[Annotator's Note: There is a continuous buzzing sound throughout this clip.] Walter "Babe" Gantz does not know how he got his nickname. He was born in November 1924 in Scranton [Annotator's Note: Scranton, Pennsylvania]. His father worked for the railroad. Gantz lost two brothers at an early age. He also had an older brother. Gantz graduated from high school in Scranton in 1942. His older brother did not graduate. Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] they did not discuss the war much but the attack really stirred up their patriotism. Gantz was at the family homestead and listening to the Chicago Bears vs. Philadelphia Eagles football game when he heard the news about the Pearl Harbor attack. Gantz knew after the attack that he would go into the service and he knew the war would be a lengthy ordeal. Gantz hung out with a large gang of guys. They were all registered for the draft at that time but made the decision to volunteer for induction. Gantz went into the service in early April 1943 and got out on 11 December 1945.

Walter "Babe" Gantz was sent to Camp Grant [Annotator's Note: Camp Grant in Rockford, Illinois] where he took basic training as a medic. It was the first time he had ever traveled more than 50 miles from Scranton [Annotator's Note: Scranton, Pennsylvania]. He was the only one of his group of six who was sent there. The other five guys went into the Air Force. Gantz assimilated well into the military. He had grown up on a farm so he was used to physical labor. He had no idea why he ended up in the medical corps. He had a high IQ and so after he finished basic training he was asked by the Army if he wanted to go to college to study engineering. He was from the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] so he took them up on it and was sent to the University of Illinois [Annotator's Note: The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana, Illinois]. He was doing well. They attended classes for ten hours per day and had physical training for two hours every morning. The only day they had off was Sunday. After a month or two, requested a transfer to a medical unit since he had been trained as a medic. He was sent to Camp McCoy, now Fort McCoy [Annotator's Note: in Monroe County, Wisconsin], in Wisconsin. There, they did physical training while they waited to be assigned to a unit. That is how Gantz became a member of the 95th Medical Battalion.

All of the training Walter "Babe" Gantz received was compressed. After joining the 95th Medical Battalion in early August [Annotator's Note: August 1943] he was sent to Walter Reed General Hospital [Annotator's Note: Walter Reed General Hospital; now Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.] for advanced medical training. He returned to the 95th in Illinois [Annotator's Note: Camp Grant in Rockford, Illinois] then was sent to Fitzsimons General Hospital [Annotator's Note: Fitzsimons Army Hospital; now Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver, Colorado] for advanced surgical training. That training was very extensive and after completing it Gantz became a surgical technician and became a member of a surgical team. From Illinois [Annotator's Note: Camp Grant in Rockford, Illinois] they [Annotator's Note: the 95th Medical Battalion] went to Camp Sibert, Alabama [Annotator's Note: Camp SIbert in Etowah County and St. Clair County, Alabama] which was the headquarters for the Chemical Warfare Service. Gantz's 95th Medical Battalion was a specialized unit and was one of only four in the entire Army that was trained as a medical battalion and also trained in chemical warfare in the event chemical weapons were used [Annotator's Note: against Allied forces].

Walter "Babe" Gantz volunteered for a secret mission made up of two medical officers and 58 enlisted me. They were sent to the outskirts of a town called Bushnell [Annotator's Note: Bushnell, Florida]. The mission was known as the Bushnell Project. They spent six weeks there testing impregnated clothing, ointments and gas masks. The project was a joint effort between the Americans, British, French and Canadians. They would perform manual labor and marches wearing the impregnated clothing. The tests included having a Canadian Halifax bomber [Annotator's Note: British Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber] fly over and spray chemicals on them, being forced to crawl through contaminated mud, and having chemical bombs set off in their bivouac [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary campsite] in the wetlands. It was the latter that caused burns and blisters on Gantz which he refused treatment for. They would also test the gas bombs on dogs, sheep and rabbits after which necropsies were performed on the carcasses. The work was so secret that Gantz's family never knew what he did. In the 1990s Congressman Porter Goss [Annotator's Note: Porter Johnston Goss; American politician] from Florida got wind of the experiments that had taken place in his district and "blew the lid off of it." The VA [Annotator's Note: United States Department of Veterans Affairs] later got involved and had the Institute of Medicine conduct an inquiry. For his part, Gantz received the Army Commendation Medal [Annotator's Note: the Army Commendation Medal is a decoration presented for sustained acts of heroism or meritorious service]. They then got orders to go overseas.

They [Annotator's Note: Walter "Babe" Gantz and the 95th Medical Battalion] went to Brierley Hill, England. The people there were very good to Gantz and his fellow soldiers. They were originally set to land in Normandy a week after the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] because of the threat of chemical weapons but they were held back until the first week of August [Annotator's Note: August 1944]. They had been trained as medics. They set their surgery in ward tents where they dealt with the wounded. The toughest part for Gantz was amputations. At times they worked on German casualties as well. Later, they got involved in the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest which lasted about five months. Gantz feels that battle was a terrible mistake because there was no need to go into the forest. They were near the border with Holland at the time and were receiving large numbers of combat exhaustion or combat fatigue cases in addition to their other casualties. They got so many that 9th Army later set up a combat exhaustion center in a monastery. In the winter [Annotator's Note: of 1944] it was very cold and they got so many casualties that they had to set up their ward tents. Some of the casualties were pathetic which made Gantz feel helpless. Many of the casualties [Annotator's Note: the combat exhaustion or combat fatigue cases] had been in the ASTP or Army Specialized Training Program which Gantz had been in before joining the 95th Medical Battalion. Those men had minimal training before going into combat. Gantz and the other medics would sedate the wounded for 48 hours. The really bad casualties would be strapped down and injected with sodium pentathol. They would then be questioned by the battalion's psychiatrists.

Later on, they [Annotator's Note: Walter "Babe" Gantz and the 95th Medical Battalion] moved into Germany where they encountered a stalemate between the Allies and Germans in February or March [Annotator's Note: February or March 1945]. Then, on 13 April [Annotator's Note: 13 April 1945] Gantz saw a train that had come out of Bergen-Belsen [Annotator's Note: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near Bergen, Germany]. The train, carrying about 2,400 people, was abandoned in the town of Farsleben, Germany. The train was discovered by two tankers from the 743rd Tank Battalion, 30th Infantry Division. A number of the people on the train died and were buried near where the train was found. At the time, the 95th's Companies A and B [Annotator's Note: Company A and Company B, 95th Medical Battalion] were dealing with a lot of wounded prisoners of war while Company C was in bivouac [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary campsite]. Gantz was in Company A. On the 14th [Annotator's Note: 14 April 1945], Gantz was on a ten man advanced party led by Captain Jack Deutsch munable to verify identity], an orthopedic surgeon from Florida. There were about 400 people on the train who were in bad shape. The medical battalion from the 30th Infantry Division put those individuals up in provate homes in the Farsleben area. They spent a day or so with the train then went to Hillersleben [Annotator's Note: Hillersleben, Germany] to set up a hospital, some of wards for which were set up in nearby barracks. Some of the Holocaust survivors were children which really got to Gantz. Various diseases were rampant in the area. Gantz's crew set up a pharmacy, laboratory and x-ray room. One of the doctors, Dr. William Bolton, did outstanding work there. Tuberculosis and typhus were everywhere. The disease rate was so high that they had to declare an epidemic. Several weeks after they set up in Hillersleben, Gantz's hospital was sent 2,000 displaced persons. Gantz does not remember much from this time period but there are two memories he has. One is of a young girl who died during the night and Gantz wrapped her up in a blanket. The other involved feeding starving patients.

Prior to the Hillersleben [Annotator's Note: Hillersleben, Ger,any] event [Annotator's Note: see clip titled Death Train from Bergen-Belson and Treating Survivors ], Walter "Babe" Gantz's unit [Annotator's Note: Company A, 95th Medical Battalion] had their ward tents set up and some of the patients were German. One of the American patients died and Gantz had to keep his men from turning on the enemy wounded. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer and Gantz discuss the horrors of the war.] Gantz's mother told him he would cry at night and he would wake up sweating. He doesn't have those issues anymore. Since they were a specialized unit that had been trained in chemical weapons, they were told in March 1945 that they would be headed to the Pacific, specifically to the Philippines. They went to a camp on the Mediterranean where they prepared to be redeployed but Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] dropped the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] so they didn't have to go. After their experiences at Hillerleben, Gantz and his fellow soldiers who were there never spoke of it, even amongst themselves. Gantz is still in touch with some of the guys he served with. [Annotator's Note: Gantz discusses the reunions.]