By Kathy D. Bradford, Associate Editor

In the mid 1940’s America was at war, and Toombs County’s young me were leaving their homes and embarking to foreign shores.

One of those young men was George Thomas (G.T.) Gray. Now approaching his 87th birthday, the man who towers over six feet in height speaks about his military days as if it were just months ago.

“There were some tough times, but we all knew why we were there and did out best for our country.” Gray said.

Gray’s sister, Hilda Gray Mayo, penned a few of her brother’s memories and tells of his life leading up to his enlistment and service in the Armed Forces.

In her manuscript, she reminisces that her brother was a high school football hero who was inducted into the United States Army in 1941. He was assigned to Ft. Benning for training. His next post was at Fort Bragg, N.C. He was also stationed stateside at Louisiana, and finally in Indiantown Gap, Pa., where his unit, the 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion, prepared for an overseas deployment.

Initially, the battalion was shipped to England where thry spent five months in the town of Swindon, 100 miles west of London. On January 1, 1943, the unit boarded the Queen of the Pacific en route for North Africa. Gray said that journey was the last time for a long time that he would feel the comfort of a warm bed.

“I didn’t sleep in a bed again until April 1945,” he said. (Twenty seven months and 22 days.)

“We would bed down in the belly of the tank and wrap up in whatever we could find,” he continued. “We were given two Army blankets – one of which I’m sure came from World War I! It was hot in the day and oh, my goodness, was it cold at night!”

Gray said the forecasters said it hovered around 40 degrees at night, but with temperatures soaring into the triple digits during the day, and considering the massive amount of metal surrounding them, it “sure felt colder: to him.

Gray recalls that mail was censored. Know as V-mail, letters that were written were copied, reduced in size, and sent in much smaller envelopes.

On on occasion, he tells that he wanted to let his family know his whereabouts but was restricted to come out and tell it. So, when his unit landed in Oran, Algeria, the resourceful young soldier wrote to hs mother in Lyons and asked, “What was the name of Quitman Wilkes’ son?”

“I knew the boy’s name was Oren, and I knew Mama was smart enough to get the hint – and she did,” he said.

From Oran, the unit headed their tanks to Bizerte, Tunisia, 500 miles away, where they engaged in the Tunisia Campaign against the German General Irwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps. They became involved with the famous Battle of Kasserine Pass (February 14-22, 1945), where American and British fighters would force Rommel to withdraw.

After returning to Oran, Gray’s next location would be Naples. From September 9, 1943, to June 21, 1944, the 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion fought in the Naples-Foggia Campaign where 6,266 U.S. servicemen were killed and 14,642 were wounded.

“We lived off C-rations,” Gray said. “We got so tired of them that some of the men would steal chicken from the farmers and cook them up in their helmets.” The headgear also served as a basin for shaving, washing clothes, and bathing.

Unable to break the German lines, an invasion at Anzio brought a battle lasting from January 22 – May 24, 1944. Gray recalls it as one of the bloodiest battles in the war. It was in Anzio that G.T. Gray began to see ‘ghosts.’

“During the fighting, we got in and out of the tank through a trap door,” he explained. “Well, one night, looking out, I thought I saw ‘ghosts’ moving in and out of fox holes. Like to have scared me to death!” he said with a chuckle. Turns out, the ‘ghosts’ were some washed laundry hung on a makeshift line to dry. With the moon shining on them and the wind blowing, they looked like apparitions.

Holed up in a dairy, the men hid in a dirty barn with a strong stench and even dead animals. Gray was hit in the arm and wrist, and debris from a frame house hit by a shell hit him in the head. In the five months of fighting, 25,000 Americans were killed along with 28,000 Germans.

The tank unit engaged in several battles in Italy as part of the Fifth Army. When they went to the Po Valley, Gray was held a prisoner of war for a few hours. In the Po Valley, the unit was behind the German lines for five months.

“A mule train brought us our supplies,” he said. “Every night there were 12 mules wearing rubber shoes and 12 soldiers who had one minute to unload.” He said the men would sneak under the cover of darkness to get water to make coffee.

Gray’s unit captured some young Germans during their stay. Some of these young men were only about 14 years of age.

“At one point, some Irish guards captured two German snipers and turned them over to the Americans. The two were put in Gray’s tank.

Gray said one of the men spoke relatively good English and understood what was being said to him.

“We told them if they didn’t give us any trouble, they would not be harmed,” he said. “We figured they put in their Army just like we were put in ours. We spent a few hours with them before turning them over to the British, and when they left, they shook our hands and we wished them well.”

War was hard for the young Toombs County man because so many of the men he bedame close to were killed, captured, or maimed.

Gray finally left Po Valley for home on March 30, 1945, on a mule train that had brought supplies. It was his birthday. He went to Naples on April 10, 1945, two days before Roosevelt passed away.

His sister writes, “The war ended on April 29, 1945, with total losses in Italy of 36,160 killed and 90,455 wounded. The German forces surrendered unconditionally at Reims, France, on what is called V-E Day, may 7-8. Total number of United States casualties in the European Theater of Operations were 177,549 killed in action and 472,742 wounded in action…G.T. had missed three birthdays and two Christmases while on the font lines. After 27 months and 22 straight days of sleeping wherever he could find a place, he finally got to sleep in a bed again.”

Today, Gray is the only surviving member of the Original 10-member crew.

Life returned to some normalcy when he returned to Toombs County. On October 21, 1948, he married Betty Sue Groover, who was born in Statesboro, but grew up in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. Together, the couple had three sons: Daniel Levi Gray (who served in Iraq), Charles Thomas Gray, and James Knox Gray.

G.T. Gray retired from the Georgia Department of Corrections (Georgia State Prison). He and Betty now reside in Lyons.

“I’ve got some scars,” he says as he points to his wrist, hand, and head. “But I’m alive. We lost so many young men in that war ans wars since. I am very thankful and humbled.”

The Advance, Wednesday, February 02, 2005, page 1A.