Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (Republican), who as a U.S. Sixth Army staff officer in WWII, had seen the British, Russians, and Germans use foreign military units, had promoted the formation of a Volunteer Freedom Corps (VFC) since 1948. The VFC, made up of stateless East European males, was to be a bulwark against Communism on the continent. While some U.S. congressmen recognized its merits, the postwar West European governments regarded the formation of a multi-national paramilitary element as a potential economic burden and possible threat to stability.
The single step towards a VFC was passed by Congress on 30 June 1950 five days after North Korea invaded the South. The initial Lodge Act (U.S. Public Law 597, 81st Congress, 2nd Session) authorized voluntary enlistment of 2,500 unmarried foreign national males in the U.S. Army for five years.1 It was almost a year before the first group of forty-five Lodge Act enlistees was sworn in at the 720th Replacement Battalion in Sonthofen, Germany. By then, the Congress had raised the authorization to 12,500, but prohibitions on recruiting in Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, and Germany [the future NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) members] negated opportunities to reach the increased authorization.2
The Cold War had already doomed the program. The final number of enlistees (1,302) was just over half of the 2,500 authorized in 1950, and just 10.4% of the 12,500.3 Little more than a hundred of the Lodge Act soldiers, all of whom enlisted in the U.S. Army in Germany, would be assigned to Special Forces and Psychological Warfare units between 1951 and 1955.4
The Lodge Act soldiers should not to be confused with the émigré aliens who joined the Army in the United States under the provisions of Army Regulations (AR) 601-210 and 601-249. As alien émigrés their five years residence for citizenship began when they entered the U.S., not after joining the service.5 Thus, those aliens that enlisted in the U.S. in the 1950s could become eligible for naturalization with less than five years of military service; Lodge Act soldiers could not. Army Special Regulation (SR) 615-120-15 dated 19 December 1952 applied only to Lodge Act enlistees.6
This article will cover some Lodge Act enlistee experiences as they transited Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, enroute to basic combat training or English language school at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Selected circumstances at basic and airborne training will follow. After first unit postings, how some of the Lodge Act men got into Special Forces and Psychological Warfare at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, proved interesting. Since recruitment, administrative processing, and assimilation of the Lodge Act soldiers was a constant “work in progress” during the Korean War era, few routines were established and standards simply evolved. How one group was processed in 1951 did not mean that the next and subsequent groups were handled the same way.
The Congressionally-mandated Lodge Act enlistment was for only five years. Contrary to popular Special Forces mythology not every Lodge Act soldier volunteered for airborne let alone SF training. There was never an “alumni” association. Long term friendships were maintained by some military careerists. The vast majority worked themselves into American society after their five years in the conventional Army. The conclusion explains why the alien recruiting program in Europe (1950-1955), though a success for individuals, did not meet the expectations of Senator Lodge, provides commonalities among Lodge Act enlistees, and shows the impact that they had on Special Forces during their service and afterwards.
While the article will span experiences over five years, it must be remembered that this Congressional program was conducted by U.S. Army, Europe, Adjutant General (USAREUR AG) in the early years of the Cold War, during a hot war in Korea and an ongoing Red Scare in the United States, and while presidentially-mandated integration of the armed forces was taking place. Just as recruiting and induction was a continual work in progress, training and assignment of the new soldiers from East Europe in America was likewise. It was the personal determination of these 1,300 enlistees that made the initiative viable. However, enthusiasm was severely tested crossing the North Atlantic aboard U.S. military troop ships.
The majority of the Lodge Act enlistees were seasick. The winter crossings were the worse. When Walter Smith spotted the Empire State Building towering above the New York skyline, he knew that they had entered a “new world.”7 Sometimes the troops were unloaded onto barges when the Army Transportation Corps dock was occupied by another troopship.8 But, once everyone got ashore in the New York Terminal, the Lodge Act soldiers boarded a bus for Camp Kilmer, New Jersey (*Note: By the fall of 1955 when the last group of Lodge Act soldiers (14) came to the U.S., they were processed through Fort Hamilton, NY, before being shipped to Fort Dix, NJ.)9
The newly-arrived recruits quickly discovered that the barracks at Camp Kilmer were a major step down from the Sonthofen kaserne that housed German SS officer candidates during WWII. “That was more like a hotel with two to four men per room with their own bathroom. Many rooms had balconies and views of the Bavarian Alps,” stated Second Lieutenant (2LT) Clarence C. “Larry” Mann, the replacement company commander.10 The wooden “temporary” two-story barracks, constructed in the country between Edison and Piscataway, NJ, for Army divisions slated for the war in Europe, would house the Lodge Act soldiers.11 It was there that Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. welcomed the first group of alien enlistees to America.
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. shakes hands with Private Stanislaw P. Nowalski (Poland) in Havens Hall, Camp Kilmer, NJ on Sunday, 14 October 1951. Standing in the background left to right are: BG Charles F. Craig, CG, Camp Kilmer; COL W.H. Nutter, Deputy Chief of Staff, First Army, and LTC James F. Delaney, 1277th ASU (Army Support Unit) Reception Center commander.
On 14 October 1951 the junior senator from Massachusetts explained that “above all we want you to feel that you do not enter the U.S. Army as mercenaries or as a foreign legion. You are very definitely volunteers in the world struggle for human freedom.”12 His short visit was a memorable event for the Lodge Act soldiers. The senator formally shook the hand of all soldiers and posed for photos outside the barracks. The first group of 45 came from Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Rumania.13 Andre Carson, a Bulgarian, commented, “About thirty percent of us were Poles. Because many of the Czechs were from the Sudetenland, I could speak ‘Volks Deutsch’ (peoples’ German) to them and use Russian with a former Soviet paratrooper, Yuri Asurenko.”14
Senator Lodge was not happy with how the military was implementing the Lodge Act. He sent repeated letters to Army officials complaining that they were not aggressive enough in recruiting aliens. Lodge wanted the Army to streamline and simplify its registration, testing, and background security investigations, and he pushed the Chief of Staff of the Army to appoint an energetic, committed general to oversee the project. However, the small postwar Army, fighting an undeclared war in Korea, was unwilling to devote much effort beyond publicizing it.15
In November 1951, the Army Information Digest, published by the Public Affairs Office (PAO), explained the “alien enlistment program” in hypothetical terms. “A young man … once a loyal citizen of a European country … that have been swallowed up in the aftermath of war and no longer exist as independent political entities, Doe and thousands more like him fled his native land and can never go back. He found refuge in the United States Zone of Germany. Whether he be a displaced person (DP), a stateless person, or an exile, his status for the purpose of this story is the same.”16 This was the staff response. Army commanders were not being held accountable.
Artist sketch of The Army Hour television show with PVT Rudi Horvath from Hungary. (Illustration by Mariano Santillan)
PVT Rudi Horvath
Going beyond its origins as a WWII radio show, The Army Hour dedicated a television broadcast to the Lodge Act program. Hungarian Rudolf G. Horvath and George S. Taylor from Poland, who were in basic combat training at Fort Dix, NJ, were taken to Radio City in New York City. The two were escorted by their company commander, a black captain and Korean War veteran. Horvath agreed to answer questions hidden by a screen because his family was still behind the Iron Curtain. The producer agreed because it added some mystery. “Remember, it was 1952. TV was very new and the broadcasts were quite primitive. I tried to answer all the questions to the best of my ability and thus became a ‘shadow TV star,’” laughed the good-natured Horvath years later.17 Like recruiting, testing, and induction done by the USAREUR Adjutant General (AG), the Lodge Act program was administered by staff elements in the stateside Army. The program was not made a command issue. At troop level where the individual Lodge Act enlistees were, they were processed through Camp Kilmer, NJ, like all other new U.S. Army recruits.
