They Witnessed Unforgettable History

By Tom Morrow

  Monday I taped two of my "Living Legacies" TV programs for Oceanside's KOCT-TV, featuring two more witnesses to dramatic 20th century history. I've got more than 13 years of ordinary and a few not-so-ordinary citizens telling some of the historic events and people they've witness in their lives.

  Suse Shroyer was a six-year-old child, who frequently had to get up in the middle of the night and quickly dress in total darkness, then find her way with her mother and siblings three floors to a cellar as Allied bombers dropped tons of death on Frankfurt, Germany.

 A half-century ago, Bob Neal was a 19-year-old Marine attached to the historic Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C. He was attached to the unit that performed ceremonial duties for the White House, the Capitol, and Arlington Cemetery. Whenever a visiting dignitary or special ceremony was called for, Bob would be part of it. He was a member of the honor guard that escorted President John F. Kennedy's body from the White House to the Capitol rotunda, then back to the National Cathedral, and finally Arlington for burial.

  Now 75, Suse well remembers the many ordeals she and her family endured during the war. The heavy Allied bombing of Frankfurt didn't start until 1944, however there were periodic attacks from 1942 on. American B-17s would bomb by day, and British Lancasters by night.

  "Until the bombing stopped and the Americans came into our small town (Glendenhausen) on the outskirts of Frankfurt, I had never known a day of peace. We were constantly frightened. I never was able to play outside. Each night we would lay out or clothes so we could get into them quickly when the air raid sirens sounded."

  Suse's father, Heinrich, was drafted into the German army in 1940, and became a POW in 1943.

  "My father had been captured and was up against a wall with some comrades and was about to be shot by some Italian underground fighters when the Americans came up and stopped them," she told me. "He was sent to an American POW camp in Texas and was moved frequently from there across the West, ending up in Oregon. He and his comrades worked in the fields, harvesting various crops for farmers and ranchers."

  She said her father didn't want to return to Germany after the war, but tried to stay and eventually bring his family to the U.S. Of course that didn't happen. He came home in 1947.

  Suse's story is much like so many other Germans, who survived the war. Her mother scrambled for food, often benefiting from the kindness of G.I.s, who would smuggle coffee, sugar, flour, and such. Years later, she would marry one of those G.I.s, emigrating to the U.S.

  Bob was from the hills of Kentucky. When he arrived in Washington, D.C., directly from infantry training at Camp Lejune, he had never been to a big city.

  "I was born and raised in Kentucky, but I grew up and became a man in Washington, D.C."

  Indeed. For the first few months of his D.C. duty, Bob served as a member of the honor guard at the White House, was on patrol duty at Camp David, and accompanied President Kennedy to Central America on a diplomatic trip. But, nothing prepared him for what happened the week of Nov. 22, 1963.

  "I was on a work detail when we got the word the President had been shot," Bob recalled. "The next day I was sent over with several other Marines for duty at the White House. A day later we moved the President's body on an Army casson that had carried Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. We firs went to the Capitol building when it lie in state under the rotunda for a day, then to National Cathedral and Arlington for funeral and burial.

  "I was marching directly in back on the casson on the left. It was a mile's march to the Capitol from the White House, and 10 miles from the Capitol to Arlington, by way of the Cathedral."

  Bob continued as a member of the ceremonial staff well into President Lyndon Johnson's first term.

  "Kennedy had been very friendly, often chatted with us and always waved as he would go by where I was on guard duty at Camp David. Johnson, however, was all business, never showing any sign of acknowledgement," Bob recalled. "But, then again, you wouldn't expect a President to do something like that. That just showed the difference between the two men.

  Bob said as a reward for all his ceremonial service in the nation's capitol, he was transferred to Oceanside's Camp Pendleton, and was soon on his way to Viet Nam.

  "I survived both Viet Nam and Washington without a scratch."

  These two interviews won't be put on the air for a month or so. I'll let you know when they run. KOCT can not only be seen on cable daily in Oceanside, but around the world via streaming on the Internet at www.koct.org.

  Stay tuned...