gibbons – Chris Gibbons: Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life

Back the Crick by Chris Gibbons

(Originally published in the Philadelphia Daily News, March 28, 2008)

“And perhaps across his mind there’ll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And he’ll smile then too because he’ll know it is just an errant wish”. Rod Serling narration from the Twilight Zone episode “Walking Distance”

As I walked through a Sporting Goods store recently, I noticed a small sign stating that “Opening Day” for trout season in Philadelphia is Saturday, March 29. I smiled as I read it, because it conjured up pleasant memories from my youth of trout fishing, and opening days spent “back the crick” with my buddies.

The Wissahickon Creek (pronounced “crick” in Philly-speak) snakes through the northwest neighborhoods of Philadelphia, and it was an annual rite of spring for the young boys of Roxborough, Manayunk, and East Falls to prepare for opening day of trout season. I’m told that it was very much the same thing in the NE Philly neighborhoods surrounding Pennypack Creek.

My fellow fishermen in those days were the boys that I had grown up with, most of whom I’d known since I was 6 years old. We hung out under a Henry Avenue bridge, and called ourselves “The Bridge.” Other guys in the neighborhood mockingly called us “The Trolls.” It seemed as if our major goal in life back then was to make each other laugh, and we were pretty good at it, too. We made up amusing nicknames for each other, most of which were references to some unique anatomical feature we possessed. There was Curly, Freckle, Hair, Fly, Gut, and Chalk (because of his pale complexion). A lot of these nicknames centered on head sizes or shapes, so we also had Brick Head, Pineapple Head, Bucket Head, Globin, and Boulder.

We used to make up bawdy songs, with indecent lyrics that we would sing as we walked along the trails of the Wissahickon. We thought of ourselves as being great outdoorsmen simply because we knew how to light a fire with a magnifying glass and cook minute steaks in old pans we confiscated from our kitchens. Our plan was to cook the fish that we caught and pretend that we could “live off the land” if we had to, but most of us weren’t very good at fishing. Bucket Head and I once grabbed a dead trout that was floating downstream and fried it. Of course, we had no idea what we were doing, and didn’t gut and bone the fish. I can still remember my poor mother struggling to scrape the mysterious foul-smelling gristle from that old black pan. But, that was nothing compared to what I had to scrape the day after I ate it.

One of my buddies was really quite good at fishing, and we used to call him “Fisherman.” He could easily catch 25 trout in a single day. He was also smart enough to get as far away from the rest of us as possible. While we were busy un-snagging our lines, pushing each other into the creek, or throwing rocks in the water, Fisherman was 50 yards downstream catching trout and laughing at all of us. We didn’t care though, and in the naïveté and exuberance of our youth we thought those days would last forever. But, our fishing days together, and our adolescence, slowly began to fade with the passage of time.

I still enjoy hiking along the old trails of the Wissahickon Creek. Whenever I’m there, I am always amazed by its beauty, and thankfully, it has changed very little over the years. Walking along the banks of the Wissahickon is like stepping back in time. I’ll often stop and listen to the wind as it whispers through the towering trees. If I listen carefully, sometimes it carries with it the sounds of my past, and I can hear the laughter and singing of familiar young voices as an errant wish momentarily crosses my mind. Perhaps the past can sometimes be within walking distance.

I’ve decided I’m going to get my fishing gear together, and call Bucket Head, Fly, Hair, TK, Fisherman and some of the others from the old crew. So, if you happen to see some middle aged guys with fishing rods walking across Henry Avenue in the early morning hours of some Saturday this spring, and they happen to be laughing while singing a crazy song in unison, don’t be alarmed. It’s just the boys from The Bridge, and we’ll be heading “back the crick”.

