George Sichler never knew his mother as she died when he was three years old. He was raised in an old adobe [Annotator's Note: type of clay used as a building material] house [Annotator's Note: in Los Lunas, New Mexico]. He was four when they became a State [Annotator's Note: New Mexico became a state in 1912; Sichler was born in 1916]. He is the youngest of 13 children. They came over from Germany to get away from wars. His dad died when he was five. They were farmers. His grandmother had had trouble with Indians [Annotator's Note: Native Americans]. He spoke Spanish before he spoke English and he spoke German as well. He worked for the railroad but was laid off. A group of boys decided to go join the service. They signed up. Three of them went to Santa Fe [Annotator's Note: Santa Fe, New Mexico] and were inducted. They then went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The 45th [Annotator's Note: 45th Infantry Division] got started there before the war. This was the early 1940s. Pearl Harbor was attacked [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] and then they were shipped on guard duty all over the country. They were glad to do so. He did not know what Pearl Harbor was. Good friends of his got killed there. He just missed being sent with the group that ended up on the Bataan Death March [Annotator's Note: the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war in April 1942]. He was sent to Camp Barkeley in Abilene, Texas and then to Massachusetts [Annotator's Note: Fort Devens, Massachusetts]. They had a racial problem there and were moved to Pine Camp, New York [Annotator's Note: now Fort Drum, New York] where it was 52 [Annotator's Note: degrees] below zero. They went to Louisiana and shipped out. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer points out that his Division was one of the few that was racially integrated and asks what that was like.] Sichler saw no problem whatsoever. The Japanese and the Blacks had their own little war and came into the infantry. He had a Mescalero [Annotator's Note: Mescalero Apache, a tribe of Southern Athabaskan Native Americans in south-central New Mexico], Ambrose Smith [Annotator's Note: unable to identify], who was an Apache and was his scout. It was comfortable going with him. They made this country what it is.

[Annotator's Note: George Sichler was assigned to the 45th Infantry Division when it was formed.] He had been training in Louisiana. He thought he was going to the Pacific. They went to the Rock of Gibraltar and then landed in Oran, Africa. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] came over and interviewed them. He said they were going to invade Europe and thanked him. He says he could tell more of this story but thinks that is where it ought to end. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him what his thoughts were leaving to go overseas.] He had a bunch of boys under him and you had to lead them. It was exciting. They were not heroes. They had a job to do. The British supplied all the ships then. If they ever got a Navy ship, they got good eating. The British food was not good. They landed in Sicily [Annotator's Note: Sicily, Italy] first. Nobody was prepared for it. It was dark and they maneuvered onto the beaches. The Navy turned loose with antiaircraft fire. There were parachutes coming in and they were in the line of fire. It was the 82nd [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] and they took a beating. That was part of learning to fight a war. After a while, you wonder if it is going to be you or not. You tell the boys that some are not going to make it, but you do the best you can. He had some good boys that made that landing. Landing on Sicily went smoothly once they got in. Later on, some of the boats coming in had prisoners. The prisoners thought they were going to be taken out and drowned. They used them to load ammunition. They hit a bank but did not know the money was good. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer relates a story of an American soldier using the money to light cigarettes. Sichler says they did more than light cigarettes with them too.] Sichler had complete confidence that his training prepared him for the landing. His company [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division] had a captain who could not take it. They got rid of him and put him in graves registration. It happened to a lot of enlisted men. The men he least expected to, did the best. Some can make it, and some cannot, and you have to feel sorry for them. Nobody fought to win a medal or become a hero. You had a job. Sichler says he is a big, old coward and that is why he is still alive. The worst thing is if you had to go to the hospital and then come back. When you get back, you realize how scared you were and here you are off again. They were all scared. If anyone said they were not, there was something wrong. If there were any who were not scared, they were few and far between.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks George Sichler how their second landing, at Salerno, Italy on 9 September 1943 went.] That was the bad one. The 3rd Division [Annotator's Note: 3rd Infantry Division] had not seen combat. They took a beating on the landing. People were very unhappy. His Colonel drew a line in the sand and that was as far as they were going to retreat. They held their ground and the Germans left, but they caught them on the beaches. It was a miscue to start with. They went through and they could see their dead and the equipment they left behind. It showed him this is war, and this is what it is going to be. Sichler had no idea what the Germans were going to be like. When they landed in Sicily, they went up against the Italians who were ready to give up. The Germans were different. Bloody Ridge [Annotator's Note: Venafro, Italy, March 1944] was one of the worst fights they had. It was almost as bad as Monte Cassino [Annotator's Note: Battle of Monte Cassino, 19 January to 18 May 1944]. They waited on the British [Annotator's Note: British Eighth Army], but they did not come. They beat them at the Messina Straits [Annotator's Note: Strait of Messina, Italy]. Sichler was not in on the deal, but General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] was waiting for them. The Germans were advanced over the Americans, especially at Anzio [Annotator's Note: Battle of Anzio, 22 January to 5 June 1944]. They ran up against Hitler's [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] best and defeated them. That got them some support. They took some SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] troops and then they knew they could fight the war even without the best equipment. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer notes that Sichler was part of the 157th Infantry Regiment, 57th Infantry Division that arrived at Anzio after the initial landing.] The first thing that happened is they sent out their scouts. Some of them went almost to Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy]. The Generals thought the scouts were exaggerating. The Americans proved themselves there. Some of his best friends were lost there. It was rough. The Germans had a real communication system. When they had Monte Cassino, it cost American lives. The guys who finally took it were a Polack [Annotator's Note: derogatory slang for Polish people] group [Annotator's Note: Polish 12th Podolian Cavalry Regiment, Polish II Corps, 18 May 1944]. [Annotator's Note: Sichler relates a story told him by a boy he knew near him.] They dug in right away but were caught by surprise. There were 30,000 casualties. If it had not been for artillery and the Air Force, they would have lost. Hitler had said to take them at all costs. After it was over, they fired a General or two and Sichler thinks it was the wrong ones. That is part of war. The job was to take Anzio and Monte Cassino, not Rome. But after they took Rome, they broke through Monte Cassino. Sichler was above the rest of his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division]. They were sacrificed. They put mines behind them, so they had to stay and fight. His medic said there were so many wounded that they could not get them all out. The British Army relieved them and were just about wiped out after the Americans left. Sichler thinks that his outfit, being country boys, made a difference. When they dug in, they hit water at about three feet. The tanks could not maneuver well. The Germans stopped using the Tiger tanks [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI Tiger heavy tank] because they were too heavy. It was hard to stop a Tiger. They would take wine bottles and fill them with gasoline to set the tanks on fire. A guy told them they needed the bazooka [Annotator's Note: shoulder fired 2.36 inch anti-tank rocket]. Hitler threw the secret weapon at them, a remote controlled tank filled with ammunition [Annotator's Note: Goliath tracked mine]. The mistake was the batteries were exposed and they could shoot those and take them out.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks George Sichler about different German weapons used against him.] Every night they would fly over and drop butterfly bombs [Annotator's Note: German 2-kilogram anti-personnel submunition, or cluster bomb]. It sounded like a hailstorm. They were not efficient, but they scared the heck out of them. The Germans were attacking and attacking. They could not get replacements or food. Airplanes were dropping their rations in the German lines. The second time, the Americans booby-trapped the ration boxes. The 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] were the worst. They were vicious. He was wounded three times by that gun. If you could hear it fire, it was coming your direction. The Anzio Express [Annotator's Note: Krupp K5 283mm heavy railway gun] was a bad one. It was mounted on three rail flatcars. It broke the sound barrier coming by. They were not efficient. They were shooting at ships. When they first landed, they saw a German airplane come over. It was an airplane with a remote-control bomb. It hit an ammunition ship. It started exploding and they started towing it away. Their foxholes caved in when it exploded. They were eight miles inland by that time. The Germans shuttled their troops. They would sacrifice some and there were others in back of them. They nearly drove them off the beachhead, but his boys stood their ground. The M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] was good for personal use. The machinegun [Annotator’s Note: Browning M1919 .30 caliber air cooled light machine gun] was good, but it would get hot on them. American artillery helped save the beachhead. Sichler went up with a forward observer once in France. There was an 88 down in a crossroads. The lieutenant with him ordered a strike and it hit dead center. Sichler was part of the breakout from Anzio [Annotator's Note: Anzio, Italy; breakout began on 23 May 1944]. He was wounded a few times. They knew it was going to be a booger [Annotator's Note: slang for difficult] to break out. When they broke out, they had mine detectors on tanks. They told them if a tank managed to get through just follow it through the mines. They were dreading it because they knew the Germans were waiting for them. It was just another invasion. They lost more than they did at Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. When they got to Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy], they had not had baths in months. They were told Rome was off limits. He said to his men that they had three days leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He then told another soldier, "let's go into Rome." The Italians were glad to see them but prejudiced because they lost the war. After Rome, they were pulled back to Pompeii [Annotator's Note: Pompeii, Italy]. Vesuvius [Annotator's Note: Mount Vesuvius, volcano, Campania, Italy] had been erupting almost the whole time they were there and there were cinders all around that made a pretty good bed. They were pulled into Naples Harbor [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy]. Sichler made friends with a Navy man and stayed up in the front of the ship because it smelled too bad down in the hold. He woke up and was at sea. It was the prettiest sight.

