SIDNEY — The Sidney American Legion has a special event planned for May 10 to honor World War II veterans, but the event wouldn’t have come to be without the idea from an actual World War II veteran himself.
Herb Hoying, 92, of Sidney, was just 19-years-old when his number came up and he was gone with the draft.
Hoying graduated from Fort Loramie High School in 1941. Being under 18, he couldn’t get a job in the factory, so he was a day laborer for the farmers in the area. When he turned 18 he got a job at Monarch Machine and Tool Company in Sidney.
He was there for about a year when he got drafted. “I turned 19 in December and by the end of February I was pretty much on my way to service.”
Hoying got on a bus, then a train, and ended up in Texas. “We got on trucks and they took us to Camp Hood. When I say camp, I mean it was camp. Tent after tent after tent. We were there for quite a while, then we went to Fort Hood. That was barracks with mattresses and everything. It seemed like we were going into a Hilton or something.”
Hoying trained there for quite a while, then the outfit he was with was discontinued, and then they went into the infantry and started training all over again, he said. He moved to a few different camps in Texas during the next bit of time, and then sometime in the fall of 1944, he made his way to Baltimore, Maryland, and traveled six days on a boat over to Europe.
They docked in England, got on a train and traveled to South Hampton, then went across the English Channel.
“We made it into Europe. There we were assigned to our companies. I ended up in the First Infantry Division. There were mortar shells falling everywhere. It wasn’t very pleasant,” he said.
At the beginning of December they were relieved of their positions by another division to go to Belgium for several weeks off, but they barely got settled and they had to go back to the line.
“Everything went fairly smooth. Christmas Day was a day off, but the day after, Dec. 26, 1944, I was walking down this trail, it was dark, and very cold. A mortar shell, or something like that, landed behind me and that’s the last I knew for a while. When I woke up, I found myself in a side bank on the trail. There was a lot of snow,” he said. “I knew I was hurt, but I didn’t know where or how bad.”
When he finally got medical attention, they pulled shrapnel out of his back for about an hour. He was out of commission for about two weeks. Then he went back into action.
Around Feb. 2, 1945, he crossed the Siegfried Line, a series of fortifications on the western border of Germany, on foot. Hoying said most of their travel was done on foot. After that it got rough for a while, he said.
“We had all these different places we had to secure. My orders were to secure the first building in town. We started out with about 10 guys and when we got there we were only with four. I thought, I didn’t hear anything going on. So I went back to look for them and see them sort of sitting in a pile of snow,” he said. “I told them, ‘come daylight they’re going to pick you off like pigeons.’ I told them to get up and run as fast as they can to the first building and help them secure it. I found the others and eventually everyone ended up at their right place.”
They made their way to Bonn, Germany, which was pretty well secured, but then they had to cross the Rhine River. “The combat engineers were trying to build a pontoon bridge because the Germans had blown up all the bridges, that was their last resort.”
The Germans were in the process of giving up at that point, so prisoners were being given up, he said. “They didn’t want a part in it any more than we did. So they were really cooperative.”
It was about March or April when things slowed down quite a bit. “We were given the assignment of cleaning up a few nests of Germans. I was walking with a commander ahead of our company and all at once something went through my arm. A sniper shot me through the arm. It burned quite a bit, but it didn’t hit the bone. So that was good, but I lost all the muscle there. I was off for several days.”
It was May the 8th, when the war was over in Europe – “V-Day”– and Hoying made it back to his company. They continued to do some patrolling, and he was potentially going to go to Japan, but he got out of that.
He made it back home for Christmas 1945, and after the first of the year he started work again at Monarch, and the rest was history. He retired from there 46 years later. Hoying married his wife in 1947, and they had four children together. He is a grandfather and a great-grandfather. His wife passed away in 2012.
Hoying still works as a helper at Regal Trophy and Awards. He goes in for a couple of hours at a time to keep himself busy, saying complete retirement wasn’t for him. He and his wife traveled some and went on quite a few adventures in their life.
Hoying said a lot of things have changed over his lifetime. The most notable, communication. He doesn’t carry a cell phone, but uses a landline and has a simple television in his home. At 92 he still lives by himself, but says his children help him out when he needs it.
A highlight of his time involved with the American Legion was becoming district commander for seven area counties, he said. Post 217 has supported him with a lot, including the appreciation dinner he had the idea to have in conjunction with the anniversary of V-Day.
The dinner on May 10 will begin at 6:30 p.m. Accommodations have been made to have a valet service, and assistance to those in wheelchairs, or whatever is needed, is at the ready. A local group of Pin-Up Girls will be there in 40’s attire to hand out programs and serve the veterans.
The whole evening will be recorded, including the stories from the vets, and put on to DVDs to preserve their history. The Miami Valley Vets Museum will have a display and Christian Academy Schools will have students there involved asking the vets questions. They will also provide entertainment in the form of song.
Dinner is complimentary for the World War II Vets and a guest. For anyone else wanting to attend it’s $5 a plate. American Legion Manager Debbie Phelps said they’re not out to make money.
“We just want to do some good for the veterans and give them a chance to get together and socialize,” she said.
Questions about the dinner can be directed towards her at 937-492-6410.
“There are not that many WWII veterans left. I’d appreciate and encourage anybody WWII in Shelby County to attend this, because there are some, that include myself, that haven’t seen some of these guys for maybe 40 or 50 years, and it’d be quite a nice reunion,” Hoying said.
