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THURSDAY. MAY 27. 2021 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 11A
Memorial Day ceremony in Jasper Monday
Col. Robert Cagle will be
the keynote speaker.
In honor of fallen veter
ans, the North Ga. Mountains
Det. Marine Corps League
will hold a Memorial Day
ceremony on Monday, May
31.
The ceremony will be
held at Sunrise Memorial
Gardens Cemetery, located at
364 East Church Street,
Jasper. The public is invited
to attend this poignant event,
which begins at 10 a.m.
This year, retired Marine
Col. Bob Cagle will be the
keynote speaker.
Colonel Robert Cagle,
USMCR (Ret.) grew up on
his family’s farm in north
Georgia. He graduated from
the University of Georgia
with a Bachelor of Science in
Agriculture, and was com
missioned a Second Lieu
tenant in the United States
Marine Corps in 1988 report
ing for active duty that year.
Since that time he has served
continuously in active and re
serve duties. His assign
ments are varied within the
Marine Corps serving in
command and staff positions
at every level up to the Divi
sion.
Col. Cagle has com
manded Charlie Company,
4th Landing Support Battal
ion in Charleston S.C. and
HQ and Service Battalion,
4th Marine Logistics Group,
in Marietta, Ga. He is a vet
eran of Desert Shield and
Desert Storm in the Persian
Gulf, and Operation Eastern
Exit - Mogadishu Somalia.
Col. Cagle has been mobi
lized for deployments in sup
port of the Global War on
Terrorism - Operation Endur
ing Freedom first at an anti
terrorism base in the Horn of
Africa 2005, and then 2011-
2012 with U.S. Marine Corps
Forces Central Command
(MARCENT) in the King
dom of Bahrain. Upon de
mobilization, he served the
4th Marine Division as the
Assistant Chief of Staff G-4
followed by a three-year as
signment to Headquarters
Marine Corps.
Col. Cagle’s final assign
ment was with Marine Corps
Recruiting Command
(MCRC) as the Reserve Sup
port Officer for the Eastern
Recruiting Region where he
served until his retirement in
July 2018 concluding 30
years of active and reserve
service.
His personal decorations
include the Legion of Merit,
Meritorious Service Medal
with gold star in lieu of sec
ond award, Navy and Marine
Corps Commendation
Medal, the Navy Achieve
ment Medal, and the Human
itarian Service Medal.
Col. Cagle is an educator
at Riverside Military Acad
emy. He has served as In
terim Dean of Academics,
and is currently the Science
Department Chair teaching
both Science and Social
Studies.
Continued From 1A
Pictured here in the center of the second row is Donnis
Fields who joined the service in June of1940 because it of
fered steady employment. This is probably a pre-war photo,
evidenced by the World War I vintage helmets worn by the
men pictured with him.
The M-10 Tank Destroyer looks like a tank but is differ
ent in that it was developed for the sole purpose of destroy
ing enemy tanks. Designed to fire a "high muzzle velocity,
low trajectory projectile," its gun was much more powerful
than the 75 mm of the Sherman tank. (Photo courtesy of
the National Archives.)
\M I /
Jf &
At one of his many training camps, Donnis Fields is pic
tured here in his dress uniform. From 1940 to 1944, he
trained at Camp Blanding, Florida; Fort Jackson, South
Carolina; Camp Hood, Texas; Camp Forrest, Tennessee;
and Fort Benning and Camp Gordon, both in Georgia. He
also participated in maneuvers in Alabama, Tennessee,
Louisiana, and South Carolina.
Tribute
in its final days, the war was
still a reality for hundreds of
thousands of American ser
vicemen who had fought
their way deep into the Ger
man Fatherland during the 10
months following the D-Day
invasion in Normandy the
preceding June.
During the previous year,
many historic, horrific battles
had been fought on the Cher
bourg and Brest peninsulas
and in the Hurtgen and Ar
dennes forests. By now, those
big battles were a thing of the
past, yet the German Army,
even though on the verge of
collapse, was still fighting fe
rociously for their homeland
in sporadic pockets of resist
ance.
Donnis Fields was one of
those still fighting in those
final days of the war after
having fought in some of
those gigantic conflicts of the
previous year. When he had
landed on Utah Beach the
previous summer, Fields had
been an enlisted man, but he
was offered a battlefield
commission and now he was
an officer, a second lieu
tenant. Also, just a few weeks
earlier, he had been awarded
a Purple Heart for a shrapnel
injury and, while he lay
wounded, he had narrowly
escaped death when he was
almost run over by an Amer
ican tank.
Fields was with a fellow
officer, Lieutenant Hol
brooks, in April of '45 when
they heard a "commotion"
nearby. Holbrooks yelled,
"Come on, Fields. Let's go
see what's going on." Hol
brooks cocked his 45 caliber
pistol and jumped into a Jeep
with Fields. Just as the Jeep
started with a lunge, a shot
rang out. Holbrooks looked
at Fields and asked, "Are you
hit?" He was.
Twenty-three years ear
lier, Donnis Fields would be
come the second child of an
eventual nine children bom
to Jack and Annice Ellenburg
Fields of Pickens County.