AFTERWORD: Whenever I tell people who are from outside of the Philadelphia area my old neighborhood trout-fishing tales, I’m invariably met with a puzzled look, followed by, “I thought you grew up in Philly?” What they don’t realize is that the Wissahickon Valley, which I regard as one of our country’s best kept secrets, is a unique pastoral oasis in our large Northeastern metropolis. As a result of Roxborough’s close proximity to the Wissahickon Creek, it resulted in “Opening Day” of trout fishing season being one of the big annual events in our neighborhood. I received quite a few e-mails from Daily News readers in which they fondly recalled their trout fishing days along the Wissahickon. I also have many other fond memories of the Wissahickon, which include hiking with my father and siblings, and feeding the ducks with my young children, but one memory in particular is not so pleasant. When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I was fishing “back the crick” with my older brothers and my cousins. While we were leaving and climbing a steep hill, I slipped and badly sprained my ankle. I couldn’t walk or put any weight on it, and was in so much pain that I thought it was broken. My cousin Micky, several years older than me, put me on his back and carried me all the way home – a 2 mile journey that was frequently uphill over rugged terrain. I remember thinking at the time that he was the strongest guy in the world. At his father’s funeral in 2019, we tearfully recalled that day, and he told me that he has this article framed and displayed in his home.

Adrift in a Sea of Dissention by Chris Gibbons

When I arrived at Fernwood Cemetery in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania in the early afternoon of January 6^th, 2021, it was colder than I had anticipated, with a biting wind, and, although I had a cemetery map with the specific Section and Grave number that I sought, I knew from previous searches of old gravesites that having this information didn’t always guarantee success.

Despite the cold, I was content to be there that day. Historic research has become a rewarding activity for me over the last several years, and I knew that the protests planned for that day in Washington D.C. would be another gloomy reminder of our sharp national divide, so I purposely chose that day to revive my dormant research interests in the hopes that it would not only serve as a welcome diversion, but also lift my spirits a bit. For the grave that I sought to find was my great-great grandfather’s, a former Philadelphia police officer. I’d just recently discovered that the New Jersey State Archives had mistaken him for a Marlboro, N.J. man with the same name buried in a New Jersey cemetery, and I was eager to photograph his gravestone.

Although a cemetery employee had confirmed the grave’s location over the phone prior to my visit, I didn’t have any success finding it. Unfortunately, the cemetery office was closed that day, so I decided to head back home, but vowed to return and resume my search with the help of the cemetery personnel.

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As dawn broke on April 9^th, 1865 at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, Major General George A. Custer maneuvered his 3^rd Division troops on a ridge overlooking the Confederate positions and prepared to attack Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s once vaunted, but now badly battered, Army of Northern Virginia. Among the Cavalry units in Custer’s 1^st Brigade was the 3rd New Jersey Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Alexander C. M. Pennington. Just the night before, the 3rd New Jersey, along with other cavalry units of the 1st Brigade, attacked the Confederate cavalry positioned in the woods a half-mile from Appomattox Station. In the fierce hand-to-hand fighting that followed, Custer’s victorious troops seized 24 cannon, 5 battle flags, 200 wagons, and taken 1,000 prisoners.

A murmur soon arose among the Union soldiers as a Confederate staff officer, Major Robert Sims, under escort by a Union officer, approached Custer while carrying a white towel on a pole. Sims told Custer that General Lee requested a suspension of hostilities. As chronicled in Custer by Jeffry D. Wert, Custer “replied that he was not commander on the field and could not halt the attack unless Lee announced an unconditional surrender. Turning to Chief of Staff Edward Whitaker, Custer directed the lieutenant colonel to return with Sims to the enemy lines and to wait for a response.”

A few hours later, at the home of Wilmer McLean, Lee surrendered his army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. A poignant moment occurred as the terms of the surrender were being finalized. General Grant took the opportunity to introduce Lee to the Union officers in attendance. One of them was Lieutenant Colonel Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian who served as adjutant and secretary to Grant. As recollected by Lt. Col. Parker in The Life of General Ely S. Parker: Last Grand Sachem of the Iroquois and General Grant’s Military Secretary, by Arthur C. Parker, “Lee stared at me for a moment…he extended his hand and said, ‘I am glad to see one real American here.’ I shook his hand and said, ‘We are all Americans.’”

As word of the surrender spread among the Union troops, jubilant cries erupted along their lines. In the days following the surrender, New York Times war correspondent, E.A. Paul, reported that even the Virginia citizens in the very heart of the Confederacy were joyous: “As Custer’s cavalry column passed through the country…the people flocked to the roadside, waved handkerchiefs, and at several places actually clapped their hands to express their happiness. At the house where Gen. Custer made his headquarters last night, the people made a particular request that the band play the Star Spangled Banner – an unheard of event during the last four years.”

