Remembering WWII: A medic's perspective

Medics help a wounded soldier during the Battle of Normandy in 1944.
Photo courtesy Library of Congress & Walker Collection / Delta County Historical Society

Bill Rea, a medic, landed with his platoon at Easy Red on Omaha Beach on D-Day plus-one.

Rea, a retired teacher and former Orchard City trustee, was drafted into the Army at age 19.

As the LST (landing ship tank) approached the beach, Nazi "hedgehogs" and mines in the water meant that Rea and others had to jump, shoulder-deep, into the icy Atlantic water and wade ashore. Rea said he distinctively remembered a dead soldier with a flame-thrower lying on the sand, his pack shot open and photographs of his family lying beside him.

A German tank broke the American lines and fired rounds past them, hitting a boat and debris behind them in the water. "The sound was like a handful of gravel hitting a tin roof."

The first night in France Rea spent in a fox hole with .50 cal tracer rounds buzzing just feet above him and anti-aircraft shooting at bombers overhead. Rea said the fear was not always bullets, but shrapnel falling from the sky.

As the Americans pushed further inland, the medics followed, establishing a camp in an apple orchard. On one occasion Rea watched a pilot eject from a P-49 and his chute opened only a few feet above the ground. At the same time, the bomb from the plane landed less than 30 feet from where Rea had been observing the incident. Due to the plane's low altitude, the bomb didn't explode.

As a medic, Rea said, "venereal diseases were the most commonly treated. After liberating Paris, treating syphilis and gonorrhea became the main objective of the non-front line medical.

On one occasion some of the soldiers thought cans labelled "poison" were really alcohol. So they mixed it with grapefruit juice and within an hour 10 soldiers were dead and 75 were en route to the hospital after having consumed muriatic acid, a chemical used for cleaning typewriters, Rea recalled.

A victory ship transported Rea and a couple thousand of his fellow soldiers back to the U.S. in 1945. As the ship came into Boston harbor, Rea said he'd never forget a tugboat coming by with a Christmas tree lit up, "White Christmas" playing from the intercom, and a giant sign that read: "Welcome home -- a job well done!"

Bill Rea at his home in Eckert.
2015 Soper/Historical Society photo

Rea said his only regret was not being able to spend more time on the front lines treating the real heroes, the ones taking bullets for their nation. After the war, Rea used the GI Bill to go to college and become an educator with a specialization in teaching reading, later serving on the Orchard City Board of Trustees.

This is the third in a series of firsthand accounts from Delta County residents who served as soldiers in World War II, supported the troops on the home front and feel the costs of war today. The series coincides with a special exhibit which can be seen at the Delta Museum.


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M. Soper, "Remembering WWII: A medic's perspective" Delta County Independent (Delta, Colo.) 18 Nov. 2015, pg. A8

What are the odds: High School friends reunited on same flight*

Bill Helmsing and Matt Soper randomly met on same flight a decade after graduating from high school together

Delta High School friends reunited on same flight from Boston to Denver. Captain Bill Helmsing, with the 1st BDE 10th Mountain Division, and Matt Soper, who is studying Intellectual Property law at the University of New Hampshire, had not seen each other for 10 years and were surprised to be flying home for the holidays together. 

Helmsing, a West Point graduate, is stationed in Ft. Drum, New York and is about to deploy to the Regional Command East in Afghanistan as a member of a Security Force Advise and Assist Team. 

Soper is an alumnus of Colorado Mesa University and the University of Edinburgh’s Faculty of Law and plans on sitting the New York Bar Exam in July 2013. Helmsing and Soper graduated from Delta High School in 2003.
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*'You Saw It', Grand Junction Daily Sentinel 28 February 2013: 8B

Boston: Fenway Park & Gardner Museum

Today I rode down to Boston with two new friends – Erin and Julie – to tour the Gardner Museum and to watch the Red Sox play at Fenway Park. Erin is a lawyer from Alabama who is looking from insurance and delict law to becoming a teaching law as a professor. Julie is a recent graduate from Wisconsin and is pretty quiet. That said, I made up for any doldrums in the conversation by regaling the two of them with anecdotes from my days in Edinburgh. My time in Edinburgh is a golden era, which has already been romanticized in my reflective outlook.

The Gardner Museum is named for Isabella Stewart Gardner, who collected the bulk of the paints, sculptures, tapestries, frescos, veneers, and curios. Mrs Gardner was born on 14 April 1840 in New York City and moved to Boston after marrying John “Jack” Lowell Gardner in 1860. Mrs Gardner’s father died in 1891 leaving her with an estate worth $1.6 million at the time. The Gardners travel extensively in Europe, spending time at the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice where they decide to commence construction of a purpose built art museum patterned after the great Italian villas. In 1898, Mr Gardner dies, and Mrs Gardner pushes on to complete the dream the two shared.

In 1903 the Gardner Museum opens to the public. In 1924, Mrs Gardner dies at the age of 84, leaving her collections and museum to a trust for the benefit of the public. The only stipulation is that the paintings must not be rearranged from how she set up the displays.

In 1990, during the St Patrick’s Day celebrations, two policemen arrive at the Gardner Museum informing the guards of an alarm. After letting the policemen into the museum, they bound-up the guards and stole 13 paints, sculptures and tapestries worth an approximate $500 million at the time. The works stolen included: Vermeer’s “The Concert” and Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”. No works have been recovered and the museum still posts a $5 million reward for the successful recovery of the paintings.

As I walked into one of the galleries, I noticed a frame with no canvas and a simple note which reminded patrons of the atrocious villainous act which occurred in March 1990. I was very impressed to see Titian’s “Europa” and a self-portrait of Rembrandt. To also see John Singer Sargent’s, James Whistler’s and Piero della Francesca’s works was very impressive. MacKnight has a style which reminded me of a Currier and Ives – a romantic winter scene, complete with idyllic characters on a sleigh ride.

After the museum we had a light lunch and then set off for Fenway Park, which is celebrating its centennial this season. I sat in section 32, row 02, seat 05. The view was magnificent! The historic baseball park had an aura which was magical and captured a glorious past which modern stadiums seem to omit. It was much smaller than I thought it would be, as Colorado’s Coors Field seems much, much larger. The Red Sox hosted the Baltimore Orals and managed to win 2-1. The game was complete with the crowd singing to the organ music of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”. I felt as if I had slipped back in time and began to wonder if I would seem ‘Ricky Ricardo and Fred Mertz’ would come wondering by with peanuts and cracker jacks looking for little Ricky. The Red Sox second baseman that was just moved up from the minors had two of the best catches I have ever seen. While a late season trade led fans to criticise the owner, John Henry, for getting rid of the players they knew and loved, perhaps a better slot in the draft and a few “home-grown” players will improve the odds for next season. I was thrilled to be one of the fans to have seen a game at Fenway during the park’s 100^th birthday!!