Exercise Tiger: Angelo Crapanzano Part 2

Faced with a choice of joining the Army, the Marines or the Navy, Angelo Crapanzano asked his father, who served aboard a submarine tender in World War I, for advice. Join the Navy, his dad said. You'll eat well, and have a place to sleep. So Angelo joined the Navy and became a motor machinist's mate first class aboard LST 507. His father didn't tell him about torpedoes, Angelo said when I interviewed him in 1994.

Tiger Burning

The usual suspects:

https://myfatherstankbattalion.com

https://aaronelson.com

https://oralhistoryaudiobooks.com

http://www.tankbookscom

Podcast: Lieutenant Tarr's Platoon

Exercise Tiger: Angelo Crapanzano, Part 1

In 1994 I read "The Forgotten Dead," by Ken Small, about Exercise Tiger, the ill-fated practice landing for D-Day sometimes known as Slapton Sands, a stretch of beach on the English coast that resembled Utah Beach. In the middle of the night German e-boats, torpedo carrying surface boats. infiltrated the convoy and sank two fully loaded LSTs and badly damaged a third. Angelo Crapanzano was at his battle station in the auxiliary engine room of LST 507 when the torpedo struck.

The photo shows Angelo's memorabilia book. The page on the left contains his watch, which was smashed at 2:03 a.m. on April 28, 1944; and the number of his LST made from a set of feeler gauges he had on him when he jumped into the English Channel. The page on the right has a picture of the 507 with the saying "Thank god we're on a flat bottomed amphibious LST and will not have to worry about torpedoes."

Angelo's interview is included in my oral history audiobook "The D-Day Tapes" available in my eBay store, and a transcript is in my book "A Mile in Their Shoes: Conversations With Veterans of World War II."

Further resources:

The Forgotten Dead

The Exercise Tiger Memorial

A Mile in Their Shoes

The D-Day Tapes

The usual suspects

aaronelson.com

War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It (the podcast)

tankbooks.com

 

 

 

 

Podcast: Lieutenant Tarr's Platoon

Tank driver Charles Vorhees: Part 2

   Occasionally when doing an interview, I'm treated to a bit of ancillary history. Once, when I was listening to the tape of an interview with a D-Day, I was annoyed by a radio playing in an adjacent room. Then I realized the veteran's wife was listening to a basketball game, and that it was a Knicks playoff game. That was kind of cool, I thought, as it brought back memories of my years working in the sports department of the New York Post, where I began a five decade career, as a newspaper copy editor.
   Charles Vorhees was a tank driver who was involved in two important episodes in lmy father's tank battalion's history. He was there when Quentin "Pine Valley" Bynum was killed at Bras, Luxembourg, during the Battle of the Bulge, and he was wounded in the explosion that killed Lieutenant Ed Forrest. As the interview was winding down, he was talking about his family, and I asked if he had any siblings. He had a sister, he said. And then he said she disappeared.
   She disappeared?
   Yes, he said.
   Sandwiched between the kidnaping of the Lindbergh baby and the trial of O.J. Simpson, a strong candidate for the Crime of the Century was the 1977 murder of the Brach candy heiress: Helen Vorhees Brach.
Charles' sister was a coat check girl who married the founder of the Brach candy company, makers of candy corn for Halloween, jelly beans for Easter, chocolate covered raisins and a slew of other treats.
   Her disappearance has never been solved, although a man she took up with following her husband's death was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, sentenced to life in prison, and was released in 2019 at age 87. There have been several books and TV specials, as well as a number of true crime podcasts about the case.
   But now, back to World War II and my interview with Charles Vorhees who talks about his sister near the end of the tape. I'm Aaron Elson. Thank you for listening, and please, consider supporting War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It by checking out my books at amazon and the interview CDs in my eBay store.

 

Podcast: Lieutenant Tarr's Platoon

Charles Vorhees Part 1: The explosion at Heimboldshausen

April 3, 1945 was a tragic day in the history of the 712th Tank Battalion. A Company had just occupied the village of Heimboldshausen, Germany, and established its command post in the basement of a house facing a small railroad siding. Several rail cars were parked at the siding, on the other side of which was a wide open field. Unkbeknownst to the tankers, one rail car was filled with bags of black powder for propelling artillery; two others were empty, but fume-filled, gasoline tanker cars.

At about 6 p.m. a German fighter plane, a Messerschmitt 109, flew in low over the open field, firing at the rail cars, while numerous soldiers in the village fired back at the plane. Suddenly there was a huge explosion. Veterans of A Company recalled the blast as being caused by a lone bomb dropped by the fighter plane on the carload of black powder. In actuality, bullets, either from the plane or the village, struck one of the gasoline tanker cars causing an explosion similar to the blast that destroyed TWA Flight 800, which was determined to be caused by a spark that ignited an empty center fuel tank.

Charles Vorhees, of Hopedale, Ohio, was wounded in the explosion, which claimed the lives of five members of A Company. In this interview, he gives a vivid description of the events leading up to the blast.

War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It is a podcast about the 712th Tank Battalion in particular and World War II in general. I'm Aaron Elson. Thank you for listening.

Check out the great deals in my eBay store:

World War II Oral History

The usual suspects:

https://myfatherstankbattalion.com

aaronelson.com

oralhistoryaudiobooks.com

mathewcaruso.com

 

Podcast: Lieutenant Tarr's Platoon