More technical aptitude, general intelligence, and English language examinations were given, medical and dental records were screened, and a physical fitness test was administered to verify the individual records prepared by USAREUR. At Camp Kilmer further orders were cut based on English language proficiency.18 Lodge Act soldiers with a “satisfactory” understanding of English were sent directly to Army branch basic combat training (BCT) centers according to individual technical aptitude scores. The rest were sent to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, for eight weeks of English language training before starting BCT. Sometimes, the system short-circuited.
Henryk Szarek, a French Foreign Legion paratrooper and Indochina War veteran, was given a “P1” rating (qualified for parachute and combat arms training). Though scheduled for English language training at Fort Devens, his orders were reversed; the English speakers were shipped to Fort Devens and those that did not were sent to the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Dix, NJ, for sixteen weeks of basic and advanced infantry training.19
The difficulties of teaching a new language to men 18 to 35 years old whose educations ranged from primary to secondary school levels (American equivalents) were tremendous. The number of teachers today, who know that one’s ability to learn another language after the age of twenty-five drops dramatically, are limited. Most of those with a natural gift for languages had already learned enough English to be sent directly to basic training. As the Lodge Act soldiers soon realized, speaking was just one aspect of learning English while simultaneously trying to assimilate American culture. Conditions conducive to learning were important as well.
Latvian Egon Goldschmidts remembered: “I was in the second group. It was cold as hell at Fort Devens in January 1952. I slept between two bunk bed mattresses to keep warm in those old barracks.”20 “That was where I met Frantisek Jaks from Jablonc, Czechoslovakia,” said Jan Wiatr from Poland. “He was finishing up as my group began classes.”21
“Most of the twenty-six Lodge Act guys in my class were Poles so I learned a lot of Polish and a little English,” recalled Jaks. “It was very basic … identifying things in pictures, describing them—colors, objects, etc. and responding to commands like ‘Put your hand on your head’ in English. Our teachers were civilians and soldiers. They tried hard but it was difficult because we ranged in ages from 18 to 35 and had different educations and language aptitudes. There were also several barracks filled with Puerto Ricans who took English in the afternoons.”22 “We started with the alphabet, just like First grade in grammar school,” remarked Martin Urich from Filibovo, Yugoslavia.23
It was a gentleman’s course compared to BCT and parachute school. “Language classes were in the mornings. We had reading and spelling tests weekly. At the end of the course we retook our first exam to see how much we had improved in eight weeks,” said Walter Smith.24 “My test scores showed that I had improved 8 percent after eight weeks of classes. While that was mediocre, it was typical,” said Egon Goldschmidts, the ex-Luftwaffe pilot and graduate of the prestigious Hugo Daimler-Benz Institute.25
Close order drill, physical training, and sports filled the afternoons. Passes were liberal after Saturday Morning Inspections (SMI). Bus service into town (Ayer) and Boston was readily available. With a sizeable Polish-American population around Fort Devens the ethnic clubs in Lowell, Lawrence, and Worcester were popular with the Poles. For soldiers in uniform drinks in the clubs were usually gratis.26 Yugoslav Martin Urich visited some of his mother’s relatives who had emigrated to Long Island, NY in the 1920’s.27
11th Airborne Division SSI
“When asked at Fort Devens which branch I wanted, I simply said ‘Airborne’ like several others. We were assigned to the 11th Airborne Division for basic training. I was a Private E-2 rifleman in F Company, 511th Infantry when I went to jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia. In those days it took 18 months to make PFC. By then I was an acting sergeant in 3rd Platoon, H Company,” said Frank Jaks. “Promotion was really slow in the 11th Airborne, so I volunteered for Special Forces.”28
Slated for the 11th Airborne, Vaclav Hradecky was sent to B Battery, 89th Field Artillery (FA) Battalion (Bn) for sixteen weeks of basic training before being assigned to B Battery, 457th FA Battalion (Airborne). “After Sonthofen and Fort Devens, I looked like an old soldier in my starched khakis and shined boots, but couldn’t speak English very well. The basic instructors were oblivious of language problems. Designated a squad leader, I ‘taught’ my men how to scrub latrines, sew on patches, and set up footlocker displays by simply showing them. I did it without talking. It was just leading by example,” said Hradecky. “How I survived blackout driving in a deuce and a half [2½ ton] truck to get a driver’s license, I’ll never know.”29 The Czech from Bilenice learned that each day in the Army would be another challenge. Three Lodge Act men who ended up in Special Forces, Jan Wiatr, Andre Carson, and Walter Smith, had very different basic training experiences at Fort Dix.
“After English language school several of us were assigned to H Company, 42nd Infantry Regiment for basic. The company was filled with Puerto Ricans. The cadre figured that since we all spoke foreign languages that we could communicate with one another. I learned quite a lot of Spanish. The only English words that the Puerto Ricans paid attention to were ‘mess hall’ and ‘pass’” chuckled Wiatr.30 “None of our instructors spoke foreign languages. I simply said, ‘Yes, sergeant,’ and mimicked what the other recruits were doing. I was always a half step or a move behind and was constantly ‘chewed out’ for being slow and for not understanding,” remembered Andre Carson.31 “The lieutenant couldn’t pronounce my name (Wladyslaw J. Naumowicz), so he simply called me ‘No Name’ and chalked it on my helmet liner,” said Walter J. Smith.32 Trying to improve their understanding and spoken English were constant struggles.
“Since we marched to all training, I carried simple phrases written on scraps of paper; English on one side, German on the other. I pulled them out of my pocket one by one, cycling through them until I learned every one. Off duty I read comic books and went to lots of movies because they were cheap ways to learn English (10 cents and 20 cents respectively). I reduced my vocabulary study by determining which words meant the same thing. As I marched through the winter morning snow, the rain at noon, and the afternoon sunshine at Fort Dix, studying my phrases on scraps of paper, my English improved,” said Carson.33 For some Lodge Act soldiers Fort Dix was a good assignment.
69th Infantry Division
“I was assigned to D Company, 364th Infantry, 9th ID while Stanley Minkinow went to a different company. All the recruits in my company had ‘A to J’ names. I was the only ‘K’ name so I never pulled KP (kitchen police), guard duty, or any details. I was paid by other soldiers to pull their guard duty. By splitting the money with the tactical sergeant, I was off every weekend to go to New York or Trenton and do what I wanted,” chuckled an enterprising John Koenig. “It was so good that I spent another year at Fort Dix as a company clerk before going to Augsburg, Germany.”34 Stanley Skowron from Podgorzc, Poland, was kept on after AIT at Fort Dix as cadre for three months in the 69th Infantry Division.35
24th Infantry Division
Henry Kwiatkowski, unlike the vast majority of Lodge Act soldiers, got married in the Catholic Chapel at Fort Dix the day after completing basic training. Army Special Regulation (SR) 615-120-15, Subject: Enlisted Personnel: Enlistment of Aliens in the Regular Army, 19 December 1952 specified that Lodge Act enlistees “remain unmarried until the completion of basic training.” The honeymoon was short. Kwiatkowski had orders to airborne school at Fort Benning, GA, enroute to Special Forces at Fort Bragg, NC.36 Most Lodge Act soldiers elected not to volunteer for parachute training nor Special Forces.
SSG Lucien Zochowski was an M-46 gunner and tank commander in the tank company of the 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division.
