Lloyd Askel Dodd: An American Soldier's Experience

told by Rusty Coleman, Dodd's grandson

After training camp in Georgia in early spring 1944 he was sent to England just after the D-day invasion of Normandy. He arrived on the shores of France in late June 1944.

He recalls seeing destroyed vehicles and emplacements and many other signs of the ferocious battle that took place there almost a month before.

He fought through the Hedgerow country and took part in numerous battles leading up to the Siegfried Line.

He took part in the vicious Battles of the Huertgen Forest, shaking his head and crying at the memories. "The Germans patrolled heavily during the very early morning hours, 3 or 4 am, trying to see what we had where. We had many fights through the trees, in the shrubs, not really seeing a damned thing. It seemed like we were there forever, always cold, it was so cold in the trees. And when it was all over, out of my whole company, there was me and an old Sergeant left. That was it. We were the only ones."

After Huertgen, his company was refitted and pulled behind the lines near the Luxombourg border for rest and training. This is where they were when the Germans mounted their last ditch offensive in the Ardennes, our 'Battle of the Bulge', on the 18th of December 1944.

His company was immediately put on the alert due to the force of the German offensive.

"We were up on a hill, firing down into a village that the Germans were in, when all of the sudden there was a lot of ruckus behind us. I turned around, a bunch of the fellas did too, and right there, 'bout 50 feet away, just off the road and outside the treeline, were two Tiger tanks, surrounded by about 50 or 60 German soldiers. They were SS soldiers, and we had heard all about them. I don't think I've ever been that scared before or since. The whole thing was just awful... They were really just kids, 16, 17 yrs old. They had their guns pointed at us, but they looked relaxed, cigarettes hanging from their mouths, like they had just played a joke on us.

"They shot a couple of our guys' right then, then led us down into the village. We were met by a lot more of the same type of men; tough soldiers, mean and hard-looking. Most of the equipment we saw was American, and we saw they were smoking American cigarettes. We were lined up against a wall and a squad of SS soldier's filed out in front of us, about 15 or so feet away. An SS officer walked back and forth right in front of us, calling out something and looking at our dogtags. He had just walked back to join his troops when a 1934 Ford convertible came tearing around the corner and screached to a stop right there by the SS.

"An officer got out, his uniform had bright red stripes on the sides of his pants and he was carrying some sort of small stick in his hand. He was screaming at the SS officer, pointing at us . I don't know what he was saying, but he yelled for a couple of minutes and then got back in the car. The SS then marched us off, out of the village and into captivity. That was December 19th, 1944."

He was a prisoner at Stalag IVB, near Bad Orb, Germany until early April, 1945 when units of Patton's Army liberated the camp. He has never talked much about his time spent there, just that sometimes they would take people away and they wouldn't be seen again. About men being brought back to the barracks, bruised and battered up. His toes were frozen so badly during his march that they still bother him even now, over 50 years later.

Through more of the information he gave me later I was able to track down the units that captured him, down to battalion level. He was captured by members of the 'Leibstandarte 1st SS Panzer Division'. I was able to find a picture of the Battle group commander, Colonel Jochen Peiper, the same man incriminated in the Malmedy Massacre, and showed it to him, but of course, he couldn't identify him: 'That was a long time ago, and they weren't as dressed up and clean like this man is'. My grandmother received a notice from the War Department in late January 1945 stating that her husband was missing in the area of Luxembourg.... and presumed dead. She was not notified until early March by the Red Cross that he was a Prisoner of War. He returned home in August of 1945 and after recuperating and gaining some of the weight he had lost, he resumed his job at Bond Bakery in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Rusty Coleman