By BILL BENGTSON
"He doesn't regret one minute going overseas, and I think he'd go back, not out of any bravado, but just out of a sense of duty to the flag, and he's one of a kind."
Retired educator Tom Goforth has no trouble expressing admiration for fellow Army veteran Delray Herrington, who recently turned 93 and is now among the CSRA's most senior vets -- not only as a veteran of World War II, but also a defender in the siege of Bastogne, the Belgian town that was rocked by German and American forces from Dec. 20 to Dec. 27, 1944, as the Battle of the Bulge lurched into high gear.
Herrington, a native of Perkins, Ga. (in Jenkins County), enlisted on March 3, 1943. He had originally been told that he wouldn't be chosen for military service, due to having flat feet. In the months after that claim, he moved to Augusta for a marriage and a job, "and I wasn't married but about a year before I got my walking papers to go in the service."
Flat feet or otherwise, he served in one of the U.S. military's most prominent units: the 101st Airborne, which meant that he would head for Normandy, to take part in D-Day -- the biggest invasion in military history.
He and a few of his American peers, bound for France via the English Channel, wound up arriving in an English destroyer, as their original vessel was sinking, having struck a mine. Arriving on the afternoon of June 6, 1944, he waded up to the carnage-strewn beach with water up to his neck.
Herrington also took part in the invasion of Holland, arriving via glider, "and that was kind of rough," he recalled, matter-of-factly. He noted that a glider consisted of cheesecloth, plywood, aluminum tubing and Plexiglas.
"We crossed the Waal River, and had the Germans backed up against the dikes, in Holland ... and sat there and fed 'em artillery the whole time we was up there ... 77 days, and it rained about 40 of 'em. I've never seen so much rain."
The days ahead lead to Bastogne, a central point in Hitler's attempt to capture the vital port of Antwerp. "We got up there and found there were parts of 11 divisions of Germans -- parts, not all. I guess it was the best troops. When we went in, they surrounded us, and we set up there. We gave all of our ammunition to the infantry," he said, explaining that in his unit's case, it amounted to each man having one artillery shell, a clip of rifle ammunition and a grenade.
"We sat there 19 days, with just a little bit of food," he said. "We sat there and waited and waited, and finally after a while, they come to us and said, 'Patton is on his way to get us out of here,' so we hung around there for about three days and three nights. There wasn't nothing but a continuous rumble -- Patton and his tanks, you know, coming down to get us out."
After that point, by comparison, the European combat amounted to "a little mopping up." A titanic nightmare, however, was still to be encountered.
"We went up around Munich ... and you know, some people say there wasn't no such thing as the Holocaust? I know better. I saw it. I saw 'em getting the Jews out of the concentration camps, and we went on up to Le Havre, France, and the war was over then."
He and his peers, he said, had "a good feast," helping make up for the absence of Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners in the previous months.
Boston was his first stop back in the states, and he headed south, en route to Fort Bragg, N.C. "I was discharged December the 17th, 1945."
As for rank, he said, "When I went in there, they had a full house, and when I come out, they had a full house. I didn't have no chance of making even a sergeant ... I started as a PFC and come out as a PFC, and I liked it like that."
He went on to have a career at Clearwater Finishing Company. "I handled cloth, I folded cloth, counted cloth, inspected cloth ... and I stayed over there 27 years."
Memorial Day, he confirmed, packs plenty of meaning for him. "I'd like to tell people to be patriotic, and be good to the soldiers. Take care of our soldiers, because they're our protection, you know, and that's just about it. I mean, I'd like for 'em to honor the military."
He and his wife, Vera, live "about two blocks behind the Sno-Cap," at Edgewood and Jackson avenues. Goforth, one of Herrington's fellow members of American Legion Post 71, confirmed that Herrington is one of the group's most active members.
Goforth, Herrington and fellow post member Johnny Perry (another WWII vet who served in the 101st Airborne) get together frequently. Goforth (a Vietnam vet also from the 101st Airborne) noted that Herrington and Perry "talk about the towns and the buildings and the weather" from their memories of about 65 years ago.
"They don't get into the wartime activities -- the bang-bang, shoot-'em-up. That's not what they're about ... They really enjoy each other," Goforth said.
Goforth noted that Herrington is now recovering from major surgery. As for Herrington's involvement with Post 71, Goforth added, "He's always apologizing for not being able to do more, and all of us always tell him he's already ... paid his dues. He doesn't have to apologize to anybody for not working all day down there ... He's a piece of history for this area."