For the men of Custer’s 3^rd New Jersey Cavalry, many of them from Philadelphia, this moment must have been bitter-sweet. Although 157 of their fellow soldiers had given their lives for the Union cause, they were likely heartened to see that their sacrifice was not in vain and America would now finally unite again.

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When I arrived home after my unsuccessful search at Fernwood Cemetery, the attack on the Capitol Building was well underway, and I was stunned by the violent images on my TV screen.

But there was one photo among the hundreds shown on the news programs that day that truly shook me. It was a photo of one of the rioters, and he was carrying something that now permanently marks that day as one that I’ll always remember for its sad and striking irony. For on the day that I tried to find the grave of my great-great grandfather, James H. Baird, a Union sergeant in Company B of the 3^rd New Jersey Cavalry, and who was there at Appomattox when Lee surrendered to Grant, a rioter walked through the halls of our Capitol carrying a Confederate flag. If the man had been armed with a gun instead of that flag, he wouldn’t have been as deadly, for his brazen act symbolically slayed the remaining, feeble hopes for American unity.

And if those from the left side of the political spectrum proudly tout this photo as evidence of their greater allegiance to traditional American values, they need to be reminded that there are also photos from the 2020 summer riots of numerous monuments dedicated to Union soldiers and abolitionists that were defaced by leftist extremists.

Although the Civil War ended over 155 years ago, America is now once again adrift in a sea of dissention. I can’t help but think that if my great-great grandfather, in the early days of the post-Civil War era, had somehow been miraculously transported forward in time, and then viewed these same photos, that he would have wept.

As we mark the one-year anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, a time of unprecedented division in which we could be witnessing the initial stages of the dissolution of our union, remember the brave Union soldiers who fought, and died, to preserve it.

AFTERWORD – A few months after my initial visit to Fernwood Cemetery, with the help of the cemetery staff, I did find my great-great grandfather’s grave. Interestingly, nearby was the grave of another Civil War veteran, Thomas H.L. Payne, a Medal of Honor recipient.

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

A Soldier Considers His Fortune

Excerpt from the book “Soldiers, Space and Stories of Life” by Chris Gibbons. Originally published in the December 7, 2011 Philadelphia Inquirer.

It was Sunday, December 7, 1941, just a few minutes before 8am, and a large formation of planes was traveling west in the clear, blue Hawaiian sky, towards the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. Initially, Army Tech Sergeant Dave Coonahan of Philadelphia didn’t think there was anything unusual about the planes. He was riding in a truck with some fellow soldiers headed for Sunday Mass, and planes were always taking off or landing at Kaneohe Naval Air Station, so Dave assumed it was just normal flight traffic. But as the drone of the planes grew louder, Dave thought the situation was somewhat odd. He looked up and was puzzled not only by the large numbers of planes, but their strange shapes as well. Suddenly, a voice came over the truck radio: “This is not a drill…this is not a drill!” Then one of the men shouted, “They’re Japanese Zeros!”

The droning engines of the Zeros changed to a terrifying whine as they quickly dove down into attack formation. The truck stopped and the men scrambled out, but they were totally unprepared for what was happening. “We had our guns and rifles”, Dave said, “But no ammunition.” Although the men were a relatively safe distance away from Kaneohe when the attack started, they could see and hear the devastation that the Zeros were inflicting on the air station.

“An older sergeant finally retrieved some ammunition, but by the time he brought it back, the Japanese had already destroyed over 32 planes at Kaneohe,” Dave recalled. “Some of our planes got off the ground and got a few of the Zero’s, but they gave it to us pretty good that day.”

After neutralizing Kaneohe, the Japanese then focused their assault on their main objective – destroying the U.S. naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. When the infamous sneak attack was over, the U.S. fleet was in ruins with over 2,400 Americans killed and nearly 1,300 wounded. 20 Americans were killed at Kaneohe – 2 civilians and 18 sailors.

That night, Dave’s battalion was ordered back to the beach at Kaneohe to defend against a Japanese amphibious assault. Although the attack never came, the battalion remained on the island for months. “If they decided to attack after our preparations, we were ready,” Dave said.