SSG Lucien ZochowskiPFC Henryk SzarekPVT Egon Goldschmidts2nd Special Engineer Brigade SSIPVT Edward BatorSSG Karel Fux
Lucjan Zochowski, featured in a 11 October 1953 Stars and Stripes article, “27 Refugees Find Army Leading to New Way of Life, ” was one of the older Lodge Act recruits at 33, who processed at Sonthofen, Germany, in 1953 with Henryk Szarek. Instead of being sent to Fort Devens and then to Fort Dix for infantry basic training, Zochowski was assigned directly to the 3rd Armored Division at Fort Knox, Kentucky. There, he was trained as an M-46 and M-47 “Patton” tank crewman before going to the war in Korea. The Pole served as an M-46 gunner and tank commander in the 21st Infantry Regiment’s tank company.37
Latvian Egon Goldschmidts, who served as a Luftwaffe pilot during WWII, graduated from the Hugo Daimler-Benz Institute in Konigsburg before being drafted in 1944. Based on a postwar Axis equipment analysis assignment with the U.S. Army in Bavaria, Goldschmidts was sent to Ordnance basic and AIT at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. He served with the 2nd Special Engineer Brigade (Amphibious) in Korea during the war and Japan afterwards.38
Edward Bator, from Chocznia, Poland, did pipeline construction at Mildenhall Airbase in England before enlisting under the Lodge Act. Labeled as fluent in English, Bator did BCT with the 69th Infantry Division at Fort Dix. Then, he and fellow Lodge Act comrades Emil P. Fiszer, Gyorgy Gaal, Janos G. Nemeth, and Franciszek Turewicz went to Fort Benning for AIT in the 3rd Infantry Division. Bator was sent to a US Army engineer pipeline construction battalion in France and lost contact with Lodge Act soldiers until assigned to Nellingen, Germany. SSG Karel Fux from Czechoslovakia, a truckmaster in a transportation battalion, was his neighbor in government quarters. While the majority of Lodge Act soldiers served the Army in conventional assignments, airborne volunteers often sought out Special Forces assignments.
OSS veteran, Captain Herbert R. Brucker, 10th Special Forces Group.82nd Airborne Division SSI
While assigned to the I&R (Intelligence & Reconnaissance) Platoon of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 82nd Airborne Division in the summer of 1952, Corporal (CPL) Stanley Minkinow, was contacted by an “older” lieutenant (most likely 2LT Caesar J. Civitella, a WWII OSS veteran and ex-504th PIR Intelligence Sergeant) recruiting for Special Forces. “He spoke of living with guerrillas in the woods, operating behind enemy lines in civilian clothes, things that would appeal to an ambitious and adventurous young man,” said the young Pole. “He told me to report to Captain Herbert R. Brucker in the Special Forces office in the Psywar Center on Smoke Bomb Hill. The next thing that I knew I was a guerrilla supporting Brucker’s escape and evasion (E&E) exercise, TENDERFOOT, at Camp Mackall,” said Minkinow.39 It was late 1955 when SF radioman Minkinow, Paul Ettman, and Henryk “Frenchy” Szarek left the 77th SFG for the 10th in Germany.40
Private Szarek happened to meet a German-speaking SF soldier on leave enroute to 10th SFG in the post exchange (PX) at Fort Dix. He explained what Special Forces were all about and told Szarek to find Colonel (COL) Edson D. Raff, the 77th SFG commander, when he got to Fort Bragg. Though assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division’s 504th PIR, the former French Foreign Legion paratrooper “bee-lined” straight to Smoke Bomb Hill. The intrepid Raff could not help. The Indochina veteran with two combat jumps was sent to the division jump school to become “American airborne qualified” and to do a lot of push-ups.41
French Parachute Badge
“My big French jump wings got me a lot of push-ups. After serving in the Legion, the only assignment that appealed was Special Forces. I did not want the parades, singing cadence while running, or spit-shined boots. Those guys were just soldiering. SF could use my foreign languages and experience, but COL Raff lectured me in French after jump school when I tried again. ‘If I cannot get you assigned as a colonel, how can you do it?’ I said, ‘Sometimes little guys can get things done that the big people cannot.’ So, I got my car and drove to the Pentagon, found my military file, and went to the SF assignment office. At first they were reluctant because another Legion veteran had refused to go to SF, but I convinced them and got my orders to the 77th SFG on 21 September 1954. Boy, was COL Raff surprised!”42 Szarek’s comrade, Jan Wiatr, did not have to go to all that bother.
“In January 1953, Lieutenant [2LT Timothy G.] Gannon and Sergeant First Class [SFC Antonino] Tony Zarba came to Fort Dix to recruit volunteers for Special Forces. Those of us who did would go to jump school at Fort Benning next. Then, we would go to Fort Bragg for more training. That all sounded good to me. I wanted to go to the war in Korea,” said Wiatr.43 Teodor Padalinski thought that Special Forces were actually Special Services (today’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation) and he felt that he “had it made” in the Army until they shipped him off to Fort Benning to jump school.44 When Czech Vaclav Hradecky completed artillery basic at Fort Campbell, he was still not accepted; he was just a “leg” (non-airborne) in the 457th FA Battalion (Airborne). The Army was not prepared to train foreign volunteers.
“The first sergeant of B Battery, 457th FA Battalion, 11th Airborne Division did not know what to do with someone who spoke little English and was not airborne-qualified. After weeks as the Dining Room Orderly [DRO] in the messhall, I was sent off to the dispensary for all kinds of shots and told to pack my bags for Fort Benning. The band was playing when my bus arrived. When I got off, all hell broke loose. The instructors descended on us like locusts, screaming orders to drop for push-ups. Our heads were shaved several times. Since I copied the responses to these orders, I was always a half step behind,” related the Czech private.
“During the 34-foot tower training, I happened to be the fifth man in line. I put my risers over the wrong shoulder for the left door because that’s how the guys in front of me did it. After doing 40 squat jumps three times for not repositioning my risers the tower sergeant said ‘Don’t you understand English?’ When I said, ‘No,’ he looked at me incredulously, but he called down for a corporal that spoke Serbo-Croatian. After that, instead of responding when I did something wrong, I ignored them and dropped for 40 push-ups. I was the only one of the four guys from my battalion to graduate. When I got back to Fort Campbell and the first sergeant saw my wings, he welcomed me like some kind of hero. Finally, I had been accepted,” said Private Hradecky.45
PVT Walter SmithVictor Kreisman
Walter Smith from Majdan, Poland, wanted to go to Korea after BCT at Fort Dix. He was told that all Lodge Act soldiers were going to Special Forces at Fort Bragg, NC, and then would attend airborne training at Fort Benning, GA. After finishing jump school on 3 April 1953, Smith was assigned to the 10th SFG’s FA Team 39 with then SGT Clyde J. Sincere, Jr.46 Czech Victor Kreisman related a similar account of his Lodge Act group. “After basic at Fort Dix, we were all sent to the 82nd Airborne Division for jump school enroute to Special Forces. Those Lodge Act guys having a hard time with parachute training feared that failure to graduate would jeopardize their enlistment and they’d be sent back to Eastern Europe. They were quite relieved to know that they would be reassigned to the non-airborne 525th Military Intelligence Battalion to ‘finish their five years on the bayonet’ as they say in the Israeli Army” said Kreisman.47
Not all airborne-qualified Lodge Act soldiers sent to SF were allowed to stay. Henry M. Kwiatkowski, from Jaroslav, Poland, a merchant seaman on the M.S. Batory (Gdynia-American Line), jumped ship in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1950. After service in the Auxiliary Service of the British Army of the Rhine, he joined Polish Labor Service (LS) in Captieu, France. There he volunteered for the U.S. Army. Assigned to the 77th SFG, the Polish demolitions specialist was assigned to an SF team after finishing jump school. When his security clearance was not granted after several months, the SF aspirant was sent for a polygraph. His short time at the Polish Naval Academy, not the Bronze Cross of Valor awarded to the M.S. Batory seaman for smuggling the Secretary of the American Communist Party out of the U.S., doomed his chances for a clearance. After just four months in SF, the newly-wed Army private was unceremoniously reassigned to the 82nd Airborne Division.48
Henry M. Kwiatkowski’s short tenure in the Polish Naval Academy before serving as a merchant seaman on the M.S. Batory of the Gdynia-America Line was enough for Army CIC to deny him a security clearance.LtoR: SFC Michael Kremar (Czech), SP3 John F. Gordon (Pole), and Michael Daradan (Russian) were sworn in as naturalized citizens in the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC in late August 1956.
