[Annotator's Note: Interview begins with the interviewer and interviewee introducing themselves.] Raymond VanDuzer was born in November 1925. His father committed suicide when he was two years old. His mother later remarried to a man who was the barber that cut VanDuzer's hair. Not long after his mother remarried, his mother and stepfather moved the family to California. VanDuzer's step uncle had a poultry farm so the family worked on the farm. That lasted for a while then they decided to move back to Pennsylvania where they moved into VanDuzer's grandfather's house in Sayre, Pennsylvania. VanDuzer's grandfather had a number of rental properties and his mother would collect the rents on them. VanDuzer went to high school in Sayre. He also played football and boxed. VanDuzer got tired of school. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor it upset VanDuzer very much. Many of his friends enlisted in the Navy but he was turned down because he was partially color blind. He was 17 at the time and wanted to get into the service. He went down to the post office and saw a friend who was coming out. His friend had just signed up for the draft and VanDuzer asked his friend if they had asked for any type of identification. When his friend replied that they had not he immediately went inside and signed up. He was a draftee at 17 years old.

Raymond VanDuzer was inducted into the service then sent to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He was not sure what he wanted to do in the service. He had some experience before the war working on cars. When he requested that line of occupation he was questioned but could not answer any of the questions he was asked. Instead, he was assigned to the medics and sent to a camp in Illinois for basic training. The only people at the camp who had rifles were the guards. When VanDuzer had to stand guard duty he was armed only with a club. They lived in tents at the camp. One night he and a friend snuck out but were caught when they returned and were given extra duty for it. VanDuzer eventually got assigned to a division and was sent to Camp Pickett, Virginia where he joined and trained with the 28th Infantry Division. While at Camp Pickett, one of VanDuzer's friends was able to secure a 30 day furlough. When he returned and told VanDuzer about it, VanDuzer got very homesick. VanDuzer finally got his furlough but it was only for three days. It was still enough time for him to go back to Pennsylvania to visit his family. The 28th Infantry Division conducted all manner of training including ship to shore training. During training it was very hot so many of the men slept outside. VanDuzer was not one of them. The men who slept outside had to report to the infirmary the following day for treatment of numerous mosquito bites that caused their faces to swell up. VanDuzer was a medic so he had to put lotion on the bites. At Thanksgiving they had a big dinner which caused many of the men to get sick. Again, VanDuzer had to treat them, this time by giving them teaspoons of paregoric to settle their stomachs. At that point he had second thoughts about being a medic. They eventually got word that they were going overseas.

Raymond VanDuzer shipped out for England aboard a former luxury liner. There were no available troopships so these liners were pressed into service. The mirrors aboard the ship were all covered with plywood. Even though they were aboard a nice ship, the trip overseas was not a nice one. When the soldiers went to the chow hall they had to stand up to eat. This was very difficult with the ship rocking around so much. They landed in Southampton, England. They did not have barracks because there were too many of them. They had to live in pup tents for months prior to the D-Day invasion [Annotator's Note: on 6 June 1944] which was difficult. They were there so long that they hung up distance signs all over the place. They knew the invasion was coming because they heard the planes delivering the airborne troops across the Channel. They were moved to the coast and fed a good meal before boarding the ships that would take them across to Normandy. While on the ships they could see many V-2 rockets flying overhead. They ended up staying where they were for a while. Around the beginning of July, they got back aboard the ships and crossed the Channel. When they hit the beach in Normandy there was not much shelling. They had to run a long way to get across Utah Beach.

