Guest Post by Wim Schelberg as part of my Stories of the Greatest Generation series.
How do stories begin? In my case, this story begins the moment I started collecting US Army shoulder sleeve insignia from WWII. To give a little more context to the patches I framed, I often looked on a popular auction site for other items I could frame with them. That was the reason I bought three letters written by a member of the 94th Infantry Division. I had some patches to frame, and the letters were a nice personal extra to go with the cloth insignia.
Keeping history together
To be honest: I did not pay much attention to the letter-writer’s name at first. However, when more letters from the same private came up for auction, I decided to contact the seller asking if there were any more letters and if I could buy the collection as a whole. Being a historian, it pains me to see items that belong together and tell a story together, are split up, as is often the case with these internet auctions. There were more letters and I managed to work out a deal. Sometime later, I held in my hands the correspondence of a GI who was a complete unknown to me. The next logical step seemed to be researching who this man was. What his story was. And so I did.
The Lauren B. Marks Story
Lauren Benjamin Marks was a member of Company B, 376th Infantry, 94th Infantry Division. Born 11 January 1924 in Coconino County, in the town of Williams, Arizona. After spending his youth in Glendale, Arizona, he entered active service 2 October 1943. Based on the results of his Army General Classification Tests, Lauren was selected for the Army Specialized Training Program, intended to provide the Army with high-level technicians and specialists. However, the program was cancelled because the Army needed more men, anticipating the immanent invasion of Europe. As a result, in February 1944, some 110,000 ASTP students (often referred to as ‘goldbricks’) were informed that they would be transferred to combat units—convenience of the government. Marks ended up with the 94th Infantry Division, and he travelled from Fort Benning, Georgia, to Camp McCain, Mississippi, where he continued his training. The 94th Infantry Division was alerted for overseas movement by mid-1944. It traveled to Europe in the RMS Queen Elizabeth, arriving in Greenock, Scotland, after the voyage across the Atlantic. Marks set foot on Scottish soil 13 August 1944.
With the 94th in Europe
After a period of additional combat training in England, the 94th Infantry Division landed on UTAH Beach on D+94. The division was deployed on the St. Nazaire and Lorient pockets. Important German U-Boat bases, German troops pulling back after the Allies landed in Normandy, found themselves encircled there. As there was no strategic point in reducing these heavily defended pockets, the Allies focused on the main drive through France and to Germany instead. So, the 94th fought on what the men called ‘the Ghost Front’. German artillery was nerve-wracking, patrols in the mist a spooky affair of a cat-and-mouse game. With much higher stakes.
After the Battle of the Bulge started, 16 December 1944, the 94th Infantry Division was diverted north, to the Saar-Moselle Triangle, between the Moselle and Saar Rivers south of Trier, where it fought some of its bloodiest battles against the German elite 11th Panzer Division and other German infantry units, as well as against adverse winter weather conditions. As a West Wall ‘switch line’ ran across the triangle from Orscholz on the Saar to Nennig on the Moselle, the 94th was one of the few divisions who had to break through the West Wall twice. The first time started mid-January 1945; the second time was directly after the division crossed the Saar River by the end of February 1945. Patton relentlessly pushed that crossing, stating he didn’t care if it would take a “bushel basket of dog tags” as he wanted to get his 10th Armored Division across, and take Trier, which fell early March 1945. The 94th Infantry Division continued the fight all the way to the Rhine River, capturing Ludwigshafen late March 1945.
GI Letters: a Window on the Past
Lauren’s letters were written in a two-year period, from 20 January 1944 through 18 January 1946. His letters reflect the loneliness, and the general misery GIs faced, especially during the harsh winter fighting of early 1945. The war should have been over by Christmas 1944. It wasn’t. “Just cold as hell still.”, Lauren remarks in one of his letters. “Too much snow for me.”. Marks survived the ordeal and after occupation duty in Germany and deployment in Czechoslovakia during the remainder of 1945, he returned to the States early 1946. Though the letters (as a result of the Army’s censorship) offer little in terms of military-related information about engagements, places, times, and what these men generally were doing on the front lines, they do offer a glimpse in a GI’s heart and mind. What he felt, missed, longed for, hoped, relied on, worried about. However, they need the specific framework of a unit history to create a deeper connection to and understanding of the conditions under which they were written.
