Iowans Aides to Officers in Red Bull Unit
By Frank Miles
(Daily Times Herald War Correspondent)
With the Fifth Army in Italy (IDPA) -- Two Hampton, Ia., youths are aides to high ranking officers in the 34th "Red Bull" division. Lieutenant Donald Burke is aide to Major General Charles L. Bolte, division commander. Lieutenant Dean Hamilton is aide to Brigadier General Foster Joseph Tate, division artillery commander.
Lieutenants Burke and Hamilton and four other Hampton boys joined a Mason City company of Iowa national guard shortly before it was activated and were sent to Camp Clairborne for training in January of 1941.
The others are T/5 Charles J. Price, home on 30-day furlough; Cpl. John Jensen, discharged to help his father with farm work; T/5 Leroy Doyl, who got a medical discharge because of wounds received in Africa, and Pfc. Leroy G. Crandall, a hospital corpsman who is in one of the hottest spots in the area.
Graduated in 1938
Lieutenant Burke was graduated from Hampton high school in 1938, worked in a restaurant and drove a school bus before he got in the army. He was commissioned before he came overseas. His father, Joseph Burke, is a World War I veteran.
Lieutenant Hamilton, son of John Hamilton, won a battlefield promotion from technical sergeant after being wounded seven times in action.
It was my pleasure to meet General Bolte and Lieutenant Burke at Division headquarter. General Bolte expressed great pride in his command, and praised the training the division got under Lieutenant General Mat A. Tinley, Council Bluffs, prior to the latter's retirement for age on March 5, 1940.
"The Iowans I know in the army are with rare exception fine soldiers," the general said. "Iowa men in uniform have always been among the nations' best."
I walked into the general's office on a trailer from a snow storm wearing a plain helmet and a rain coat which covered the correspondent's shoulder insignia on my jacket. When I told him who I was, he cordially asked me to sit down and wait a few minutes until he finished conferring with a lieutenant colonel of engineers.
While we were visiting, Lieutenant Burke entered the room with a message, and General Bolte introduced us. Even a brassy correspondent can't crash in on every high raking military figure as I did on him.Most army officers, especially those on combat duty, are easy to to approach and thoroughly democratic.
Gets Idea
Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, who has just been advance to command of the 5th army, last November climbed from his jeep on a road to ask a GI his opinion of a new article of apparel which had just been issued to the troops.
"It isn't worth a damn!" said the doughboy.
General Clark talked with him 15 minutes, getting his ideas on the garment and other things in the army.
"Good soldier," General Clark said afterward.
"Good general," the GI told comrades.
Most American fighting men are Americans first -- that's why they are unbeatable.
Source: Carroll Daily Times Herald, January 20, 1945
