World War II, Leonard Semkin

Leonard Semkin, of Sedalia, learned the importance of good driving when he served in World War II.

He was drafted into the Army at the age of 19. He reported for duty on March 5, 1943, at Leavenworth, Kan. He was sent to Camp Campbell, Ky., for six week of basic training. He then took seven weeks of training learning how to drive and maintain in heavy-armored Sherman tanks.

He boarded a Liberty ship to Casablanca, Africa, and it took 21 days to get there. Then he traveled by train on a 40 & 8 boxcar. Twenty men were packed into each car, along with all of their gear.

“We couldn’t even lay down,” he said.

He was on the train for nine days and nights before he arrived in Tunis, Africa. He then joined the 757th Tank Battalion.

He boarded a LST (landing ship transport) and went across the sea to Naples, Italy. He was attached to several divisions for tank support on the front lines.

The big spring push started on May 11, 1944. The American’s 5th Army was on the west side of Italy. The British 8th Army had the east side. The center was taken by the Free French Expedition Corps. Semkin and his crew were attached to the French for tank support.

On May 19, his platoon of five tanks was sent on a mission to knock out some machine guns. When they turned a corner, the first of two tanks was hit with a self-propelled anti-tank gun.

They had been told the enemy didn’t have any anti-tank guns, so this came as a shock. Semkin, the assistant driver, saw the first tank get hit. Immediately after, his tank was hit.

“Our tank only caught fire at first and later the shells started to explode,” he said.

They had to abandon it. One of the hardest parts was leaving behind the driver, who was killed upon impact.

Each tank had five men on board. Out of 10 crew members on the two tanks, three were killed, six were sent to the hospital and one was unharmed.

Semkin suffered from flash burns to his face, hands and wrists. He spent three weeks in the burn ward of the hospital. It took one and a half days to transfer him from the free French aid station to an American hospital.

He received the Purple Heart for being wounded in action. He returned to the 757th Tank Battalion a month later. He became a driver for the platoon. He received the ranking of T-4 sergeant and kept it for the rest of the war. He experienced a lot of mud, snow and mountain driving. He also did a lot of blackout driving at night to surprise the enemy.

“It’s pretty wicked driving on some of that stuff,” he said. The mountains didn’t remind him of the Rockies. He thought they were more like something one would see in Branson or Arkansas.

By the time the Americans crossed the English Channel and were fighting the Germans on north and south of France, Semkin went through Rome. He headed for Florence, Pisa, Leghorn and the mountains again. After going north of Florence, it was mountains and mud.

They had to get gas and supplies by pack mules. The roads were impossible to drive on because of mud slides.

B Company had three platoons of tanks, five tanks on the front line, five tanks for indirect firing and five tanks in reserve. The crews traded tanks every seven days in order to get some rest. They spent most of the winter of 1944 this way. They dug in and waited for spring.

“In the winter time, things started slowing down. You couldn’t get through the snow and ice,” he said.

In the spring of 1945, they started with 12 miles of mountains and made their way to Po Valley. They had to cross the Po River on a platoon bridge. The river was about as wide as the Missouri River. The men feared the bridge wouldn’t be able to hold all the weight, but it did.

“We fought for a short while to the end of the war before we got to Brenner Pass. Japan gave up and we started the process of coming home on the point system,” he said.

He was discharged on Oct. 19. He was proud to serve in the Army.

“It had to be done,” he said.