While provided the opportunity to volunteer for airborne training, not every Lodge Act man, whose age ranged from 18 to 35, wanted to go let alone join Special Forces. Franciszek “Frank” Kokosza from Warsaw and another Pole (John F. Gordon) were sent directly from Fort Dix to Fort Benning in late 1952. “When we arrived and I saw everyone double-timing around, I said, ‘What’s going on? I didn’t volunteer for jump school.’ Because I refused to go, I had to march around the interior of those big quadrangle barracks carrying a rifle and a pack full of bricks. At each corner I had to yell out, ‘I’m a quitter.’ That was OK as long as they fed me and gave me a place to sleep. After several days they finally gave up and sent both of us to the 6th RB&L Group (Radio Broadcast and Leaflet) at Fort Bragg,” said Kokosza. “I showed that I was a good soldier, so my first sergeant sent me to the 6th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Germany in 1953. Twenty-seven months after enlisting at Sonthofen, I was an SFC (E-6). Those who went to SF early were PFCs and CPLs.”49 In 1962, SFC (E-7) Kokosza volunteered for Special Forces.50
CPL Anthony Pilarczyk
Meanwhile, John F. Gordon served as a light vehicle driver and automotive repairman in Headquarters & Headquarters Company (HHC), 6th RB&L Group from May 1952 until February 1954, when he left for Japan and the Army Ordnance Automotive Rehabilitation Depot (8071 AU) at Oppama. While there he visited SGT Anthony J. Pilarczyk, the former 6th RB&L parts clerk, who was assigned to the Ordnance Depot in Tokyo. At the end of August 1956, Specialist Three (SP3) Gordon returned to Washington, DC, to become an American citizen in the U.S. Federal District Court with ten other East European refugees. Though all were aliens, Gordon was the only Lodge Act enlistee in the group. He returned to spend five years in Japan.51
PVTs Martin Urich and Peter Astalos during BCT at Fort Knox, KY.SGT George Taylor* in Korea with the 987th Field Artillery in 1953.
Martin Urich with the Panzers in Poland after withdrawing from Russia.
George S. Taylor, Poznan, Poland, was assigned as the Headquarters Company clerk in the Psywar Center, but trained with the 8th Mobile Radio Broadcast Company of the 6th RB&L. His warrant officer supervisor, WO Surles, erroneously told him that he could not be assigned to Europe because he was not an American citizen. But, service in the Far East was OK. By mid-November 1953, SGT Taylor was in the 987th Field Artillery Battalion in Korea and the Lodge Act soldiers in the 10th SFG were in Germany. Following his Korea tour Taylor volunteered for Yokohama, Japan, and renewed his acquaintance with two old friends from the 6th RB&L Group at Fort Bragg, John F. Gordon and Anthony J. Pilarczyk.52
The WWI Polish eagle coat of arms (left) and the Polish Silver Cross of Valor was awarded to Stanley Skowron’s father by the Russian Czar for gallantry in action in WWI.
Unlike Lucien Zochowski, Romanian Peter Astalos and Yugoslav Martin Urich, WWII German Panzer veterans of the Russian Front, wanted to go to tank training. But, instead of basic armor and AIT at Fort Knox, KY the two recruits fought forest fires. “We were curiosities. The Armor School officers and sergeants were more interested in German tanks and knowing about our experiences. It was easy to figure out how to operate the American tanks. They were pretty good, but the German Tiger I and King Tiger tanks were the best in the world, considering most had the extended barrel 88mm gun. U.S. main tank guns were quite inferior to what we used,” said Urich, a well-decorated veteran like Astalos.53 When the two reported in to the 10th SFG, COL Aaron Bank welcomed them in perfect German.54 They were assigned to FA Teams and sent to Fort Benning for jump school. The twenty-eight year old former coal miner and textile worker, Astalos, enjoyed mountain, glacier, and ice climbing and ski training in Colorado and Wyoming before going to Germany with the 10th SFG.55 Pole Stanley Skowron, another coal miner, had a much different experience.
Private Stanley Skowron, C Company, 714th Armored Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division, at Camp Stewart, GA, for tank gunnery with an M-48 Patton tank, 1954.
PVT Stanley Skowron
Skowron, the son of a highly decorated WWI veteran, had done forced labor in Germany from 1939 until 1945. After a five-year stint as a coal miner in Holland, he rejoined the Polish Labor Service to serve in France. In Verdun, he applied to join the U.S. Army. The tough Pole volunteered for tank and airborne training. He got his wish. Assigned to C Company, 714th Tank Battalion, tank crewman PFC Skowron was the oldest graduate in his 82nd Airborne Division Airborne School class in February 1955. He later “gyroscoped” (infantry regimental rotation) to Germany with the 505th Airborne Infantry Regiment’s tank company. Skowron was a senior SSG when he joined SF in May 1969.56
Only twenty-two Lodge Act soldiers were assigned to the 10th SFG at Fort Bragg, NC, in December 1952.57 Three of the early ones were Paul Ettman, Rudi Horvath, and Andre Carson. Paul Ettman from Poland did not raise his hand for tank, airborne, or Special Forces training at Fort Dix. When he got to Fort Benning, he thought it was advanced infantry training until they started double-timing and doing push-ups all the time. “But, after I made that first jump there was no way that I was going to quit. Being airborne provided $50 dollars more a month. I wasn’t so sure about Special Forces. I thought that it had something to do with Special Services and sports and entertainment. After meeting COL Aaron Bank I was sold. He was a wonderful guy. We called him ‘Daddy’ in Polish,” recalled Ettman fondly.58 Bulgarian Andre Carson thought his college major would determine his assignment.
10th SFG Lodge Act soldiers during snowshoe training in Germany. (LtoR) Paul Ettman, Teodor Padalinski, Zbigniew Bernatowicz, Alexander A. Paduch, Jan Wiatr, unk, and Tadeus Kempczyk.
After the Lodge Act soldiers in the 6th RB&L translated Communist Bloc radio broadcasts, they were transcribed, summarized, and printed daily as a training exercise. This was a boon to SF recruiting.The 6th RB&L Group published “The Psyn-Post” to keep the printers and Psywar writers busy. It highlighted activities on Smoke Bomb Hill at Fort Bragg, NC.