Once Raymond VanDuzer and his fellow soldiers cleared the beach they started marching or moved out on trucks. They went to St. Lo, which had been leveled. There were still dead German soldiers lying in the rubble. Dead bodies can be smelled for miles. They moved from St. Lo into the hedgerows. That is where there fighting began. It was terrible. The American soldiers did not know that the hedgerows did not offer any protection against enemy fire. VanDuzer treated many wounded in the hedgerows. Bullet wounds were bad. The bullet would make a small hole where it entered and a large hole where it exited. VanDuzer would pack the wounds with compact bandages, pour sulpha powder on the wound and administer morphine. The morphine helped them a lot. VanDuzer would then call for litter bearers to transport the wounded to an aid station. The Germans had Tiger tanks [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI main battle tank, also known as the Tiger]. The Tiger tanks would fire on single soldiers when they saw them. From the hedgerows they went to Belgium. There, they broke up pockets of German troops. They then went to Luxembourg where they had a break. That is where VanDuzer learned to drive a car. When their break was over they went back to the front. That is where they ran into the Dragon's Teeth [Annotator's Note: Dragon's Teeth were reinforced concrete anti-tank obstacles]. They blew many of the obstacles up and continued on with their advance into Germany. The fighting was very tough there and VanDuzer had to treat a lot of casualties. For years after he left the service, VanDuzer could still hear calls for a medic. It was strange to VanDuzer that when they were in the United States [Annotator's Note: prior to deploying overseas], they [Annotator's Note: the medics] were called derisive nicknames but when they got into combat they were loved and all called Doc. The combat troops all loved them. VanDuzer never had to dig a slit trench when he was in combat. VanDuzer did things in combat without fear. He ran across open fields or crawled on his stomach. He always answered the call for a medic, even when the riflemen told him not to go because he would get killed. Sometimes, enemy snipers would fire at him.

Raymond VanDuzer then went to the Hurtgen Forest. VanDuzer really had a lot of wounded there. VanDuzer never thought he would get killed. After the Hurtgen Forest they continued on. In one German town they pushed the Germans back. The next morning the Germans counterattacked with Tiger tanks firing their 88s [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI main battle tanks, also known as Tiger tanks, were armed with an 88mm main gun] at the Americans. VanDuzer had to get the wounded to a safe place. He found a troop shelter and, with a new medic who had not been in combat before, moved the wounded into a pill box. The pill box was in no man's land [Annotator's Note: in combat, no man's land indicates the territory between the two opposing forces]. After three days in the pillbox they needed water. VanDuzer used C ration cans and cardboard to collect the condensation that was accumulating on the ceiling of the troop shelter. That was the only way to get water for the wounded. VanDuzer had to be careful with some of the men who had chest or abdominal wounds. He could not give those with abdominal wounds water so he just wet their lips with a damp bandage. At some point, VanDuzer had captured a German medic and he was in the troop shelter with VanDuzer and the other Americans. An enemy tank pulled up next to the pillbox and yelled to the men inside. The German medic yelled back that the pillbox was being used as a hospital. The German tankers entered the pillbox and set it up as a CP [Annotator's Note: command post]. VanDuzer and the American wounded were then in enemy hands.

The Germans took the weapons away from the wounded American infantrymen Raymond VanDuzer was treating. A day or so after the Germans took control of the pillbox, trucks arrived and took away the wounded. VanDuzer has no idea what happened to the American wounded after they were taken away. VanDuzer and the others who were still able to walk were marched a few kilometers to an old hotel. The prisoners were then packed into a restroom for a while then brought out to a larger room. They were all interrogated. When VanDuzer was interrogated, the German interrogator had a Luger pistol sitting on the table in an effort to intimidate the American prisoners. VanDuzer's interrogation was very brief. He was then sent back to the big room. While in the room, a young Nazi entered the room and began harassing the American prisoners. A wounded man was brought into the room who was in very bad shape. VanDuzer went over to him and bandaged the man's wound. The next day they were moved out. The wounded man was put in a wheelbarrow and VanDuzer had to push him. They were marched several kilometers to waiting trucks which took them to a prison camp, XII-A [Annotator's Note: Stalag XII-A was a transit camp in Limburg, Germany].