My Research Journey
Perhaps this is not a veteran’s story. It is, however, a story about how in our day-to-day life we might come across WW2 memorabilia, and we find ourselves curious about them. In my case, this wasn’t even someone I was related to. However, the research journey is very similar to that of children and grandchildren who start looking for their fathers’ or grandfathers’ stories. For me, it started with contacting the 94th Infantry Division Historical Society. With getting in touch with as much living veterans as possible. Secondly, a lot (I mean A LOT) of reading was involved. Unit histories, published veteran memoirs, general history of the war in the ETO from an American point of view. And also details about the way the US Army was organized. Looking back, not knowing how the Army ‘worked’ caused a lot of confusion, and knowing the specifics of the organization definitely helps. Lauren B. Marks died in 1986, long before I ever came across his letters. It was only through a befriended historian I was able to trace his daughter, the last living of three children. Though the book on my research, then still titled Looking for Lauren, was nearly done, I was now able to fill in many of the blanks. For the first time in my life, I saw Lauren’s face, as his daughter had kept many of the memorabilia. Somehow, the letters got detached from the family heritage and strangely found their way to me, in the Netherlands.
A decade later
Now, in 2024, some ten years after this adventure started, I am planning for my trip to Fairbanks, Alaska, where Lauren’s daughter Sharon lives. I will return the letters to her, and then this story has gone ‘full circle’. I am planning to do a documentary on the trip. I might even add a chapter to the book itself. Lauren’s letters spawned a voyage I would have deemed impossible before it all started. It connected me to many veterans and next of kin, and to what is the core of the history of the94th Infantry Division. Now, in 2024, I am a resource to many who have questions on the 94th Infantry Division, hosting two Facebook Groups on the subject, publishing regularly through my socials, and through the YouTube channel. As Lauren’s daughter commented in her foreword to the book I wrote: “I’m extremely grateful to Wim Schelberg for keeping together the letters my grandmother saved. If they had come to me, as they should have, I wouldn’t have known how to deploy them. This is the best outcome! In the ‘80s for a time my nickname was “Serendipity Sharon”. The journey Dad’s letters have taken clearly involve a lot of serendipity.”
Sources to my research on Lauren’s Letters
- Ofttimes, these units have historical societies. In my case, the 94th Infantry Division Historical Society proved pivotal in my research, as it immediately connected me to many veterans of Lauren B. Marks’ unit, including one of his squad members!
- Many superb books on how to research WW2-veteran history. “Finding your Father’s War” by Jonathan Gawne is an excellent start, and Jennifer Holik wrote many thorough titles on the subject;
- The official history of the unit you are researching. In my case, History of the 94th Infantry Division in World War 2 by Lt. Byrnes. There are also many regimental histories, or other unit histories. Also read on the organization of the US Army, specific subjects that relate to your veteran’s story, and general history of the war.
- Veteran accounts in the form of published or unpublished memoirs.
- The National Archives. The NPRC (St. Louis) holds the personnel records (if they survived the 1973 fire) and the Morning Reports. NARA II at Maryland holds many detailed sources on a unit’s (combat) history, from the divisional level down to what happened on small patrols. Besides, NARA II has a big collection of maps, photos, film, and more. Prepare this well, or hire a professional researcher who knows their way around these archives.
Guest Author Information
Wim Schelberg (1972) is a Dutch historian and author who solely researches the WW2 history of the 94th Infantry Division and its organic units. A battlefield researcher and tour guide, he published two books on the Lauren B. Marks wartime letters and the history of Company B, 376th Infantry. He is currently working on a book based on the memoir of a member of Company I, 376th Infantry, and a resources publication on the Combat Journals of the 301st Infantry. Wim hosts a facebook group https://www.facebook.com/94thbooks and a YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@94thinfantrydivision His books are available through Amazon. See his author page at: amazon.com/author/wim_schelberg Wim was awarded the Honorary Membership to the 94th Infantry Division Historical Society and he represents the society yearly at the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial during the Memorial Day ceremonies. In 2017, he was presented with the Liberation of Europe Medal by Helen Patton, granddaughter of General George S. Patton Jr. He can be reached through 94thinfantrydivisionbooks@gmail.com
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