“Before graduating from basic and advanced infantry training at Fort Dix, I requested assignment to the Chemical Corps because I had a chemistry degree. It turned out that the 6th RB&L at Fort Bragg, NC, needed Bulgarian and Russian speakers,” said Carson. For weeks I listened and transcribed taped Soviet Bloc news broadcasts and helped with leaflet production. We supported field exercises at Camp Mackall. The work was pretty boring, but I met Rudi Horvath, another Lodge Act guy who had managed to escape Psywar and gotten assigned to Special Forces.”59
“In early 1952, they were organizing Special Forces next door to the 6th RB&L. LTC (Jack) Shannon talked sixteen of us into joining. We were told that we could make rank faster and would not be sent to Korea. As privates drawing $71 a month, that had real appeal. We all knew that the colonel’s driver in the RB&L retired as a corporal after twenty years. Though he had more than 12 years in grade, he competed for sergeant with the youngsters,” said Carson.60
“We carried footlockers and set up bunk beds with LTC Shannon and pulled a lot of KP before being told that we had to be airborne to stay in Special Forces. Sixteen Lodge Act guys went to jump school at Fort Benning in April 1952. Several Poles and Czechs did not graduate in May 1952. I started out in the 16th Detachment, but went to Germany in the 21st,” said Carson.61
Since Special Forces at Fort Bragg essentially split in half when the 10th SFG left for Germany, there was a good number of Lodge Act soldiers in SF training and more scheduled after Airborne School. The remaining SF soldiers were assigned to the newly created 77th SFG under the command of LTC Jack Shannon, the SF Department deputy, until COL Edson Raff arrived in mid-1953. Though John C. Anderson from Riga, Latvia, was in the second group of Lodge Act men, he was initially assigned as a clerk-typist in the 6th RB&L. He spent most of his time in-processing soldiers for the 10th SFG. Anderson did finally get himself transferred to 10th SFG on 19 August 1952, but did not go to jump school until October. “The die was cast”—77th SFG.”62 With the 10th going to Europe, the 77th had to be filled to strength.
10th SFG soldiers at E&E safehouse with SGT Martin Urich (2nd from left) and SFC Antonino “Tony” Zarba (far right).
The SF MOS 1½ training certificate awarded to CPL Vaclav Hradecky on 1 October 1954 by COL Edson D. Raff, 77th SFG.
Corporal Vaclav Hradecky was involuntarily reassigned to SF from the 11th Airborne Division in early June 1954. “Everything was in a state of flux. Everyone was assigned an MOS and put on an FA team for training. My first company commander was CPT Frank Dawson, DSC (Distinguished Service Cross) at Omaha Beach with the 5th Ranger Battalion. Our teams were understrength; seven men led by a lieutenant. After finishing the classroom training and being awarded a 1½ prefix [one half of the SF designation (prefix 3) number before the MOS (military occupation specialty)], CPT (Herbert R.) Brucker pulled me for his E&E (escape and evasion) exercise called TENDERFOOT I,” recalled Hradecky. “That was better than barracks fire guard, whitewashing coal bins, and guard duty because corporals were not treated as junior NCOs. Brucker didn’t refer to us as DPs (displaced persons) either.”63 CPL Julius Reinitzer was also drafted from the 11th Airborne.
PFC Julius ReinitzerPFC Julius Reinitzer graduated from the 11th Airborne Division Jump School in May 1954.
Julius “Bear” Reinitzer from Prague, Czechoslovakia, third Lodge Act group (November 1952), processed at Camp Grohn in Bremen. He did BCT and AIT in the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Campbell. He volunteered for Korea several times but his First Sergeant refused, filling weekly 20-30 man levies with “8 Balls” (problem soldiers). “You’re too good a soldier,” said the WWII combat veteran. “With your languages, you should be in Europe. That’s why you’re going to Special Forces at Fort Bragg.”64 Reinitzer, Frank Jaks, Jan Novy, and Vaclav Hradecky, 11th Airborne paratroopers, all eventually joined the 10th SFG in Germany. “I was happy as a pig in a mud puddle at Bad Toelz,” said Hradecky.65 It was while the three were in the 77th SFG that they met three Czechs who joined the Army’s Lodge Act program through a side door.
Three Czech anti-Communist guerrillas bypassed the Lodge Act application and testing phase. With their armed resistance against Communist authorities on the verge of compromise and some facing military conscription, Josef and Ctirad “Ray” Masin, Milan Paumer, and two others left Czechoslovakia in October 1953. A planned three-day exodus to West Berlin via East Germany (200+ miles) stretched into a month after they killed several policemen while resisting arrest. This triggered a nationwide manhunt. The fugitives had to live off the land in one of the harshest winters in history. Following a second shootout in which two were wounded, two were also captured. The Masin brothers, manhandling the badly wounded Paumer the final thirty-five miles to West Berlin, narrowly escaped thousands of East German police and military that had been mobilized for the declared national emergency. After reaching safety in West Berlin, the three survivors were covertly flown to West Germany. Ensconced in a safehouse in Erlangen, they were interrogated, polygraphed, and debriefed for several weeks.66
When they declined to return to Czechoslovakia as Army CIC (Counter-Intelligence Corps) agents, enlistment in the U.S. Army under the provisions of the Lodge Act was offered. “At the time, it was the only acceptable option. We had informed U.S. intelligence that, in the event of armed conflict in the European theater, segments of the Czechoslovak Army would be disposed to support American military actions. My father’s old friend, Frantisek Vanek, a former general in Czechoslovak Army, and his group could deliver a whole frontline division—fourteen thousand men. If the division stood down and didn’t fight, the Western forces could pour through the breach and attack Soviet bloc troops to the north and south from the rear,” said Josef Masin. “Radio Free Europe had been encouraging resistance for years and Dwight D. Eisenhower had promised to free the Eastern Europe countries during his presidential campaign.”67
The three Czechs were delivered to Zweibrucken, issued U.S. Army uniforms, and sworn in. They joined a group of Lodge Act enlistees in Sonthofen and shipped out from Bremerhaven aboard the USTS General Butler in December 1953. While in AIT at Fort Dix, NJ, the trio volunteered for airborne and Special Forces training and got orders to the 77th SFG at Fort Bragg. They wanted to return home to organize, train, and fight with the Czech resistance forces when the Americans came to free Eastern Europe from Communist control.68
They were among the hundred Lodge Act soldiers that served in Psywar and Special Forces during the early years (1952-1960). When 10th SFG left for Germany in December 1953, thirty-three Lodge Act soldiers went with it.69 Some were replaced later by Lodge Act men from the 77th SFG at Fort Bragg, like the Masin brothers, Milam Paumer, Frank Jaks, Jan Novy, Julius Reinitzer, and Vaclav Hradecky. A lot of Lodge Act soldiers had already worked together in the escape and evasion exercises directed by CPT Herb Brucker, the 10th SFG S-2 (Intelligence Officer), who had been a British SOE (Special Operations Executive) and OSS operative in France, Burma, and China during WWII.
Jan Wiatr, 10th SFG, guerrilla agent at work.
Numerous Lodge Act soldiers were selected by CPT Brucker to assist with escape and evasion (E&E) exercises at Fort Bragg (TENDERFOOT I) and in Europe (CORDON BLEU). “The area of operations was south of Munich in the vicinity of Chiemsee and Garmisch. It had fifteen or twenty small towns where we could establish safehouses. Brucker typically issued us bicycles (like he had ridden in France during WWII), but he checked the network regularly in his Studebaker. Herb was one of the few guys in the 10th who was shorter than me,” laughed Martin Urich. “Teodor Padalinski and Marian Romeo [Marin Tymczyszyn] also worked for Brucker.”70 “CPT Brucker gave me a bicycle to work my sector. I traded a case of the resupply C-rations for a motorcycle,” chuckled Stanley Minkinow.71 Jan Wiatr bought a WWII-era automobile from his host farmer. “I would drive it on a Sunday, not realizing that it still had Nazi license plates with swastikas. The local Polizei flagged me down. The farmer and I had to do a lot of explaining to avoid a citation,” recalled Wiatr.72
Andre Carson, far left, bottom row, with fellow Lodge Act soldiers, at one of CPT Herbert R. Brucker’s E&E exercise safehouses in Bavaria.
