At Random: John Avery

By Johnna Pinholster

June 28, 2009 11:18 pm

— For many veterans of World War II, time spent in service is a harsh memory better left to the past.
Others share stories of their time in Europe with tears catching in the wrinkles surrounding their eyes, with gnarled fingers clinched tight.
John Avery, 87, of Lanier County is almost wistful when speaking of the time spent as a member of the United States Army’s 104th Infantry Division.
The pain of losing fellow soldiers still strains his face as he recalls his time in places like Belgium, Holland and Germany, but he is open with sharing his experiences.
“I wasn’t scared a bit in the world while I was over there,” Avery said.
He was still in high school when he was drafted into the military in 1942.
As a private first class, Avery had a lifetime of experiences, including several brushes with death, throughout his relatively short military career.
Avery was one of 34,000 soldiers who wore the Timberwolf insignia, the designation for the 104th, a division that is memorialized in a book called “Timberwolf Tracks.”
Avery is immortalized on the pages, in a picture of troops walking through the rubble of Cologne, Germany.
His apparent leadership of the soldiers, along with other instances during the war, could seem happenstance, unconnected coincidences.
But Avery said it was the intervention of a higher power that guided and saved him quite a few times. “The Lord saved my life,” Avery said.
The first time was during training in Colorado. Rattling down a road in a military jeep, rolling across the hilly landscape, the road become bumpy and the jeep started jumping, Avery said.
The jeep flipped and Avery said he should have broken his neck but only received three stitches in his chin. With the exception of a broken arm of another passenger, everyone came out virtually unscathed, he said.
They had been traveling to a site to work with grenades.
“We were learning how to throw grenades,” Avery said. “We had to count to three and then throw them over the cliff.”
Avery said they were told it was vitally important to count to three before throwing the grenade If not, the enemy would have time to throw it back.
He was 20 years old when he stepped foot on European soil.
He had never been outside of South Georgia before being shipped off to basic training, he said.
Avery’s Army training took him to Oregon, California, Arizona and Colorado.
While in basic training in Oregon, Avery’s first wife died in childbirth. His son lived and Avery came home for two weeks before heading back to training.
He boarded a boat bound for Europe in New York, he said.
“I spent about a year and half in training and about a year and half over there,” Avery said.
Avery’s unit landed in France and from there went to Antwerp, Belgium, which the division took from Germany, he said.
“The first night I got there I prayed to the Lord to send me back home,” Avery said. “It was the last time I prayed over there.”
Seizing Antwerp allowed the Allied forces to carry supplies into Belgium for troops, Avery said.
From there the unit went to Cologne.
“We crossed the country fighting the Germans,” Avery said.
Though Cologne was a city under siege when Avery and his 113 Regiment came into town, he said that he never fired a shot.
Avery said he had been told that many people in Cologne did not agree with what Hitler was doing.
When Avery got to Cologne, someone else was supposed to lead the troops he had been driving, to take part in the attack on the city.
“But nobody would get out of the jeep,” he said.
Avery said he suddenly felt compelled to get out of the jeep and started walking.
He didn’t know anyone else was following him until he bent down to retrieve a German rifle, he said.
Going through another city, Avery said his jeep started to take mortar fire. Positioning themselves next to a brick wall, Avery and his fellow soldiers wedged themselves in between the wall and jeep, he said.
The circular brick wall cordoned off an area where produce was sold in the town. Avery estimates they were shelled for 30 minutes.
After the attack was over, Avery and the other soldiers investigated the jeep. The jeep was destroyed by shrapnel, as was Avery’s rifle that had been wedged between the front seats, he said.
“But we didn’t get a scratch,” Avery said. “That was a miracle right there.”
They had to go back to France to get a another jeep, Avery said.
Avery’s curiosity put him in a hairy situation one night. While staying in a brick house with other troops, Avery said he found a tiny black box. Curious as to what was in the box, Avery went out to the garage to get his hammer from the jeep.
That was when he heard the incoming shell.
“I fell to my knees beside the jeep,” Avery said.
When he came to, Avery saw the shell laying on the trailer attached to the jeep.
The trailer carried a ton of munitions under canvas, Avery said.
“I lost the hammer and box,” Avery said. “But that shell didn’t even burn a hole through the canvas.”
The shell was American, shot from an army tank and probably missed its intended target, Avery said.
Luckily for Avery and everyone within a city block, the shell was a dud.
If the shell had detonated on the munitions, the impact could have blown up at least a city block, he said.
Engineers came and removed the shell, Avery said, after he showed his fellow soldiers what happened, as they didn’t believe it.
To cripple the German forces, a lot of the infantry’s job involved seizing river bridges and either holding them or blowing them up, he said.
While occupying a bridge, Avery said he was asked if he would like to be promoted to first gunner. The position would bring more money, but Avery turned it down.
The next day Avery pulled up to the foxhole at the bridge to check on the first gunner and the two others stationed within. All three were dead, Avery said.
He also got a firsthand look at the devastation of a concentration camp, helping liberate Nordhausen.
Avery figures there were more than 3,000 dead bodies stacked at the camp.
“Roosevelt died that same day,” Avery said. “So it was twice the sadness to see that day.”
Those forced into the concentration camp spent their days in a bomb factory, he said, making V-1 and V-2 bombs.
“They worked them to death,” Avery said.
Three days before the war ended, Avery was sent to England with what was thought to be appendicitis.
Avery said he grumbled the whole way about leaving and was diagnosed with nervous indigestion when he got to Britain.
When Avery got to England he had a momentary shock, one of the few times he was actually scared while in Europe, he said.
“We got on the bus and were going down the road and I realized he was driving on the wrong side of the road,” Avery said. “I thought for sure that bus driver was going to run over somebody.”
Avery said nobody had ever told him that the English drive on the opposite side of the road.
When Avery got out of the hospital he went to France, where he hauled frozen food for three months.
“At that time you could build up points to get out, so I got 87 points and left,” Avery said.
He was discharged Dec. 18, 1945.
After being discharged from the military Avery went to carpentry school and then farmed for a while.
He moved to Lanier County and married Doris Mathis Avery, now 80. The couple will celebrate their 63 wedding anniversary this fall.
Avery has no secrets for a long life, except exercise.
He walks every day, an activity he is happy to do since 11 years ago arthritis almost crippled him. With therapy, administered by professionals and his wife, Avery beat the arthritis and hasn’t looked back.
Avery has four sons, seven grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Two of Avery’s sons went into the military, as did a grandchild.
Since Avery was drafted while still in school, he was awarded a diploma from the Berrien County School System several years ago.

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