Dave grew up in North Philadelphia and graduated from Northeast Catholic High School before he was drafted into the Army. Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dave’s 34^th Combat Engineer Battalion helped with the construction of the Army fortifications on Oahu, and built the soldier’s barracks near Kaneohe. The men were initially quite pleased with their assignment in Hawaiian “paradise”, as they called it, and Dave thought the “luck of the Irish must be with me.” But his luck wouldn’t last as the dark clouds of war soon dimmed the army life he once knew.

Incredibly, Pearl Harbor wasn’t the worst of what Dave would experience. He fought throughout the Pacific for 47 months without receiving one furlough. His unit participated in the invasion of Saipan in June 1944, and he was part of the initial invasion of Okinawa in 1945. During my interview with him, Dave choked-up a few times as the bitter memories of Okinawa came flooding back. “It was awful there,” Dave said. “My worst memories of the war were at Okinawa.” When the Japanese finally surrendered in 1945, Dave’s unit was preparing to invade the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Honshu. “Thank God that never happened. It would have been a nightmare,” he told me.

When Dave finally returned to Philadelphia, the city buses were running hopelessly late, and he had to pick up his heavy barracks bag and walk home. I asked Dave if he thought the “luck of the Irish” had deserted him again that day, but he laughed and said, “Oh no, it was with me. I was home.”

Dave and his late wife, Mary, raised 4 children, and he worked for the Prudential Insurance Company for 33 years. He’s now 92 years old, and still resides in the same Oreland, Pa house where he raised his children.

On that fateful morning in December 1941, Dave never did make it to church. But when I asked him if he had anything special planned to mark the 70^th anniversary of the attack, I wasn’t surprised by his response: “I’ll just go to church and pray for those who died that day.”

AFTERWORD

Dave Coonhan’s daughter, Kate, set up my interview with him at her home, and, like so many of the war veterans that I’ve interviewed over the years, Dave was humble, unassuming, and proud of his wartime service. I was unaware until the interview that Dave also fought in the Battle of Okinawa following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He kept his emotions in check when he spoke of Pearl Harbor, but the memories of Okinawa must have been his most haunting as Dave became visibly emotional when discussing them. The fact that he spent 47 straight days on the battle-lines is almost unimaginable. Dave was also a member of Sandy Run Country Club in Flourtown, Pa. for 69 years, and I was informed by a fellow member that shortly after my essay was published, it was framed and hung on a wall for all the members to see, as most knew nothing of Dave’s service during WW II. He died in January, 2016, and I sincerely hope that Dave’s story still hangs on that wall at Sandy Run.

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

Surviving War and the Bitter Cold by Chris Gibbons

70 years ago this month, Philadelphia’s Ed Aversa was among the 1st Marine Division soldiers who were hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded at Korea’s Chosin Reservoir. Their legendary fight for survival during a blizzard is now regarded as the Marine Corps’ ‘Finest Hour’. (Originally published in the November 26, 2017 Philadelphia Inquirer)

It was late November 1950, and the biting wind and snow relentlessly swirled around the 1^st Division Marines at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea as they desperately fought their way south towards the American held town of Hagaru. Marine Corporal Ed Aversa from the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, began to wonder if he’d make it out of Chosin alive. In the midst of an unprecedented Siberian cold front that gripped the Korean peninsula, as temperatures plummeted to minus 30 degrees, the Chinese had launched a massive, surprise assault against the U.N. forces in North Korea. One of their main objectives was to encircle, and then annihilate, the Marines at Chosin. Although Ed, still spry and feisty at 87 years old, thought that he might die at Chosin, he wasn’t going down without a fight. He smiled at me as he echoed the famous words of his heroic Division Commander, Oliver Smith: “We weren’t retreating, we were just fighting in a different direction.”

But when I pressed him for more details of the battle, his smile quickly faded, and his eyes glazed over as a haunting memory of what he witnessed during the worst of the fighting seeped back into mind. “When we first arrived at Chosin”, Ed recalled, “a truck backed up to the cargo plane we just got off of. It was loaded with dead Marines…naked….not a stitch of clothing on them. Frozen bodies in all different positions. They were so unprepared for the winter, for what happened, that they stripped them of their clothes so they could re-use them. One of our officers said ‘Gentlemen, we are here for one reason now – to survive’.”