Service in the Army’s Special Forces after fulfilling initial enlistment obligations was not sufficient incentive for all SF-qualified Lodge Act soldiers. Promotion came slow.73 Many still struggled with English after several years.74 Josef and Ctirad Masin, Milam Paumer, and Andre Carson became disillusioned with SF in the mid-1950s, more so after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 when President Eisenhower reneged on his campaign pledge to free Eastern Europe from Communism.75 Two 10th SFG soldiers had no choice. Severe injuries as aggressors against the 11th Airborne Division resulted in medical evacuations to the States and subsequent permanent medical profiles for Teodor Padalinski and Marian Romeo.76 One Lodge Act soldier assigned to the 10th in Bad Toelz, a Czech named Orolin, fell to his death after losing his balance on a Flint Kaserne window sill in the early 1950s. It was a sobering tragedy.77
Final numbers of enlistees fell far short of the Lodge Act authorizations. According to the Annual Reports of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (U.S. Department of Justice), Lodge Act enlistees naturalized in 1958 numbered 173. The following year, 179 became citizens. After those years the numbers dropped below a hundred until 1963. Then they dwindled to single digits from 1967 to 1970. The last big group naturalized was 56 in 1971 and after that it is single digits through 1977. Some naturalizations were posthumous to eliminate citizenship questions for family members. The total number of Lodge Act enlistees that became U.S. citizens from 1958 through 1977 is 815. Those naturalized in 1956 and 1957 were lumped together with the WWI, WWII, and Korean War veterans. As of May 1957 only 1,302 aliens had been enlisted via the Lodge Act, a little over half of the initial 2,500 authorized in 1950. That amounted to 10.4 % of the 12,500 authorized in 1951.78
The enlistment period for Lodge Act citizenship entitlements was 25 June 1950 through 1 July 1955.79 Expeditious naturalization of alien military personnel was offered as a quid pro quo for honorable service in the U.S. military. The philosophy that anyone who fights for the United States is entitled to become a citizen is deeply engrained in America’s social values.80 However, extraterritorial judicial issues were rarely considered for Lodge Act soldiers and other alien U.S. servicemen assigned overseas duty.
The legal status of Lodge Act alien enlistees overseas depended on whether Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA) approved by the U.S. Senate had been ratified by the individual country wherein the soldier was serving. They were ineligible under U.S. laws and treaties to serve a foreign court-imposed sentence in the country of their military allegiance. While Lodge Act enlistees took the same oath to protect and defend the Constitution and the United States as American citizens did, they were not entitled to the same protection under the American flag.81
“It wasn’t really safe for Lodge Act soldiers to be wandering around Europe alone. While we were in the U.S. Army, we were not American citizens,” said Vaclav Hradecky.82 Jan Wiatr volunteered to go to the war in Korea but was denied because there was no SOFA in effect.83 This element alone should have been an impetus to apply for naturalized citizenship, but it was not. Someone was watching over those Lodge Act innocents who served faithfully overseas in blissful ignorance of the risk.
The timing of the alien enlistment initiative could not have been much worse. Between the Cold War defense and reconstruction in postwar Europe and Japan, the hot war in Korea, a Congressionally-promulgated Red Scare, and presidentially-mandated integration of the armed forces, the program had little chance of success. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. got lukewarm support from the Congress, the Pentagon, Army commanders in Germany and Austria, and the West European nations. The recruiting achievements are attributed to USAREUR AG, but the credit for enlistment really belongs to the 1,302 determined men who persisted against long odds to join the U.S. Army. Since it was an evolving social experiment, a number of the Lodge Act enlistees, typical in any military force, were not good soldiers and they were released from the service or disciplined accordingly.84
While Senator Lodge may have been disappointed, the vast majority of the individual Lodge Act men were not. “This program enabled East Europeans to serve and contribute to the U.S. Army and afterwards to the civilian work force. We all brought something to the table. It was a great success from an individual point of view,” reminded Egon Goldschmidts.85 It was Special Forces that probably benefited the most.
COL Donald D. Blackburn with a group of Lodge Act soldiers in the 77th SFG.
There were several constants among Lodge Act soldiers that served in Special Forces during the early days (1952-1960). Most served in an ethnic Labor Service unit that supported the U.S. Army in postwar Germany and France. Polygraph tests were required; some annually until the Lodge Act soldiers became naturalized U.S. citizens.86 They had Regular Army (RA) serial numbers allocated from “RA10812016 through RA10814515” and issued chronologically according to date on enlistment.87 Most of the early SF soldiers were demolitions sergeants and specialists (some had been miners in postwar Europe). Many of them worked with OSS veteran, CPT Herb Brucker, supporting his E&E exercises at Camp Mackall outside Fort Bragg, NC, and in Europe. All universally respected Colonels Aaron Bank, Edson Raff, and Donald Blackburn, the early 10th and 77th SFG commanders.
The Army had no specific “bootstrap” education programs to level the playing field for Lodge Act soldiers. Few improved their English in formal classes. It must be remembered that adults were taught languages just like children were in the 1950s. It would be forty years before linguistics specialists “discovered” that adults should be taught differently. The foreign language capabilities and European cultural experiences were unappreciated and not capitalized upon by most Special Forces officers and enlisted men. Lodge Act soldiers and the emigrants that joined the Army in the U.S. were typically lumped together by SF soldiers and all were euphemistically referred as DPs (displaced persons).
However, while their numbers were small, they were true force multipliers in Special Forces into the 1980s because of their languages and cultural experience. How hollow the SF language capability was did not become glaringly apparent until Operation DESERT STORM when the Lodge Act soldiers were long gone. There was a certain innocence shared by Lodge Act soldiers, a belief and sincere trust that the great democratic America and its Army would treat them right. All are strong patriots and extremely proud to have served their country in its Army and the Special Forces.
“I am an American citizen. Though I was born in Poland, I am not a Polish American. My children are American citizens of Polish descent. I’m an American,” Henry Kwiatkowski reminded me after the funeral of BG Donald D. Blackburn at Arlington National Cemetery.88 “See that American flag flying in my back yard. It flies 24 hours a day. Floodlights come on automatically at dusk. I am so very proud to be an American and to have been able to serve in the U.S. Army. It is my simple way of showing respect for the greatest country in the world,” said Edward Bator with great pride.89
The purpose of this article was to explain the Lodge Act and the training of these East European unmarried volunteers and to allow these soldiers to share their experiences at Camp Kilmer, NJ, English language school at Fort Devens, MA, and during BCT and AIT at Forts Dix, Knox, Campbell, Benning, Eustis, and Aberdeen Proving Ground. Life in the airborne schools at Forts Benning, Bragg, and Campbell was another adventure. Why the program envisioned by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. did not achieve its authorized numbers was explained. The article was designed to introduce these veterans, well-known to older SFers, to today’s Army SOF soldiers. There is much more to the story. We hope that these two articles will prompt other Lodge Act soldiers to become involved in a command-sponsored book, like Weapon of Choice: ARSOF in Afghanistan and All Roads Lead to Baghdad: ARSOF in Iraq, to commemorate the Lodge Act volunteers who served in the U.S. Army. I will conclude with a sincere thank you to all Lodge Act veterans and families who gave generously of their time, documents, and photos to make this article possible.