At Stalag XII-A [Annotator's Note: in Limburg, Germany], Raymond VanDuzer and the other prisoners were assigned to other camps. VanDuzer was sent by train to III-B [Annotator's Note: Stalag III-B was a prisoner of war camp in Furstenberg, Germany]. Stalag III-B was a little better prison camp. In the barracks at night VanDuzer would play the harmonica to help ease the homesickness. When the Russians neared III-B, the prisoners were moved several kilometers to a big barn. They had to walk to whole way. In the barn, many of the prisoners got Charlie Horses which VanDuzer had to treat. While in the barn, VanDuzer found a small book which the farmer who owned the barn used to note his care of the farm animals. VanDuzer tore out the pages the farmer had written on and used the blank pages to keep a log of his experiences. From the barn, they were marched to Stalag III-A [Annotator's Note: in Luckenwalde, Germany]. At Stalag III-A the prisoners lived in tents. There were several big circus style tents. The floors under the tents were covered with straw which was full of lice. The prisoners all got lice. While at Stalag III-A, VanDuzer met Max Schmeling [Annotator's Note: Schmeling was the heavyweight world champion boxer from 1930 to 1932] when he visited the tent city the prisoners lived in. Schmeling was nice to the prisoners and talked to them about his fight with Joe Louis. The guards at the camp were older men and sympathized with them. The civilians in Germany were kind to the prisoners too. VanDuzer also spent time in Stalag XI-A. It was another makeshift camp. The prisoners were fed better in some camps than in others. In one camp, two men shared a loaf of bread and in another camp that same loaf of bread was shared by six men. The prisoners were supposed to receive a Red Cross parcel every week but that did not happen. They [Annotator's Note: the German guards] would open all of the cans so the prisoners could not stock up the food. The bread they received was partially made with saw dust. The bread was very filling. The prisoners thought they would never get home. At Christmas time, they were allowed to mail a preprinted Christmas card home to their families. VanDuzer's mother showed him the card he sent her when he got home.

In April [Annotator's Note: April 1945], Raymond VanDuzer and his fellow prisoners were marched many kilometers to a farm. They were put in a barn were they were to sleep. The hay was full of lice. Even after VanDuzer was discharged he carried the scars from being eaten on by lice. While VanDuzer was laying down sleeping in the hay, one of his buddies slapped him on the chest with a D ration. VanDuzer was shocked and asked his friend how he got it. His friend told him that an advance echelon [Annotator's Note: of an American unit] had overrun the area they were in. They were marched through a nearby town but told to pretend to still be prisoners because the townspeople did not know that they were being liberated. VanDuzer could not go out right away after being liberated because he had hepatitis and liver problems. He was shipped home on a luxury liner like the one he had gone overseas aboard. When VanDuzer got back to the United States he was sent to Ashville, North Carolina where he was put up in a hotel. They [Annotator's Note: the former prisoners of war] had to be put on a special diet. VanDuzer had to go to Tilton General Hospital in New Jersey and was there for a couple of weeks. There were other former prisoners there too. VanDuzer's parents visited him in the hospital. His mother was crying because she did not know how bad her son's condition was. VanDuzer was in bad shape but not too bad.

Raymond VanDuzer was trained as a medic. A captain, who was a doctor, taught them how to administer morphine, bandage wounds and insert an intravenous tube. They had to learn this so they could give shots or take blood. VanDuzer feels that he could have done more if he had been assigned to the motor pool like he had originally wanted. As a medic, he just provided first aid then sent the wounded on to an aid station for treatment by a doctor. VanDuzer believes he went overseas aboard the Queen Mary but he is not sure. It was a nice ship and was well protected. Some men slept inside the ship while others slept up on deck. They would rotate periodically. There were destroyers protecting the ship during the trip. The trip over took a couple of weeks. VanDuzer arrived in England four to six months prior to D-Day [Annotator's Note: 6 June 1944].

Raymond VanDuzer and his fellow soldiers were able to go into London while he was in England. He and the other American soldiers had English girlfriends. The English girls all wanted to know about the United States. London was good but everything was dark [Annotator's Note: London was under blackout conditions]. The soldiers were issued shoes with metal cleats on them so they could hear each other walking around. The entrances to the carnivals would be blacked out. They were very careful to not let any light show at night because that is when the bombings were. VanDuzer took a seven day leave in England during which he stayed at a lady's house. While on leave, VanDuzer bought a pair of used shoes so he had a pair to wear that were not his Army issue boots.

When Raymond VanDuzer first went into the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: the hedgerows of Normandy] he mixed some drinks with some grain alcohol he had access to. He became intoxicated and was hanging out under a tree. He missed the Germans flying over and strafing the troops. It was a bad thing to do but he did not get caught. The hedgerows looked more substantial than they were. They were used to fence in cattle. Many soldiers were wounded when they were shot by Germans through the hedgerows. A device was developed to get through the hedgerows. A cow catcher type device was attached to the front of a tank. The tank would simply plow right into the hedgerow and cut right through it. VanDuzer and some of the guys he served with were watching a tank cut through a hedgerow when one of the men was buried by the dirt displaced by the tank. They dug the man out. The Germans had openings in the hedgerows to moves vehicles through. The Americans initially thought the openings were a good place to cut through the hedgerows but as soon as they entered the gap the Germans would gun them down. Most of the wounds VanDuzer treated were caused by rifle fire. Men hit by 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm guns] were goners. There was nothing he could do for them. VanDuzer went into a tank that had been hit and was on fire to treat a wounded man. The wounded tanker's flesh was burned and peeling off which made it difficult for VanDuzer to get him out of the tank. When he did get the man out he could see that the man was not going to survive. VanDuzer gave the man some morphine to comfort him but the man died. It was gruesome. All VanDuzer could do for wounded men was patch them up then have a litter bearer take them to an aid station.

They [Annotator's Note: Raymond VanDuzer and the rest of Company M, 3rd Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division] entered Paris on trucks then bivouacked in parks. At the time they did not know that they were going to march through Paris. They marched 16 abreast through the streets. They did not march under the Arc de Triomphe because the Germans had done that. As they traveled through the streets of Paris they got a lot of attention from the locals. From Paris they went to Belgium. Other than what occurred during the parade the soldiers did not have any contact with the locals. In Belgium they did have contact and interaction with the civilians. There were pockets of Germans in Belgium. The Americans would set up road blocks to stop them. They did not have very heavy fighting on the Siegfield Line [Annotator's Note: Siegfried Line].

The Hurtgen Forest was a real forest. Raymond VanDuzer does not recall there being snow. When they were shelled things got really bad. The Germans had vacated a small town so VanDuzer and his fellow soldiers moved into some of the houses to seek shelter from the elements. VanDuzer did not take part in much combat in towns. Most of it was in the hedgerows and forests. When the Germans fired their 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm guns] the rounds would burst in the trees which created even more shrapnel wounds. VanDuzer does not recall much talking amongst the wounded soldiers he treated. When they [Annotator's Note: Company M, 3rd Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Division] retreated, the captain told VanDuzer to fall back with them but he refused because he had wounded men in a nearby pillbox who required his care. VanDuzer did not want to be captured. He thought the American troops would move back into the area. There was a lot of fighting in VanDuzer's area and there were a lot of wounded on both sides. A truce was called to pick up the dead and wounded. VanDuzer's pillbox was in no man's land between the two lines. VanDuzer was using a concrete troop shelter to treat the wounded men with him. The shelter was very basic. When the fighting died down, some of the men ran to a nearby river and got them some water. The men VanDuzer stayed behind to treat suffered from various injuries. After VanDuzer's company retreated he stayed in the troop shelter for four nights and three days before German troops arrived and took them into captivity.

Raymond VanDuzer was recommended for a Silver Star but he did not know it at the time. He was awarded two Bronze Stars. There was a fire at the records center in St. Louis [Annotator's Note: many of the Army's records were destroyed in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri in 1973]. One of the Bronze Star Medals was awarded for him going out and exposing himself to enemy fire to treat wounded. He had no fear and did not think that he would be killed so he took a lot of chances. VanDuzer served in the 112th Infantry, Company M, 3rd Battalion. The 3rd Battalion was the heavy equipment company and was armed with heavy weapons like 81mm mortars and BARs [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle]. The men in that battalion were good men. VanDuzer did not think much about what he was doing in combat. He just reacted.

