The Second World War
Helen Doman, my grandmother, was a very religious Presbyterian. My grandfather, Joseph Doman, was a very irreligious Roman Catholic. Perhaps, as a result of this difference, my father chose to become a Quaker. Quakers are pacifists. Our state of Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, a Quaker. It was a Quaker colony.
In the late 1930s, my father became aware of Hitler. Winston Churchill was one of my father’s heroes, and he agreed with Churchill’s strong opposition to Hitler. He also strongly objected to what Hitler was doing to Jewish people. When I studied History in school, the history indicated that the American people really didn’t know the terrible things Hitler was doing to Jewish people. My father always said that those people who cared to know had understood what Jews were going through. He could not stand on the sidelines and be a pacifist. Well before the US entered the war, my father went to enlist in the army. He was rejected because of his poor vision. He tried the Canadian army and was rejected again.
On Friday, December 5th, 1941, my father was driving his girlfriend home for the weekend to meet her family. My father liked to speed. Going through Moscow, Pennsylvania, he was pulled over by a state trooper. State troopers have the reputation of being both very kind and very tough. You always get a ticket. The trooper said to my father, “Something happened to me today that has never happened before in my career. I was chasing a speeder to give him a ticket and you passed both of us!” My father got a very large fine with the ticket.
On Sunday, my father was checking out of his hotel and saw the newspaper reporting that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. He called his girlfriend and told her that she would need to find another ride back to Philadelphia. While speeding home he was stopped in Moscow, Pennsylvania by the same state trooper who had stopped him two days earlier. The state trooper said, “You’re a slow learner. Why are you speeding this time?” My father said, “to enlist in the army.” The trooper said, “What’s holding you up? Get going!” My father said it was the only time he didn’t get a ticket.
The army put my father in the medical corps because he was a physical therapist. Then they sent him to Ascension Island in the middle of the south Atlantic Ocean. It was the safest place on the entire planet. The island’s only product was guano. All the birds flying across the Atlantic stopped there to rest and relieve themselves. My father didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be in the action, helping to end the war. He applied to Officer’s Candidate School. He was accepted and sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, the home of the US infantry.
Glenn Doman serving in the Military.
The best instructors in the world had been sent to Fort Benning to train the troops. He found that his education there was the best education he had ever experienced, including at the University of Pennsylvania where he had become a physical therapist. The entire experience was incredibly demanding. Many candidates dropped out. He graduated as a second lieutenant. He was transferred to Patton’s third army, the 87th division, 346th regiment, and company K. They were transported on the RMS Queen Elizabeth. The luxury liner had been transformed into a troop carrier because she was the fastest and largest ship on the seas. She was also the safest because she moved too quickly for the submarines to be able to hit her. My father acted as the gunnery officer for the trip to Great Britain.
When I was eleven, we went on vacation to Europe, and we sailed on the Queen Elizabeth. I couldn’t believe my father had been packed onto the ship with thousands of soldiers, and now here I was experiencing it in the lap of luxury. It was probably even stranger for him.
RMS Queen Elizabeth in Cherbourg (Normandy, France) in 1966.
He was stationed in England with his division before they were put into action in Europe. He was amazed by the strength and determination of the British people. At that late stage of the war, England’s cities were in ruin from the German bombing and V2 missiles. When the air raid sirens went off, everyone would head to bomb shelters such as the subways. With bombs going off all around, my father ran through shelters and encountered an Englishman doing the same. Instead of butting his way into the station as we Americans would usually have done, the Englishman said to my father, “Go ahead first, please.” The British maintained their civility and politeness despite the death and destruction around them.
Eventually, the 87th division was sent to France and saw action in December 1944. It was in a tiny town on the German border called Gros Rederching. As a second lieutenant, he was the most junior officer in his company.
He went into combat before the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last offensive on the Western Front. In a matter of weeks, my father went from being the Junior Officer of an Infantry Rifle Company to being the Captain. All the other officers had been killed or wounded. At twenty-five, he became “the old man” and was responsible for the lives of over a hundred men.
The experience changed his life forever.
By the end of the war in April 1945, he had become one of the most decorated soldiers for heroism from the state of Pennsylvania. He received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, and the Bronze Star. He was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor. General Patton told him that the reason he didn’t receive the Congressional Medal was because he didn’t get enough of his men killed. Patton was very cynical about congress and politicians. But it was true that my father protected his men and that was one of the reasons why they loved him.
He received the British Military Cross which is the highest medal for heroism that can be awarded to a non-British soldier. Belgium awarded him the Croix de Guerre. Luxembourg also provided him with the Croix de Guerre. Both medals for heroism.
By the end of the war, Company K, often fighting behind enemy lines, fought their way across Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and into Czechoslovakia. That was the farthest distance east American troops fought. There is a famous scene in the movie Patton, which takes place at the end of the war. Patton and his generals are celebrating with the generals of the Soviet Union. This took place not far from where my father’s company liberated towns in Czechoslovakia. The Russian army met my father’s company in the tow of Hebe.
When VE (Victory Europe) day occurred, my father’s company was among the first to be brought back to the US. They were scheduled to be part of the invasion of Japan. It was estimated that the average life span of a Company Commander attacking a beach in the invasion of Japan would only be a matter of seconds, not minutes. My brother, sister, and I are alive today because my father never had to go through that experience. VJ (Victory Japan) day happened shortly after the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan.
My father, Glenn Doman, was a hero. We kids knew our father was a hero. Everybody was constantly telling us this. We knew he was a hero because his best friends were soldiers who fought with him during the Second World War.
But we also knew that he was a hero because he made profoundly brain-injured people not only walk and talk, but some of them even went back to work.
Written by: Douglas Doman