RAFINO Report
ISSUE 20 - Spring 1998 - Return to Index

HOLT BLOMGREN'S MEMOIRS 

(Ed: In several previous issues we printed some excerpts from the memoirs written by HOLT specifically for his grandchildren.  With Holt's permission, for your enjoyment, here is another episode (going back to when Holt was a $21 a month private in 1941).   

It was in the month of May 1941, I believe, that the elements of the 6th Division quartered at Ft. Snelling were ordered to join the rest of the division at the newly established Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.  Since I still owned Skylark, my Chevy, Sam and I headed down the highway toward Missouri.  Our driving schedule called for an overnight stopover in Des Moines, Iowa, a fateful pause in the journey, as it turned out.  After securing accommodations at a motel, we drove to a nearby ice cream store in the evening for a milk shake prior to turning in for the night.  The store was located on the corner of an intersection on a major thoroughfare called "Keosauqua Way" -- a name I shall never forget.  I parked Skylark at the curb across the street, locked the doors, and we crossed the street at the intersection to enter the store.  A few minutes later, emerging from the store, we began to cross the same street at the same intersection.  I had the keys to the car in hand, but just before reaching it Sam and I were struck by a speeding vehicle, said by witnesses to be traveling about 50 miles an hour without lights.  We were evidently struck simultaneously by the front of this car and thrown about thirty feet or so to the adjacent sidewalk.  Neither of us ever aware of the on-coming vehicle.  Someone called an ambulance for each of us and upon recovering consciousness, I found myself on the way to the Army hospital located on a small Army post in Des Moines.  This was my first introduction to Army medical care, and I was singularly impressed that the first question asked of me by the attending physician was not how I felt, but rather "how much liquor had I consumed before the accident".  At any rate I was admitted as a bed patient along with Sam.  He evidently suffered a fractured skull and broken neck while I, miraculously, suffered no bone fractures, but only a severe contusion and hemotoma of my leg and a badly sprained and bruised back.  The latter was to plague me often in later years.  While confined to bed at the Fort Des Moines Hospital, waiting for the blood clot in my leg to dissipate, and pondering the incident, I concluded it was probable that Sam and I escaped death probably because we did not see the oncoming vehicle, and were thus totally relaxed when hit.  I never saw the driver, as he did not dare to inquire as to our welfare or to visit the hospital.  Finally, there was an odd and ironic legal twist to the incident which came to light when law enforcement officials determined that no serious charges would be levied against the driver since Sam and I were found partially to blame for the accident!  This bizarre conclusion was drawn from the citation of an obscure Des Moines ordinance that designated only certain intersections as "pedestrian crossings."  Inasmuch as such "crossings" were not disclosed by posted warning signs, unwary walkers were guilty of contributory negligence.  So much for Iowa justice. 

In a few weeks, thanks to my youth and otherwise good health, the medics found me sufficiently recovered to be ordered back to military duty.  So I recovered Skylark, which had been towed to a military impounding lot, gave it a much needed bath, and set out for a belated drive to Ft. Leonard Wood.  My first sight of this vast military installation was depressing enough, for it was still under construction, carved out of the wooded Missouri hills in that area.  Since the ground had been stripped of vegetation the air was saturated with the dust generated by the bulldozers and heavy trucks that swarmed over the acreage like bees.  The hundreds of wooden barracks rising daily were not yet painted so that the the total environment comprising this new home of the Army's Sixth Infantry Division -- covered with dust in dry weather and mud in wet weather -- was drabness personified.  I have no memory now of how I ever found the unit to which I was to report.  In due course I did so and was officially logged as "present for duty" and assigned a cot in one of the new barracks.  My first surprise occurred at dawn the next morning for although I was still painfully stiff and sore from the Des Moines contretemps, I was officially a "well" person, and thus found myself engaged in early morning calisthenics, exhausting hikes and runs.  My second surprise was that I discovered that the cot next to mine was occupied by a long-time Sergeant who must have weighed close to three hundred pounds!  It was his habit, of obvious long standing, to consume vast quantities of beer on Saturday nights.  So when he came puffing to his bed I was careful to be sufficiently awake - the better to spring deftly out of the way -- just in case he fell into my bed rather than his.  Should he have inadvertently chosen the former I'm sure I would have found myself back in the hospital with a new malady known as "squash-itis."  Luck prevailed, however, and he never did so.

My third surprise was that during my absence, I had been reassigned to the Division Finance Office.  I suppose that was the result of further analysis on someone's part of my record which, perhaps, gave rise to the unassailable conclusion that anyone who could type, could also add, multiply and divide, and had a graduate degree from the Harvard business School might be useful in the Finance Office.  In truth, this assignment was very beneficial for me for I joined a small group of above average soldiers under the benign and watchful eye of the then Major Harry Crandall, a most admirable gentleman, a West Point graduate, who years later had advanced to the grade of Major General as the Chief of Finance of the U.S. Army.  Our paths crossed many times as years passed and I shall always remember him and his gracious wife, Betsy -- more formally known as Ada -- (very recently deceased), with admiration and fondness.

(continued in future issues)