Lodge Act & Family Contributors
*Changed Name
John C. Anderson* (Karlis J. Borovskis)
Peter V. Astalos
Edward Bator
Bronislaw Binas
Andre V. Carson* (Andrej Vasilev)
Paul Ettman
Karel Fux
Egon Goldschmidts
John F. Gordon* (Woloszyn Wojciech)
John Honer* (Johann Hontschlaeger)
Rudolph G. Horvath
Vaclav Hradecky
Frank Jaks* (Frantisek Jaks)
John Koenig
Frank Kokosza* (Franciszek Kokosza)
Victor Kreisman
Henry M. Kwiatkowski
Clarence C. Mann
Josef Masin
Ctirad Masin
Stanley Minkinow* (Stanislaw Minkinorow)
Teodor Padalinski
Anthony Pilarczyk
Julius Reinitzer
Hans Saul
Stanley Skowron* (Stanislaw Skowrovy)
Walter J. Smith* (Wladyslaw J. Naumowicz)
Jan J. Strek
Henryk Szarek
George S. Taylor* (Ryszard J. Tayler)
Martin Urich
Jan Wiatr
Lucien Zochowski* (Lucjan Zochowski)
ENDNOTES
Department of the Army. Bulletin No. 10 dated 20 July 1950, IV. ENLISTMENT OF ALIENS IN REGULAR ARMY. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge initiated the bill in the U.S. Senate and Congressman Philip J. Philbin, a Democrat from Massachusetts introduced the Alien Enlistment (Lodge) Bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. Credit rightfully belongs to the Senator, hence it has been referred to as the Lodge Act.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodge-Philbin_Act, U.S. Code, Title 8, Chapter 12, Subchapter III, Part II, §1440 dated 3 January 2005 at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode08/usc_sec_08_00001440----000-notes.html dated 7 January 2009 and Letter, Lodge to General James Lawton Collins, Army Chief of Staff, 26 November 1951, Henry Cabot Lodge II Papers, Legislative Subject Files, Box 39, Massachusetts Historical Society cited in James J. Carafano, “Mobilizing America’s Stateless,” Journal of Cold War Studies 1:2 (1999), 69.[return]
The Act of June 19, 1951, ch. 144 § 21, 65 Stat. 75 increased the alien recruiting authorization from 2,500 to 12,500. Department of the Army. Bulletin No. 12 dated 9 July 1951, UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING AND SERVICE ACT. TITLE II, Enlistment of aliens, retired COL/Dr. Alfred H. Paddock, Jr. email to retired COL John H. Crerar, 24 September 2007, Subject: Lodge Act, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited by name and date. These numbers came from Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare (MG Robert A. McClure) files for 1952 and Carafano, “Mobilizing Europe’s Stateless,” 64.[return]
James B. Jacobs and Leslie Anne Hayes, “Aliens in the U.S. Armed Forces: A Historico-Legal Analysis,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Winter 1981), 197.[return]
Jacobs and Hayes, “Aliens in the U.S. Armed Forces,” 196, 197 and endnote 95 [H.R. Rep. No. 689, 85th Cong., 1st Sess. 102 (1957) and H.R. Rep. No. 834, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1955)].[return]
Army Regulation (AR) 601-249, PERSONNEL PROCUREMENT: ENLISTMENT OF ALIENS IN REGULAR ARMY, dated 8 November 1957 and retired CSM Tadeusz Gaveda, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 18 May 2009, Fayetteville, NC, personal notes, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC. Rules change. By the 1980s, an alien who performed three years of honorable peacetime service and who was lawfully admitted to permanent residence could be excused from ordinary residence requirements if he filed a naturalization petition within six months after leaving the service. The six months residence in a state, residence within the jurisdiction of a naturalization court, and the 30-day delay period between petition and hearing requirements could also be waived if the person was still in the armed forces and if he/she and his/her witnesses appeared before a naturalization examiner. Jacobs and Hayes, “Aliens in the U.S. Armed Forces,” 197 and endnote 96.[return]
Army Special Regulation (SR) 615-120-15, ENLISTED PERSONNEL: ENLISTMENT OF ALIENS IN THE REGULAR ARMY, dated 19 December 1952.[return]
Walter J. Smith, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 28 July 2008, Lochbuie, CO, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Smith interview with date.[return]
Egon Goldschmidts, interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 22 April 2009, Silver Springs, MD, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Goldschmidts interview with date.[return]
Retired MSG Edward Bator, interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 23 April 2009, Vass, NC, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC hereafter cited as Bator interview with date. This final group had personnel who had enlisted as early as July 1955 as well as Edward Bator and Emil P. Fiszer in October 1955. Bator and Fiszer were sworn into the U.S. Army in civilian clothes by CWO George Candee, OIC, Alien Enlistment Program -Testing & Interviewing Team #6, US Army, Europe (USAREUR), in Seckenheim, Germany, on 7 October 1955, before going to Zweibrucken to join their Lodge Act group. HQ, USAREUR, Alien Enlistment Program – Testing and Interviewing Team No. 6, Ltr Ord 10-20, SUBJECT: Orders, 7 October 1955, HQ, Personnel Center, Fort Hamilton, 1400TH SU, Returnee-Reassignment Station, Brooklyn 9, NY, SPECIAL ORDERS NUMBER 109, 4 November 1955, and Bator interview, 23 April 2009.[return]
Retired COL Clarence C. Mann, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 14 April 2008, Tucson, AZ, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Mann interview with date.[return]
Mann interview, 14 April 2008. These same barracks at Camp Kilmer, NJ, were also used to house Hungarian refugees after that revolution against the Soviet Union failed in 1956. Two Lodge Act soldiers supported that program. Rudolf Horvath, who elected to leave the US Army after five years (deployed with 10th SFG to Bad Toelz, Germany, in 1953), volunteered to serve as a translator for several months before becoming disillusioned with those claiming to be “freedom fighters.” Private Edward Bator, in basic training at Fort Dix, NJ, was part of a detail sent to clean the barracks for the incoming Hungarians. Rudolf G. Horvath, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 10 June 2008, Dumont, NJ, digital recording, USASOC History Office Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Horvath interview with date and Bator interview, 22 April 2009.[return]
Statement of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., 14 October 1951, Henry Cabot Lodge II Papers, Legislative Subject Files, Box 39, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts, from Carafano, “Mobilizing Europe’s Stateless,” endnote 6 and “Aliens Start Army Training,” EUCOM Information Bulletin (November 1951), http://images.library.wisc.edu/History/Efacs/GerRecon/omg1951Nov/reference/history.omg1951nov.adenauerproposal.pdf dated 30 January 2009.[return]
“Aliens Start Army Training,” EUCOM Information Bulletin (November 1951).[return]
Retired Chief Warrant Officer Four (CW4) Andre Vasilev Carson, interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 28 November 2007, Fayetteville, NC, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Carson interview with date and Carson interview, 7 December 2007.[return]
Letter, Lodge to General James Lawton Collins, Army Chief of Staff, 26 November 1951, Henry Cabot Lodge II Papers, Legislative Subject Files, Box 39, Massachusetts Historical Society cited in Carfano, “Mobilizing America’s Stateless,” 69.[return]
Joe C. Lambert, “These Aliens Also Serve,” Army Information Digest, Vol. 6, No. 11 (November 1951), 39-42.[return]
Smith interview, 28 July 2008 and retired SFC Teodor W. Padalinski, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 18 July 2008, Boulder, CO, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Padalinski interview with date. By the last group in the fall of 1955, USAREUR orders had asterisk annotations by the Lodge Act servicemen who spoke English fluently. In the last group of 22, only seven did not have asterisks. HQ, 4th Replacement Group, USAREUR, APO 872, SPECIAL ORDERS NUMBER 248, 12 October 1955, copy USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.[return]
Headquarters, 9th Infantry Division, G3, Troop Information and Education Division, Fort Dix, NJ, Memorandum, SUBJECT: Notification of Test Arrival, dated 9 April 1954, Henryk Szarek personal files, copy in USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.[return]
Retired SFC Jan Wiatr, interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 2 October 2007, Fayetteville, NC, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Wiatr interview with date.[return]
Retired MAJ Frank Jaks interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 14 June 2007, Fort Bragg, NC, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Franks interview with date, Smith interview, 28 July 2008, and retired Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Vaclav Hradecky, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 10 September 2008, New Ipswich, NH, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, hereafter cited as Hradecky interview with date.[return]
Retired MSG Martin Urich, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 25 July 2008, Bensalem, PA, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Urich interview with date.[return]
Smith interview, 28 July 2008 and Padalinski interview, 18 July 2008.[return]
Hradecky interview, 10 September 2008, retired SFC Paul R. Ettman, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 19 September 2008, Worcester, MA, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Ettman interview with date, and Padalinksi interview, 18 July 2008.[return]
Retired MAJ John Koenig, interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 4 September 2008, Fayetteville, NC, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Koenig interview with date.[return]
Retired SFC Stanley Skowron, interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 21 September 2008, Fayetteville, NC, digital recordings, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Skowron interview with date.[return]
Retired SFC Henry M. Kwiatkowski, telephone interviews by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 21 and 24 October 2008, Silver Springs, MD, digital recordings, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, and U.S. Army Special Regulation (SR) 615-120-15, ENLISTED PERSONNEL: ENLISTMENT OF ALIENS IN THE REGULAR ARMY dated 19 December 1952.[return]
Lucjan Zochowski, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, Wall Township, NJ, 31 March 2008, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC. The Stars and Stripes elaborated on alien recruit life at the 320th Replacement Battalion (Repo Depot) in Sonthofen in October 1953. Robert J. Dunphy, “27 Refugees Find Army Leading to New Way of Life,” The Stars and Stripes (Europe), Sunday, 11 October 1953, 7.[return]
Retired MAJ Stanley Minkinow, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 23 October 2008, Huntsville, AL, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Minkinow interview with date and retired MAJ Caesar J. Civitella, interview by Drs. Kenneth Finlayson and Charles H. Briscoe, 19 January 2001, Fort Bragg, NC, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.[return]
Headquarters, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, NC, Special Orders Number 236 dated 21 September 1954, Henryk Szarek personal files, copy in USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.[return]
Headquarters, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, NC, Special Orders Number 236 dated 21 September 1954, Henryk Szarek personal files, copy in USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.[return]
Smith interview, 28 July 2008 and Special Forces Association, “Deployment of the 10th Special Forces Group in 1953,” Special Forces: The First Fifty Years 1952-2002 (London: Faircount LLC, 2002), 99, 100.[return]
Retired CSM Victor Kreisman, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 19 May 2009, Las Vegas, NV, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.[return]
Kwiatkowski interviews, 22 September, 1 October, and 24 October 2008.[return]
Retired MSG Frank Kokosza, interviews by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 26 June and 7 July 2008, Fayetteville, NC, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Kokosza interview with date.[return]
Kokosza, interviews, 26 June and 7 July 2008.[return]
Retired CWO-2 John F. Gordon, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 19 June 2008, Shirley, MA, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Gordon interview with date and “11 Veterans, Iron Curtain Refugees, Made Citizens,” The Evening Star (Washington, DC), 1 September 1956, copy in USASOC History Office Classified Files.[return]
Retired CSM George S. Taylor, telephone interviews by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 11 and 15 September 2008, Hopedale, MA, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Taylor interview with date and retired USAF SSgt Anthony J. Pilarczch, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 10 September 2008, Vacaville, CA, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Pilarczyk interview with date.[return]
Retired SGM Peter V. Astalos, interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 25 June 2008, Fayetteville, NC, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Astalos interview with date and Urich interviews 22 and 25 July 2008. Both men had received the German Iron Cross Second Class and several Panzer assault badges. Miraculously, neither was wounded.[return]
Astalos interview, 25 June 2008 and Urich interview, 25 July 2008.[return]
Astalos interviews, 25 June 2008 and 15 July 2008.[return]
Skowron interviews, 21, 23 and 30 September 2008. Skowron’s father was awarded the Polish Silver Cross of Valor, a level higher than the Bronze Cross presented to Lodge Act soldier Henry M. Kwiatkowski. Skowron interview, 21 September 2008.[return]
Headquarters, The Psychological Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, NC, letter to BG Robert A. McClure, from COL C.H. Karlstad, 25 November 1952, Record Group 319, Army-Chief of Special Warfare, 1951-54, National Archives cited in Paddock, US Army Special Warfare, 149.[return]
Carson interview, 28 November 2007 and Allan H. Smith, 8th MRBC, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 4 June 2009, New Rochelle, NY, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.[return]
Carson interviews, 28 November and 7 December 2007. The reality was that 1LT Joseph M. Castro, his first SF detachment commander, was levied for Korea. Castro was killed while serving as a partisan advisor with the 8240th Army Unit. Carson Interview, 29 April 2008.[return]
Carson interviews, 28 November 2007 and 29 April 2008.[return]
Retired SGM John C. Anderson, telephone interview by Dr. Briscoe, 26 June 2008, Boulder, CO, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Anderson interview with date.[return]
Retired SGM Julius Reinitzer, telephone interviews by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 25 and 28 August 2008, Hudson, NH, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Reinitzer interview and date.[return]
Josef Masin, telephone interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 10 November 2008, Santa Barbara, CA, digital recordings, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC, hereafter cited as Masin interview with date and Barbara Masin, Gauntlet (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 320.[return]
Masin interview, 10 November 2008 and Barbara Masin, Gauntlet, 320.[return]
Masin interview, 10 November 2008 and Barbara Masin, Gauntlet, 320.[return]
Special Forces Association. “Deployment of the 10th Special Forces Group in 1953,” Special Forces: The First Fifty Years (London: Faircount LLC, 2002), 94-101 and 10th Special Forces Group Abn. TEAM FA, SP FORCES OPN DET DIST “B” (ABN).[return]
Urich interview, 25 July 2008 and Padalinski interview, 23 July 2008.[return]
Masin interview, 10 November 2008 and Carson interview, 28 November 2007.[return]
Padalinski interview, 23 July 2008. SGT Padalinski was reclassified to the Transportation Corps as a truckmaster. During his twenty year career, SFC Padalinski served overseas in Korea and Germany twice and Vietnam. After fifteen years with the U.S. Postal Service in Denver, CO, Padalinski retired in 1988. Padalinski interview, 23 July 2008.[return]
Jacobs and Hayes, “Aliens in the U.S. Armed Forces,” 196, 197 and “Iron Curtain Fugitives First Citizens Under Lodge Act,” New York Times (1 September 1956), 9 from http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0C13FC345B157B93C3A91782D85F428585F9, 20 May 2009.[return]
U.S. Code, Title 8, Chapter 12, Subchapter III, Part II, §1440 dated 3 January 2005 at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode08/usc_sec_08_00001440----000-notes.html dated 7 January 2009.[return]
Jacobs and Hayes, “Aliens in the U.S. Armed Forces,” 187-188.[return]
Lawrence W. Jackley, “Aliens in the U.S. Armed Forces: Same Service, Different Justice,” Army (January 1986), 15.[return]
Wiatr interview, 2 May 2009 and Horvath interview, 18 May 2009. “When I was the First Sergeant of the 1st Loudspeaker & Leaflet Company at Fort Bragg, we received a number of Lodge Act enlistees. They were either good soldiers or duds who pretended not to understand English and were trying to get over. I put them on Fort Bragg furnace detail (cleaning and stoking coal furnaces that heated the family quarters’ buildings all over post for ninety days. That was a real #%&* detail since you had to work all day, every day and involved stoking the furnaces for the night. They didn’t finish up until 2200 hours. When that did not work, I filled my levies to Korea with them,” said retired MSG Joe Lissberger, Interview by Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 20 May 2007, Fort Bragg, NC, digital recording, USASOC History Office Classified Files, Fort Bragg, NC.[return]
