Dale Says

April 15, 2013

Soldier on Skiis

Filed under: Colorful Characters — Dale @ 10:52 am

Duke grew up in Wisconsin and started skiing when he was six years old. After two years at college in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, he joined the Army and was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division from Colorado.

The 10th Mountain Division is a light infantry division of the United States Army that started out as an experiment to train skiers and climbers to fight in the most difficult, mountainous terrain in Europe. Some of the men who joined the division were skiers already, while others had never seen a ski in their lives.

Their training at Camp Hale, Colorado included skiing, snowshoeing and rock climbing. They also learned cold-weather survival tactics, such as keeping warm by building snow caves. The men lived in the mountains for weeks, working in altitudes of up to 13,500 feet, in five to six feet of snow and in temperatures that dropped to 20 degrees below zero at night.

In June 1944, the Division transferred to Camp Swift, Texas, for additional training until the division was deployed to Italy in January 1945. In Italy, the 10th Mountain Division served in combat for only four months, but had one of the conflict’s highest casualty rates.

By mid-January of 1945, the 14,000 men of the 10th Mountain Division had quietly and secretly moved into small villages surrounding these ridges in the northern Apennines area. There was a lot of work to be done in order to conquer the Germans located atop the ridges, and the 10th began planning possible routes up Riva Ridge.

Duke recalled this time and he told about a near-fatal experience. His jacket was torn, and he was sent to a friendly German woman to have it mended. She said that it was a big job but that she would do it. She suggested that he go in and lie down on her bed. He lay down for about half an hour. When he heard combat boots he got under the bed. It was a German searching squad. They recognized the American jacket. They came in and searched the bedroom but didn’t look under the bed. He waited. She came in with the jacket and told him to get out fast. “It was a real tight situation,” Duke remembers, but he escaped. “Or I wouldn’t be here right now talking to you,” he said.

On Feb. 18, 1945, the 10th Mountain Division took Riva Ridge — to prevent the Germans from being able to survey U.S. positions below — in a nighttime operation. Riva Ridge consisted of 2,000 vertical feet of rock and it was a sheer face covered in snow and ice, towering over the American soldiers in the valley below. At night, the Germans did not bother with guard patrols, because the conditions were so difficult that they did not believe any American unit could climb the ridge — day or night.

But the Germans were wrong, and the soldiers of the 10th climbed, silently, to the top and secured Riva Ridge with minimal casualties.

But then, the 10th Mountain Division was asked to overtake Mount Belvedere. That proved to be much more difficult, and the American soldiers ended up victorious, but not without a price: Nearly 1,000 of the 13,000 soldiers in the division died.

Duke recalled many of these missions, skiing in groups and using three kinds of snowshoes. The Ski Patrol wore both white uniforms and dark ones, depending on the surroundings. One time, on a mission working their way toward the enemy wearing Bearpaw snowshoes, one of his men got stuck and couldn’t move. Duke moved to the head of the line where the man was, and told him to fall on his back and then turn his snowshoes. Then Duke said, “Let’s get the hell out of here before we get shot!”

After Italy, Duke was sent to the European theater as a member of the Ski Patrol. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, for which he received a Purple Heart. He was justifiably proud of his service in the Army and his service to his country.

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