One soldier's story on V-E Day
Entries from father's World War II diary chart path to war's end.
WATERLOO — My dad left our family a precious keepsake I am reading through today, on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.
I thought I’d share it.
Below are passages from my dad’s war diary in the final days of World War II in Europe in 1945.
Private George J. Kinney II served with the Army’s 202nd General Hospital near Paris. He brought wounded back from the front on a hospital train. Prior to going overseas, he served as a military policeman guarding German prisoners at Camp Phillips, Kansas. He was 34 years old when drafted. He volunteered to go overseas and received medical training prior his work there.
The entries are sporadic, but I imagine he wrote as he had time.
March 4 (1945) 8 a.m. — Just pulled into Aulnoye, France on our return trip from Paris to the front to get another load of wounded. We went into Paris to get more supplies from Soissons where we unloaded.
March 11, Sun. 8 a.m. — We are now in Aachen, Germany. We are going to start loading wounded soldiers in an hour. Heavy traffic to and from the front here. Many German prisoners going back. War news good. We are across Rhine.
March 29, 1945 — I am 37 years old today. We are in Munchen, Gladbach, Germany. This city is in ruins. Quite a few German civilians walking around though. Arrived here this morning from Liege, Belgium.
April 6 - Am back at the 202nd General Hospital near Paris. Working on details and waiting for something to happen. We are 150 miles into Germany.
May 4 - Pulling guard duty at 202 now. My day off. Hitler reported dead. Also Mussolini. Germans surrendering everywhere. Got a physical exam today.
May 8 - Well here it is at last. This is V-E Day. Victory in Europe Day. The Germans surrendered yesterday morning at 2 a.m. unconditionally. The German Army is laying down their arms everywhere. Many German big shots are committing suicide. The 202 General Hospital will remain here until further notice. That means me too.
May 31 — I am now at the 16th Station Hospital. Transferred yesterday. We are going into Germany to set up a hospital if our orders aren’t changed. I am glad to be moving again. It’s Good Bye to the 202. Japan is getting hell bombed out of its cities.
June 5 - I am now at Wiesbaden, Germany. We are setting up our hospital. It is a very nice old city. About half of it is bombed all to hell though.
Dad was at the hospital in Wiesbaden, still the site of a major U.S. military installation, through October 1945. He worked part of the time as a telephone switchboard operator. He was discharged from the Army at Camp Grant Ill. Dec. 27, 1945, after three years in the Army.
My oldest brother Mike was seven months old when Dad went overseas. Mike was almost two when he returned. Mom was living with my grandma, Dad’s mom, and manufacturing mortar rounds at Associated Manufacturing in Waterloo.
Dad’s sparse in details on some of what he saw among the wounded, but in a letter to my mom he wrote, “Some of these boys are so crippled up I don’t think they’ll ever be the same again.”
A few years ago, while working on a freelance story the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I realized Dad was eligible for an Army of Occupation Medal for his four months in Germany after the war there ended. The medal had been established after his discharge from the Army, so I doubt he even knew it existed.
I had the documentation from his diary entries and his discharge papers and sent them to Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer’s office. Yeshi Abebe, an attorney and the granddaughter of longtime Waterloo civil rights activist Anna Mae Weems, was on Finkenauer’s staff and got the paperwork started. Congresswoman Ashley Hinson’s staff picked up from there when she succeeded Finkenauer and I received Dad’s medal in the mail in 2021.
Dad passed away in 1990. But I know he would have wanted the medal. My late older brothers who served would have wanted it for him. I know I did.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed here. Clink on their individual links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription. Thank you.
Heck of a day to get a physical exam.
Great read, Pat.
Ah, Pat. Thanks for sharing your dad's diary. We thought of you today with the new Pope and wondered about your thoughts on the matter.