Wyoming History in the First Person: Looking for Dad in World War Two Continued (2 of 3)

The General Wrote Max a Letter. So Did the Sergeant.

At social gatherings for much of my life I've retold the WWII adventures of my father, 1st Lt. Max U. Crowe. (Some people wear lampshades; I'm a raconteur.)

I always repeated Max's stories as I remember him telling them. Now, however, I'm telling his stories as a historian. The evidence has to be examined. The facts must be properly sourced, creditably ordered, and carefully interpreted. Whatever truths come to light have to be declared.

With two of my offspring mobilized, Kate Ricks Tymstra and Jim Ricks, we launched a search for documents pertaining to the war—documents that contain Max's name.

More sources turned up than I expected. Family scrap books produced a random collection of correspondence, telegrams, military forms, and newspaper clippings I hadn't paid much attention to. John Goss, the director of the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum in Casper, helpfully sent us photostats of official records that would have been difficult for us to obtain.

Documenting Max's War

Among the documents found, four turned out to be keys to reconstructing the story of Max's WWII service. Two are Bronze Star citations. The other two are letters, one written by a general, the other by a sergeant.

One of the Bronze Star citations was reproduced in the post preceding this one. It establishes that Max fought, and distinguished himself, during the 104th Infantry Division's very first combat. That occurred at the Belgian-Dutch border in late October, 1944.

1st Lt. Max Crowe, during the invasion of

Germany in WWII

Here is the second citation. It is dated five months following the first citation.

BRONZE STAR MEDAL CITATION
First Lieutenant MAX U. CROWE (Army Serial number 01032337), Cavalry, 104th Reconnaissance Troop, United States Army, is awarded a bronze Oak-Leaf Cluster to the Bronze Star Medal for heroic achievement in connection with military operations in Germany on 25 March 1945. While acting as an advance guard for a task force, Lieutenant Crowe's platoon was attacked by an enemy self-propelled gun. At great risk to his life, Lieutenant Crowe led a small patrol to the vicinity of the gun, hurling a grenade at the gun, which killed one enemy soldier and forced the others to withdraw. Lieutenant Crowe then destroyed the gun with a thermite grenade. Lieutenant Crowe's actions, above and beyond the call of duty, saved the task force from imminent danger and reflect distinct credit upon himself and the armed forces of the United States. Entered military service from Riverton, Wyoming.

Prior to Max's second Bronze Star award, the 104th Infantry Division had helped the Canadian First Army begin clearing the Scheldt to open the port of Antwerp. The division had been bloodied in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. Serving temporarily under the command of Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery, it had helped seal the Allied northern flank during the Battle of the Bulge. And, with the 3rd Armored Division, it had cleared the German forces from Cologne.

The 104th Division had also been bombed in Aachen by the U.S. Army Air Force, infamously and two days in a row. An eye witness reported seeing the four-story building that housed divisional headquarters explode and collapse. Max said he lost most of his platoon that day.

The Tough Fight for Western Europe

At the time Max Crowe won the Oak-Leaf Cluster to his Bronze Star in March, 1945, U.S. divisions were flooding across the Rhine and encircling the Ruhr industrial area, eventually trapping more than 250,000 German troops.

M8 light armored car, nicknamed the "Greyhound,"

used by U.S. reconnaissance forces in Europe

Recon units like the one Max led—small, heavily armed, highly mobile—were swarming ahead, reporting, bypassing, sometimes attacking the scattered roadblocks and single tanks and self-propelled guns the desperate Germans were sacrificing to try to stem the onslaught.

So two of our source documents, Max's Bronze Star citations, give us glimpses of the man himself, Max in action as a courageous combat leader. They also fit comfortably into the historical account of those months of the war in Europe.

Now about the two letters—one signed by Maj. Gen. Terry la Mesa Allen, one signed by Sgt. Tom Jones. (Copies of both appear at the end of this post.) They reveal even more about Max's war than the two citations.

Maj. Gen. Terry la Mesa Allen,

the colorful and controversial commander

of both the 1st, and later the 104th, Infantry Divisions

Maj. Gen. Allen's Letter

Allen was commander of the 104th Infantry Division. Max, as a platoon leader in the divisional reconnaissance troop, at times would have reported patrol results directly to him, in person.

One story Max told in later years went like this. One night Allen sent Max on a one-man patrol to bring back a German prisoner for interrogation. Daylight caught him still out between the opposing forces in no man's land. He spent the day hiding in a ditch while fire from both armies passed overheard.

When dark came, Max said he resumed his patrol, captured a prisoner, and returned to report to Allen. Allen, he recounted, "Chewed me out for giving him a scare . . . pinned a Silver Star on my chest . . . and told me not to do it again."

The letter we have from Gen. Allen contains strong words:

It is urgently requested that Lt Max U. CROWE be re-assigned to the 104th Infantry Division with the least practicable delay prior to the redeployment of this division in combat.

Allen urgently wanted Max in his command.

Here's how Max explained the general's request. He said he'd first served under Allen in the 1st Infantry Division in North Africa and subsequently in Sicily. Max said he remained with the "Big Red One" after Allen was relieved and sent back to the U.S., where he trained the newly organized 104th Division. (As history buffs will recognize, I've skimmed over some interesting and contentious matters here.)

In June, 1944, the 1st Infantry Division, then under the command of Maj. Gen. C. Ralph Huebner, spearheaded the Omaha Beach landing along side the 29th Infantry Division.

Max said he was seriously wounded in Normandy and evacuated to the U.S. He further said that Allen, learning he was hospitalized, wrote the letter requesting he be assigned to the 104th upon recovery. The 104th was still in Oregon preparing to go to Europe.

Max declared Allen's letter to be his most prized memento of WWII.

Shoulder patch of the "Timberwolf " division,
the 104th Infantry Division

Whatever one makes of Max's overall account of his war, that letter confirms that the general knew 1st Lt. Crowe personally . . . and that he valued Max's service.

The Letter Sergeant Jones Wrote

Tom Jones, a non-com in Max's reconnaissance platoon, also thought highly of him. When Max died in 1991 Jones sent a letter of condolences to his widow, Norma. Jones said Max "was a damn good officer and good to me."

The letter includes an eye witness account:

I was with him when he was captured. I fired a machine gun over his head and the Germans, but they took him into the woods and escaped. We sent a patrol around to try and recapture him and the others, but it was too late.

Our family scrapbooks contain two telegrams that corroborate Jones' story. The first, dated 28 March 1945, reported Max as "missing in action." The second, dated 16 April, reported his "return to service."

John Goss says Army records also confirm Max's capture by the Germans. He points out they state Max: "was held at Camp '000', which indicates a special status (captured and then escaped or captured and then quickly liberated)."

According to Max, he and the others escaped together after spending a few days as prisoners. He said they hid out during the daytime and walked at night. Almost a week passed before they found their way back to U.S. lines.

His story ended with a flourish. Max said their P.O.W. camp was liberated only two days after they escaped. They should have stayed put.

The 104th Recon Troop at the Elbe

The closing weeks of the war in Europe were a complicated scramble. U.S. units were charging ahead, shoving aside German units that were defeated but occasionally too fanatic to surrender.

Allen's 104th was competing with other divisions for the honor of making first contact with the Russians at the Elbe, the terminus Gen. Eisenhower had declared for the U.S. advance.

Max claimed he was temporarily promoted to major and assigned to command Task Force Crowe, a unit that narrowly missed being the first to hook up with the Russians.

The unit designation on the bumper, 104 R, identifies this patrol as being from

the 104th Reconnaissance Troop. The caption read: Flying the American and

Soviet flags, Lieutenant Shank and his Recon patrol made initial contact

with the Red forces beyond the Elbe River. That should be

interpreted as claiming only the 104th Division's initial contact.

The 69th Infantry Division won the prize, contacting the Russians at Torgau on April 25.

We know a patrol from the 104th Reconnaissance Troop was in the immediate vicinity of Torgau at the time and made separate contact soon after. The sources indicate the patrol was ordered out by Capt. Arthur S. Laundon, who had commanded the 104th Reconnaissance Troop since its inception in Oregon in 1942. The patrol was led by a Lt. Robinson. No record has turned up of a TF Crowe.

As readers may have noticed, skepticism has begun to infect this account.

Max is our only source for many exciting events that purportedly inhabit the broad narrative gaps in the extant documentation. Frequently his tales are difficult to correlate with what the documents tell us about his war.

The eye witnesses are no longer with us. We can turn for guidance only to nuts-and-bolts historical methodology.

When all the documented dates and events are lined up in proper order, we discover that General Allen's short, urgent letter contains facts that contradict . . . three times . . . the WWII account Max's buddies heard at the Big Horn Bar in Ten Sleep. And both Allen's and Sgt. Jones's letters agree on a fourth contradiction.

We'll see another side of 1st Lt. Max Crowe in my next post.

BELOW: Maj. Gen. Allen's letter requesting that Lt. Max Crowe
be assigned to the 104th Infantry Division "with the least practicable delay"