In the chaotic days following the Chinese attack, with the army of U.N. forces commander Douglas MacArthur in full-scale retreat, the senior military leaders in Washington ineptly struggled to deal with the crisis. David Halberstam’s brilliant book on the Korean War, “The Coldest Winter” revealed that as MacArthur began to unravel, incoherently mumbling to his aides while refusing to heed the advice from Washington, the Joint Chiefs meekly sat “around waiting for someone else to do something”. But with American soldiers dying by the hundreds each day, there was one senior officer who was outraged by Washington’s impotence and “vacuum of leadership”: General Matthew B. Ridgway. Halberstam detailed a meeting that took place with the Joint Chiefs on December 3^rd that very likely led to the eventual decision to replace MacArthur with Ridgway. It was “another long meeting where, in Ridgway’s mind, they were unable to issue an order…Finally, Ridgway asked for permission to speak and then – he wondered later whether he had been too blunt – said that they had all spent too much damn time on debate and it was time to take some action. They owed it to the men in the field, he said, ‘and to the God to whom we must answer for those men’s lives to stop talking and to act’. When he finished, no one spoke.” When the meeting concluded, Ridgway asked Air Force Chief of Staff, Hoyt Vandenberg, “Why don’t the Chiefs send orders to MacArthur and tell him what to do?” Vandenberg shook his head. “What good would that do? He wouldn’t obey the orders. What can we do?” Ridgway then exploded. “You can relieve any commander who won’t obey orders, can’t you?!”

The drama unfolding in Washington paled in comparison to the fierce fight being waged by the Marines at Chosin. Fortunately for them, a brilliant tactical decision made in the weeks prior to the Chinese surprise attack by 1^st Marine Division commander, Oliver P. Smith, not only enabled the Marines to escape encirclement, but to also inflict heavy casualties on the marauding enemy soldiers. “Oliver Smith was a smart man, and a good general”, Ed said. In early November, Smith expressed concern with his orders to continue heading north towards the Chinese border because he believed that his Marines were walking into a carefully planned and deadly trap. His request to slow their advance was denied by MacArthur, but, unbeknownst to his superiors, Smith cleverly left supplies and established airfields along their route so that they could fight their way out if his instincts were right.

Ed recalled one particular night of intense combat during their withdrawal from Chosin. “An officer said, “anything moving – hit it. They (the Chinese troops) were 20 yards in front of us, and we didn’t know they were there. Then, all of a sudden, they started with the noise – bugles, whistles – anything to try and rattle us. They didn’t know that every Marine was wide awake waiting for them. When daylight came, their dead were everywhere…only 15 yards away…frozen.” As the fighting withdrawal continued, what initially appeared to be a disaster for the Marines, is now regarded as one of their greatest military moments. “When we got to Hagaru, (Marine 1^st Regiment commander) Chesty Puller was standing there with his pipe in his mouth”, Ed recalled, “He said ‘A lot of boys went up that hill, but a lot of men coming down now’.” When the battle finally concluded in mid-December, the Chinese had succeeded in driving the Marines out of Chosin, but at a terrible cost. Although the Marines were outnumbered 8-1, and sustained over 11,000 casualties, U.N. estimates show that Chinese casualties were a staggering 40,000 to 80,000. Chinese General Song Shi-Lun offered his resignation. Unfortunately for Shi-Lun, Ed and his fellow Marines didn’t go down without a fight.

Today, Ed is extremely proud to count himself among the “Chosin Few”, those Marines who stunningly turned certain annihilation into one the most remarkable feats of courage and survival in the annals of military history. He told me that when he looks at how far South Korea has come since the war, he almost can’t believe it’s the same country he left in 1951. “When I first arrived, I thought, what is this place, and what the hell are we doing here? But I look at the country now, and I’m proud of what we did. And the Korean people and the Korean government have not forgotten us.”

In my short time with Ed, I learned that he does not seek recognition, and prefers to keep his emotions in check. Perhaps his most endearing quality is his sense of humor. Following my interview, I put on my coat and said, “It’s supposed to get cold tonight.” Ed shot me a sarcastic look and replied, “When someone says it’s getting cold, I just give ‘em a look and say, ‘Really?’”

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

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:

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: