraver for 32 years at Becks Engraving Co. After retiring, he and his wife moved to Ocean City, N.J., and he worked part-time for the Claridge Casino in Atlantic City. He died in 2007 at the age of 85.

Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic High School, founded in 1890, is still thriving today. In one of the classrooms at the historic school are various plaques honoring alumni who distinguished themselves in battle, and one of those plaques bears the remarkable story of Edward Seeburger. They serve as a reminder to the students of the proud legacy of their school, which is the only Philadelphia Archdiocesan high school, and one of the few in the country, whose alumni have served in the Spanish-American War, WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Over 150 alumni have given their lives in these conflicts. On March 8^th of this year, several of these veteran alumni were honored during Roman’s 125 Year Anniversary celebratory banquet where the school formally recognized Roman’s “125 Persons of Distinction”. The Seeburger family was there to accept the award on behalf of their father. Roman’s Alumni Association felt that it was important to remember and recognize men like Edward Seeburger, whose actions and achievements are so remarkable that they reveal, not only to fellow alumni, but to the rest of our country as well, those quality characteristics that Roman has always strived to instill in its students.

(Chris Gibbons is a freelance writer and a 1979 graduate of Roman. His recent book, “Soldiers, Space and Stories of Life” is available at Amazon.com – link below)

The Fight of the Century

**By Chris Gibbons – Excerpt from his book, Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life. Originally published in the Philadelphia Daily News, March 13, 2006**

The year was 1971, and the priest stood at the front of the church and looked out among the elementary school students of Philadelphia’s Immaculate Heart of Mary School. He had just read a story from the New Testament which recounted a miracle Jesus had performed, and he wanted to engage the students during his homily by asking a question of them. “Who was the most powerful man who ever lived?” he asked the students. A hand immediately shot up among the first-grade students. The delighted priest, surprised that such a young child was confident enough to answer, called on the young boy, and he stood up. I looked over and saw that it was my little brother Pat. “Tell us young man,” the priest proudly intoned. Pat confidently replied, “Joe Frazier!”

That story is now legendary in my family, and we always have a good laugh when we remember it. However, those who know my family well certainly understand my brother’s response. Just a few years prior to that day, my uncle’s friend had given me and my five brothers each a photo of a promising young Philadelphia heavyweight standing in a classic boxer’s pose. Handwritten on the photos were the words: “Keep on smokin’. Joe Frazier.” All of us were in heaven, and our lifelong love of boxing was born that day. We all believed that Smokin’ Joe had personally written those words especially for us, and the heroic status he achieved in our home was unmatched by any other athlete. We closely followed his career, and when he defeated Jimmy Ellis to win the title, we celebrated as if he was an older brother. However, we also all knew that there was one fighter who Joe had to defeat before he was universally recognized as the true heavyweight champion.

March 8, 2021, marks the 50^th anniversary of what many regard as the greatest fight in the history of boxing. At Madison Square Garden, for the first time in heavyweight history, an undefeated champion, Joe Frazier, would face an undefeated former champion, Muhammad Ali. It was billed as “The Fight of the Century,” and legendary boxing announcer Don Dunphy called it the greatest night in the history of sports. Luminaries from the entertainment, sports, and political worlds were seated at ringside. Ali and Frazier received record purses of $2.5 million each, the Garden was sold out a full month in advance, and an estimated 300 million watched it on closed circuit television.

The pre-fight buildup was racially charged as Ali shamefully referred to Joe as an “Uncle Tom” and the “white man’s champion.” These statements were particularly painful to Frazier who was raised as the dirt-poor son of a South Carolina sharecropper. If anyone embodied the impoverished, discriminatory experience of many African Americans of that era, it was Frazier.

On the night of the fight, as they stood in the center of the ring while receiving the referee’s instructions, Frazier and Ali continued their bitter war of words that had started nearly two years before. Ali said, “Don’t you know that I’m God and can’t be beat?” Joe replied, “Well, God’s gonna get his butt kicked tonight!”

Fight of the Century
The fight itself was nothing short of spectacular. Joe and his trainer, Yank Durham, knew that they had to avoid Ali’s piston-like jabs and punishing right hand crosses in order to get inside and land Frazier’s vaunted left hooks to the head and body. They devised a plan to neutralize Ali’s speed and reach advantage, but Joe would have to take two in order to land one.

Joe came off his stool for round one furiously bobbing his head to avoid the jab. Surprisingly, Ali, who had defeated big punchers like Sonny Liston, Jerry Quarry, and Ernie Terrell, was not intimidated by Frazier’s power, and tried to end it early by standing flatfooted and exchanging with Frazier. Joe landed a vicious left hook to the head, and Ali quickly realized that he would have to capitalize on his speed advantage by sticking and moving. The pattern for the remainder of the fight had been set with Ali dancing and landing straight right hands and short hooks behind the best jab ever seen in the heavyweight division, and Joe pursuing in his familiar crouched stance while slipping as many punches as he could in order to get inside. Joe continually rocked Ali with his left hook, but he was absorbing a lot of punishment himself.

As the contest wore on, the battered faces of both fighters revealed the ferocity of the fight, with Frazier’s face a bruised and lumpy mess and Ali’s right jaw swollen like a balloon. It became a dramatic war of attrition. Frazier was staggered by Ali in the ninth round, and Ali was nearly out on his feet in the 11th. As the fight moved into the 15th and final round, Frazier was ahead on all scorecards, and he punctuated his victory by landing a picture perfect left hook that floored the former champion. Astonishingly, Ali got off the canvas and finished the fight on his feet. Frazier was awarded a unanimous decision victory.

Throughout the night, television shows were periodically interrupted with news of the fight, and our house erupted in joy when we heard the news of Joe’s victory. The fight was shown only on closed circuit broadcasts at select locations, and my brother Mike was fortunate enough to see a live broadcast. He captivated us for hours when he returned and gave a blow-by-blow description of the fight. He was better than Howard Cosell.

Unfortunately, Joe passed away in 2011. I’ve often wondered if he ever realized that so many Philadelphians regarded him as their hero, especially six white kids from Philly’s Roxborough neighborhood who never understood Ali’s racial taunts, and didn’t care if Joe was black, white, green, or blue. He was from Philly, and he signed those photos. That’s all that mattered to us.

I’ve often watched videos of that fight over the years, and I don’t think anyone could have beaten Joe Frazier that night. Well, maybe Jesus could have…maybe.

It’s difficult to convey to people who didn’t grow up in the Philadelphia area during the 1970’s the heroic and iconic status that Joe Frazier had in the Delaware Valley. When the news of his stunning loss to George Foreman in 1973 reached our home, my brothers and I were in tears. My brother Pat was so distraught that my mother kept him home from school the following day! But, that incredible night in 1971 when he defeated Ali in the “Fight of the Century” is still indelibly burned within my memory, which is remarkable when you consider that I didn’t actually see the fight until a year later when it was finally broadcast on TV by ABC Sports. Until that day I had relied upon the descriptions provided to me by my brother Mike, and the brilliant sportswriters of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Bulletin, and the Philadelphia Daily News. I recently read a clipping from the issue of the Daily News on the day after the fight. Sportswriter Stan Hochman’s prose from his article is pure gold as he poetically described the epic left hook from Frazier that floored Ali in the 15^th round: “It came whistling out of Beaufort like the Suncoast Limited, screeching on invisible tracks, sending sparks into the night. Only the wail of the whistle was missing. And it crushed into Ali’s handsome head just like the locomotive it resembled.”

More ‘stories of life’, as well as the harrowing ordeals of America’s war veterans and the wonders of space exploration, can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below:

Standing Up For What’s Right by Chris Gibbons

Edited version was originally published in the February 20, 2015 Philadelphia Inquirer

It was the late autumn of 1902, Patricia Corkery remembered her Uncles telling her, and twenty-four year old coach William “Billy” Markward gathered his Roman Catholic High School basketball team together at the imposing gothic school building at Broad and Vine streets in Philadelphia. Markward, a Spanish-American War veteran, was starting his first year of coaching at Roman and had just received a disturbing letter from the scholastic league that Roman played in during that era. Although his initial reaction may have been to respond to the league on his own without discussing with the team, Markward also recognized the importance of teaching life lessons, as well as basketball, to his players.

The team was primarily comprised of poor Irish-Catholic boys from the inner-city neighborhoods of Philadelphia, and many were the sons, or grandsons, of immigrants. But there was one boy among them whose background was very different. John “Johnny” Lee was the son of a former slave, and he was one of the first African Americans to play basketball in that scholastic league.

As the boys sat, Markward, a former pro basketball player himself, towered over them and began to read the contents of the letter. It stated that the league was notifying Roman that they would be banned from the league if Lee, a “Negro” player, remained on their roster. Sadly, considering the racial discrimination that was common for that era, this stance was not unusual, but how the team responded definitely was.

In a letter to Roman’s Alumni Association detailing the incident, Patricia Corkery wrote that her uncle and team captain, John Corkery, was the first to stand up and speak: “If Johnny Lee doesn’t play, then I don’t play.” One by one, each of the players, including her other uncle, Maurice, stood up and said that they wouldn’t play as well. As he watched each of the boys pledge to stand with their teammate, Billy Markward, the coach who always stressed the importance of how to live over how to play, must’ve beamed with pride. “Roman stood with Johnny and the league backed down”, Patricia Corkery wrote.

From that moment on, a special bond formed between John Corkery and Lee. Through the years, both men remained active in Roman’s Alumni Association, and their friendship grew. Lee would never forget the courageous stand that Corkery and his other teammates took for him, and when John Corkery died in 1929, Johnny Lee was heartbroken. Patricia fondly remembers the touching scene that took place at her home every year on the anniversary of her uncle’s death. “Growing up in the Port Richmond area of Philadelphia in the late 20’s and early 30’s, my world was white-mostly Irish Catholic,” Patricia Corkery recalled in the letter. “Only one African-American crossed my path. It was once a year (John Lee) came to our house and I had to be on my best behavior. Always, I had to be dressed up and with my best manners for this visit. John Lee came to our house on the anniversary of my Uncle John’s death…and paid a tearful visit to the pictures of Roman’s team still on our walls.”

Over the ensuing years, Billy Markward would consistently turn down numerous college coaching offers and remained at Roman from 1902 to 1942, winning an incredible 20 championships. He achieved legendary status not only at Roman, but in the entire Philadelphia region, and the prestigious Markward Awards are presented annually to Philadelphia’s top scholastic athletes.

As for Johnny Lee, breaking down racial barriers became something of a family trait. Johnny’s granddaughter, Sister Cora Marie Billings, became the first African American to enter a community of nuns in Philadelphia, and the first to join the Sisters of Mercy. She also became the first African American in the U.S. to serve as the leader of a Church parish as pastoral coordinator for St. Elizabeth’s in Richmond, Va. “My great-grandfather (George Lee)…worked as a slave, owned by the Society of Jesus”, Cora wrote in the July 7-14, 2014 issue of America Magazine. “I know that our church and our world are not as they once were and they are not where I want them to be. But my hope is things will continue to get better.”

Lee himself served on Roman’s Board of Trustees, as well as treasurer of the Philadelphia Archdiocesan Holy Name Union. He was active in the St. Vincent DePaul Society, and, in 1955, Lee became the first African American to receive the prestigious Vercelli Medal of the Holy Name Society, the highest award given annually to the Archdiocese’s outstanding Catholic layman. He died in 1958 and Lee Park in West Philadelphia is named in his honor.

Another of Lee’s lasting legacies at Roman is readily evident when reviewing the success that the school has achieved in basketball since 1968. Largely due to the contributions of many great African American players during that span, Roman won an unprecedented 18 Catholic League championships, and their current team is nationally ranked.

When we look back upon this incident from 1902, we can appreciate just how far our nation has progressed in eliminating discrimination. However, the social unrest resulting from the recent incidents in Ferguson and New York are sobering reminders that far too often our society has a troubling tendency to split opinions along racial lines. Our inability to determine the reason why we continue to divide this way leaves us angry and frustrated, and we blame each other for this failure. Perhaps, before we can find an answer and move forward, we need to look back and remember the pledge that was made in the school at Broad and Vine streets over 110 years ago. For what the Roman Catholic High School basketball team understood back then, but what many of us fail to realize today, is that the primary reason for our failure is ignorance, and the first step in defeating it is to stand together and confront it.

Chris Gibbons is a Philadelphia writer. He can be reached at gibbonscg@aol.com

More stories of notable Philadelphians, as well as the harrowing stories of America’s war veterans, can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below: