| |
A very detailed account of the removal of General Rose's body
is given by Arthur Hausechild, then of headquarters of the 33rd
Armored Regiment and now living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Here is
his story:
"At the time I was a staff sergeant, senior noncommissioned
officer of the reconnaissance platoon, Headquarter Company, 1st
Battalion, 33rd Armored. After a very busy night, I was ordered
by Captain McCann to take a detail out to retrieve General Rose's
body, as it was believed he had run into an ambush the night
before.
"Taking Sergeant Owen and two other men from my platoon,
we proceeded out on the route described by the captain and at
the foot of a small hill we could see what was left of the party's
vehicles near the top of the rise. We stopped and Sergeant Owen
and I moved forward on foot and found only one body at the site
of the ambush. It was the body of the general. He lay on the
ground near his jeep, his helmet with bullet holes in it lay
beside him, and his pistol still in its holster with the flap
buttoned down. He wore his pistol on a regular pistol belt."
At this point Hausechild had been 28 hours without sleep,
they were in a vulnerable position so each taking a leg of the
general, they drug him to the jeep. When reprimanded by an officer
on outpost for lack of respect for the general, Owen was a bit
testy, Hausechild relates.
Lieutenant Colonel John K. Boles, Jr. is usually credited
with the final delivery of the general's body, this on the front
of his peep.
Hausechild's account put paid to a question advanced, in all
good faith, by Weldon Limroth of the 143rd Armored Signal Company,
now of Mobile, Alabama, that General Rose was surrendering his
pistol at the time of his death and the tank commander thought
it was aimed at him. At the Reading, Pennsylvania reunion in
1954, Limroth visited in the home of Neil Fleischer of Lebanon,
Pennsylvania who was number one radio operator for General Rose
and in the armored scout car which contained Lieutenant Colonel
Sweat. Also with them in the scout car was Wesley D. Ellison
of Lubbock, Texas, number two radio operator. Fleischer, upon
being released as a prisoner of war at the end of the war, did
not return to the division. Fleischer, Limroth recalled, thought
General Rose was surrendering his pistol to the tank commander
when the latter, feeling threatened, opened fire. Wesley D. Ellison
did not confirm this. However, following the 1987 reunion of
the division association, Limroth phoned Fleischer's widow and
asked her to recall the 1954 conversation and, without prompting,
she gave an account of the surrender of pistol by Rose.
Richard W. Raabe, then of the Inspector General's office,
now living in Corpus Christi, Texas, but a long time resident
of Chicago, also refutes Limroth's theory. He should know, for
the IG's office conducted an investigation into the circumstances
surrounding the death of General Rose. In brief, Rose and his
party were shouted at by the tank commander, did not understand
him and Bellinger said, "General, I think he wants you to
drop your pistol belt." The general then lowered his hands
to undo the belt and was shot. "Conceivably," Raabe
says, "the tanker thought the general was reaching for his
gun and consequently fired."
Glenn Shaunce all along has told the story, that the general,
Bellinger, and he were unable to understand the German tanker
and Bellinger, thinking they were instructed to drop their arms,
told the general that he thought the German wanted him to drop
his pistol. Time and again Shaunce has said that only Bellinger
could join in a true account of what happened, but Bellinger
was last heard of as living in Hicksville, Long Island, New York
and we have not been able to contact him since then.
Don R. March (143rd Signal) quotes Shaunce as follows:
"Glen never dropped his shoulder holster. Ask him. He
is still alive. Glen told me that he was carrying a captured
Walther P-38 German pistol and that after he escaped that night
he used his helmet to dig a hole to bury the damned P-38 for
fear that if he was caught with it that they use it to shoot
him."
The 3rd Armored was not the only busy outfit on 31 March.
General J. Lawton Collins, our VII Corps commander, who had used
cub planes to reach headquarters of his forward divisions, has
this account:
"I went outside normal command channels and telephoned,
around three sides of the Ruhr, direct to General Simpson's 9th
Army headquarters. Thanks to our fine Signal Corps communications,
I got a clear connection with Simpson, whom I knew well from
our service together as instructors at the Army War College.
I explained the situation to him and said, 'For God's sake. Bill,
get Monty (Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of
the British 21st Army Group) to let you release the 2nd Armored
Division for a drive on Paderborn. I will send a combat command
of the 3rd Armored across to meet the 2nd at Lippstadt. We will
then have the Ruhr wrapped up." Simpson agreed. The 2nd
Armored actually had already started east and had advanced close
to Beckhum, thirty five miles west of Paderborn.
"The next morning, on Easter Sunday, to match our previous
Christmas Day defeat of the 2nd Panzer Division in the Bulge,
Combat Command B of the 2nd Armored and Task Force Kane of the
3rd Armored (Lieutenant Colonel Matthew W. Kane, commanding officer
of the first battalion of the 32nd Armored Regiment) met at Lippstadt,
completing the encirclement of the Ruhr, which we in the VII
Corps proudly named the Rose Pocket."
As a result of this more than 376,000 German soldiers were
isolated, along with the main industrial area of the Reich, and
their commander Field Marshall Model, committed suicide.
At no time did the 3rd Armored get the publicity it had following
the death of General Rose. Even the British press, usually more
attuned to the feats of her own troops, joined in the accolade
resulting in the closing of the Ruhr pocket.
Of Rose, General Eisenhower said, "General Rose was the
driving force of this 'Spearhead' division of the 1st Army, from
the moment he assumed command on 7 August 1944, until his untimely
death on 31 March 1945. He infused his men with the dash and
aggressiveness which are vital to success in battle."
Easter Sunday of 1945, the day of the closing of the Ruhr
pocket, paled into insignificance to the sorrow of the Rose family.
Mrs. Rose, the widow, and their young son were living in Denver,
Colorado, close to his family, the Rabbi and his wife and Rose's
brother. Also living in Denver was Mrs. Jo Berry, wife of Lieutenant
Colonel Edward S. Berry, commander of the 67th Armored Field
Artillery Battalion. Both she and Mrs. Rose attended the Episcopal
Cathedral in Denver and, both husbands being in the 3rd Armored,
they would exchange information contained in letters from their
respective husbands. They became, if not close friends, two held
within common bonds and on attending Sunday services at the cathedral
would sit together. On a few occasions they would lunch together.
On Easter Sunday of 1945 Jo Berry was, for some reason, late
to church and upon arrival found Mrs. Rose sitting some rows
in front of her. During the service an army officer arrived and
was directed by the ushers to Mrs. Rose, who arose and accompanied
him out of the church. Knowing that something was afoot, at the
end of the service Mrs. Berry went to Mr. Rose's quarters, to
have her worst fears confirmed, and thereupon to man the telephone
and act as a protective barrier between the grieving widow and
the press and other callers, for Mrs. Rose's grief was intense.
Here was a woman who had lost, not only the father of her child,
a husband, but an ardent lover. Here was a bereft woman. One
has but to look at the picture taken of her at that time to see
a person wound up tighter than an eight day clock.
At the family home in Denver, Rabbi Samuel Rose, age 89, father
of the general, said: "It is well that since this had to
be, it happened in the week of Passover. As Jehovah said, 'When
I see the blood, I will pass over you.' He spoke not only to
the Jews, but to all peoples, to Americans, to Germans, to all
people.
"And so, may Jehovah accept this sacrifice, and see the
blood and pass over all peoples for their sins, at this Passover
time. For my son's sake.
"The Jewish people have demonstrated their love of liberty
and freedom for all people have demonstrated their love of liberty
and freedom for all peoples since the days of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, and I am proud that they are still demonstrating it,
in the wars of the world, at this Passover time, in the deeds
and in the death of my son".
The attitude of the widow was somewhat different. According
to Ed Berry, Virginia Barringer Rose had a memorial service for
General Rose in the cathedral chapel and all of her Protestant
friends attended.
Shortly thereafter. Philips S. Van Cist, attorney, in a one
sentence letter, filed general's will, saying it "does not
look like it would be necessary to probate the estate."
What Van Cist meant was there was not enough estate to probate.
The bulk of what was left to the widow was an insurance policy,
no stock, no bonds, no trust funds, no real estate, just an insurance
policy. Apparently all the widow had was her wardrobe, some household
goods, her son's clothing and toys. If there was a car, it was
not mentioned.
Drowned in her grief, Mrs. Rose disappeared from Denver, not
taking leave of acquaintances as fast as can be told. Of her
later life little is known to us. There were rumors, but just
rumors. In her later years she was listed as being in a nursing
home in San Antonio, Texas.
The son, Maurice Rose, also sought a career in law enforcement,
caring not to bask in the fame of his father's shadow. As late
as February of 1986 he was known to be chief criminal investigator
in the sheriff's office at San Antonio.
What had happened to those of Rose's party surviving his death?
Major Bellinger, his aide, spent several nights in the woods,
at times hiding in the bush as German patrols passed nearby.
Early spring nights spent in the woods without blankets are not
conducive to comfort, but Bellinger found that this and lack
of food sustainable, but the loss of water not. On his return
to the division he was hospitalized for dehydration before returning
to duty. Shaunce, as related, returned to duty but minus his
P-38. Goff also returned.
Colonel Sweat, who was headed for the nearby German tank at
the time General Rose was shot, was interrogated by a German
intelligence officer who had worked in a North Carolina mill
and thus spoke English fluently. At his first opportunity, Sweat
removed and tossed into a latrine his General Staff insignia.
His replies were restricted to name, rank and serial number.
Later, with other prisoners, he was placed on a train, headed
for deeper into the interior. En route the train was rocketed
by a British plane. The soldier guard standing next to Sweat
was killed, Sweat wounded in the forehead. The train stopped
at a small town and the prisoners removed. Civilians, recently
exposed to the air attack, attempted to lynch the prisoners of
war, but the Wehrmacht soldiery prevented it.
Finally, Sweat was taken to the surgery of a civilian doctor,
who cleansed and sewed up his wound. They were evacuated further
into the interior to a camp at Fallingbostel, where, he recalls,
he was issued a bowl, spoon and thin blanket. The latrine was
a hole in the floor. Officials wanted to move Sweat further inland,
but a friendly British doctor placed him in the infirmary and
declared him to ill too move. Finally, rescued by advancing British
forces, but forced to remain in place for the time being. Sweat
was placed in command of over 4,000 prisoners of war, the senior
one a Russian lieutenant general. He remained in this capacity
until relieved.
|