Southern France [Annotator's Note: Operation Dragoon, Provence, Southern France, 15 August 1944] was the easiest landing George Sichler made. They took very few casualties. They had to cross a wall by a ladder. They would stick their bayonets up as targets to see where to cross. They were going so fast with General Butler [Annotator's Note: unable to identify] and tanks. They went up the Rhone Valley [Annotator's Note: Rhone Valley, France]. The fighting was good but nothing like Italy. The tanks really got their chance in France and he was really glad to see them. Italy's terrain was difficult for tanks. They had good communications with the tank destroyers. The best thing was a French outfit that came up from Africa with them. Once there were some tanks, and Sichler figured they could not escape. Their commander noticed it was the French. The French did not respect the boundaries of where they were supposed to fight. The French unit went after some Germans and brought back prisoners. They lined them up and shot them all. It was a big show for the Americans. Sichler said he wanted no part of that though. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Sichler to describe the fighting at the Siegfried Line, a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s.] They used a lot of homemade stuff. There were a lot of wine bottles. They filled them with gasoline and used them on the tank treads. They learned that from Yugoslavia. They had so many battles, some really bad. They figured that the battle on the German line was going to get some of the best of them that were left. They were awakened at two o'clock in the morning to go. They were back in the forest where land was cleaned off. They had search lights lined up and they turned them on. It was bright like a football game. Each platoon had a ladder and gasoline. They would use it to get to the ventilator for the pillbox, open it, throw the gasoline in and set it on fire. The Germans did not expect that. Getting to it was no picnic. A lot of boys did not make it.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if George Sichler saw anything while approaching the Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany, that would indicate what they would find inside.] They did not know. He had been wounded the third time before that. The boys who went in there are the ones who told the stories. He was not in the actual fighting. [Annotator's Note: Sichler talks about the Holocaust deniers who say the camps did not exist.] There were 42 boxcars with the dead and dying. Their unit [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division] took it in a hurry [Annotator's Note: on 29 April 1945]. One of the first things they had to do was kill the guard dogs. The Germans did not put up much of a fight. Sichler went into the camp after it was taken. They had a lot of problems there. They got court-martialed because a General [Annotator's Note: US Army Brigadier General Henning Linden; Deputy Division Commander of the 42nd Infantry Division] from the 42nd Division came, and a young kid was on a machine gun and there was a commotion. The Colonel [Annotator's Note: then US Army Colonel Felix Sparks] asked the General to leave. The General said he was taking the camp over and the Colonel threw him out as well as a girl from a magazine who was there. Sparks was their Colonel and they sent him home. He was arrested at the port. General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] took over about that time. The Colonel had to report to Patton. Patton tore up the paperwork and threw it away. One of Sichler's boys put a guard up against the wall and they shot him. The boy was crying. They were moving, and he was scared. He did not want to let them get away. He returned to the reunion at the camp [Annotator's Note: after the war]. Sichler asked the Germans why they allowed this to happen. They said they would have been in there if they had not gone along. This was where Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] got started.

George Sichler says that his service made him a better American. He did what he was supposed to do. The country has been good to him. He would not take a million dollars to go through it again. The boys who did not make it home are the real heroes. He and his friend did not have educations, so they naturally were put in the infantry. He feels for the boys fighting now. It is really something that we have boys like that now. They are great. He is concerned about the country. 450,000 good Americans lost their lives in that war. His Division [Annotator's Note: 45th Infantry Division] had 28,000 dead. He was in 511 days of combat. His son-in-law used his computer to find an interview that the Stars and Stripes [Annotator's Note: American military newspaper] did with Sichler and his boys at about their 270th day of combat [Annotator's Note: Sichler was a squad leader in Company E, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division]. That is history. Anyone who wants to question it, it is there. That was before they had gone into France. He contributes a lot to the Spanish boys and the American Indians [Annotator's Note: Hispanic and Native American soldiers in his unit], they know what hard times are and they know how to cope with it. Sichler thinks that the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important. Some of his friends come to visit him with their kids and they do not know history. We need to know history. So much now is propaganda, but seeing the museum is a great credit to the veterans. He hopes what he is doing is a help [Annotator's Note: giving this interview]. He hopes people know he is not trying to take credit. He gives the credit to all his boys that did not make it. He was offered a battlefield commission, but he could not leave those boys. When the hospital in Anzio [Annotator's Note: Anzio, Italy] was bombed [Annotator's Note: on 7 February 1944] some nurses were killed. They said they were going to move the survivors out, but they said that they wanted to stay with the boys. The mangled bodies in hospitals were pitiful. He would go in after a battle to check on his boys. It was bad. You do not want to let it bother you. He was asked why he does not forget it. You do not forget things like that. He had a job to do and he did it. He was scared; if he was not scared, he would not be here today. They were country boys, and they did the best they could. He is asked how he could do that [Annotator's Note: describing having frozen feet and fighting] and he wonders that himself.