Raymond VanDuzer believed that he would not be a prisoner forever. Once in captivity in Germany, they were marched a lot. The guards were good old guys. When guys would fall out during the marches, VanDuzer fell out with them to offer what aid he could. Many of the men had bad blisters. To treat the blisters, VanDuzer would puncture the blister with a needle, press the fluid out, then covered the blister with tape. They were transported from one camp to the next on a train. They were packed into boxcars. The men were virtually sitting on top of one another. When they had to use the restroom, they went in their helmets then dumped it out of a window. VanDuzer and some of the other prisoners would play jokes on the guards. They would call the guards bad words then tell them that they were complimenting them. They would also make fun of the Nazi party salute. VanDuzer knew what was going on in the camps. When a prisoner escaped from a prison camp they were out in the middle of Germany. There were always manufacturing plants nearby and the escaped prisoners would be accused of sabotage. VanDuzer did not know any guys who wanted to take that chance. The only time they would have been able to sneak off would have been while they were on the march but they had to be careful because the German guards were quick to shoot anyone trying to escape. VanDuzer and all of the prisoners at Stalag XII-A were photographed and their personal information was cataloged along with the photograph. VanDuzer had a friend in a camp being liberated by the Russians who entered a camp office looking for his information. Inside, he found the photograph of VanDuzer. The man kept the photo, brought it home after the war and gave it to VanDuzer years later. When VanDuzer entered the prison camp he weighed 160 pounds. When he was liberated he weighed 125 pounds. After they were liberated they were sent to a camp like Camp Lucky Strike where they were fed a lot to put weight back on them. They also had to take a lot of vitamins. The primary meat they had was liver which VanDuzer does not like. The staff at the camps did a good job of looking out for the health of the former prisoners. At III-B [Annotator's Note: Stalag III-B in Fürstenberg, Germany] one of the guys had a radio who would come out every day and tell his fellow prisoners the status of the war. VanDuzer kept a log of his experiences. He and his fellow prisoners constantly talked about food and what the first thing they were going to eat after they were liberated. They also talked about recipes which VanDuzer recorded in his log. In the camp, the prisoners did not think about girls. All they thought about was food. They each received cigarettes and would trade them for food. They also made their own homemade stoves to heat food up on. VanDuzer was a soda jerk and would draw pictures of the things he served.

Raymond VanDuzer was liberated by an advance echelon of American troops. The American soldiers marched the prisoners through a town. They took the weapons away from the German guards and they marched along with them. At one point they were halted. VanDuzer looked out and saw countless GIs close by who were there to pick them up. VanDuzer wanted to go home. When he got back to the United States he got a furlough before he was discharged. VanDuzer landed in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He got off the train and walked home. VanDuzer liked the discipline of the military. Even though he had been a prisoner he liked the service and considered going back in after he was discharged. VanDuzer stopped drinking as a result of the war. He learned to not worry about things. VanDuzer still has nightmares because of his experiences and receives disability for his post traumatic stress disorder. He takes some medications now for his PTSD. VanDuzer was very GI. He still gets bothered when he sees servicemen saluting or wearing their uniforms incorrectly. VanDuzer went back to Europe after the war. He liked the German people. He and his wife were in Berlin and he wanted to go to Fürstenberg where Stalag III-B was located. He asked the staff at the hotel he was staying in if they could get someone to take him there. Someone showed up a few days later and offered to take them for 250 dollars. They drove for quite some time before VanDuzer's wife commented that they were going the wrong way. The driver had taken them to a different camp. The camp he brought them to had been used to conduct medical experiments on the inmates. At that camp they referred him to another location but VanDuzer refused to go. The other location is now a model camp which is what people are shown who want to see a prison camp.