During the first years of his
life, young Donnis spent a
near idyllic youth in Marble
Hill, fishing for catfish,
bream, and perch in Long
Swamp Creek, swimming in
the creek's Stegall Hole,
'coon and 'possum hunting in
nearby woods, building and
racing "truckwagons" with
wheels made from the trunks
of pine trees, and enjoying
baseball games in the Tum-
blin's pasture behind the
Harbin and McClain Grocery
Store. Donnis's father even
bought the family a Model-T
Ford, proof that the times
were good.
However, times became
tough with the onset of the
Great Depression, and Jack
Fields soon found himself
unemployed and getting
more and more in debt. He
packed up the family and
moved to nearby Jasper.
They moved in with Donnis's
grandmother, Ella Fields. The
grandfather, Sidney, was de
ceased. Now living with his
mother and with a wife and
several children to support,
Jack Fields decided he and
the children would "make a
crop" to feed the family.
But, Mr. Fields soon
found employment at the
Ford plant in Atlanta and
moved his family once again,
but Don remained behind to
help finish with the crop and
began his high school senior
year in Jasper. Before the
year was out, he also moved
to Atlanta and graduated
Donnis Fields, originally
from Marble Hill, com
manded a Tank Destroyer
platoon in World War II
France and Germany. He
received a Bronze Star, a
Purple Heart, and a battle
field commission. He nar
rowly escaped death while
serving near Hermeskiel,
Germany in February, 1945.
from Fulton High School in
the spring of 1940. It was
soon after that Don Fields
would begin his military ca
reer.
Like so many young men
of that era, Fields joined the
military because the service,
in those uncertain times, of
fered steady employment. In
June of 1940, a year and a
half before Pearl Harbor, the
18-year-old enlisted with the
179th Field Artillery of the
Georgia National Guard. He
was paid "a dollar a day" and
he thought that was "pretty
good pay" in the waning
years of the depression.
For the next three years,
Private Fields trained in nu
merous places across the
country, at Camp Blanding,
Florida; Fort Jackson, South
Carolina; Camp Hood,
Texas; Camp Forrest, Ten
nessee; and Fort Benning and
Camp Gordon, both in Geor
gia. He also participated in
maneuvers in Alabama, Ten
nessee, Louisiana, and South
Carolina.
Eventually, Private Fields
found himself in the 74th
Provisional Anti-Tank Unit,
formed as a result of George
Patton's belief that "The only
way to stop a tank was with
another tank." With the heavy
armor of the German
Blitzkrieg rampaging across
Europe and at Patton's urg
ing, in December of 1941,
the same month as Pearl Har
bor, "the Tank Destroyer idea
was bom."
The iconic Sherman tank
was designed for many mis
sions, but the soon-to-be-de-
veloped M-10 Tank
Destroyer, was designed to
fire a "high muzzle velocity,
low trajectory projectile" for
the express purpose of de
stroying enemy Panzer tanks.
Because of the similar ap
pearance, the TD was often
also referred to as a "tank."
In March of 1943, Fields'
unit was assigned to the 10th
Armored Division after re
ceiving their first M-10 Tank
Destroyers. However, be
cause of training needed for
the newly developed M-10
TD, it would be more than a
year before Fields would ship
overseas.
The 10th Armored was
alerted to prepare to ship out
on March 17, 1944 and
headed to Camp Shanks,
New York. On June 1st,
Fields boarded the Nieuw
Amsterdam to sail east to
ward Europe. He recalled
waving at the Statue of Lib
erty as the ship pulled out of
New York harbor. After five
days at sea, the soldiers were
told the invasion of Hitler's
Fortress Europe, the D-Day
Landings, had begun.
Fields disembarked the
ship at Gourock, Scotland on
June 12 th and the 10th Ar
mored went to Arbury Park
in central England to prepare
their equipment for their own
crossing of the English Chan
nel. After crossing in an LST
(Landing Ship, Tank), Fields
found himself a part of the
newly formed Third Army
under the command of Gen
eral George Patton. Follow
ing Operation Cobra, the
Third Army broke through
the German defenses an
chored in the hedgerows of
the Normandy Bocage and
was soon rapidly advancing
across France into the west
ern fringes of Germany itself.
It was while in France,
Fields, now a sergeant, re
ceived a letter from his
mother in Atlanta. She wrote
that she had found the "per
fect girl" for him. Martha
Whorton had moved into a
house across the street. Al
though Don “didn't give it
much thought at the time,"
his mother insisted if he were
not interested, she might sug
gest Martha to another son,
Don's younger brother,
Harold, who was serving in
the Navy.
During the heavy winter
fighting of 1944-45 in the
Hurtgen and Ardennes
Forests, Fields had some
"close calls." Once, after
raiding a German wine cellar,
he was holding a bottle in his
hands, showing it off to his
buddies, when the bottle was
struck by a piece of shrapnel
and the glass cut his hand. He
mentioned this "wound" to
his commanding officer, and
asked, not very seriously, if
he should put in for a Purple
Heart. The CO answered
very seriously and emphati
cally with a "No!" The officer
added, with a hint of future
possibilities, "It wouldn't
look too good for a soldier he
had planned to recommend
for a battlefield commission."
Now a platoon sergeant
commanding a platoon of
four tank destroyers, it was in
February of 1945 near the
German town of Hermeskiel,
when Fields had his closest
call yet. While conferring
with an officer about how to
deploy their tanks, German
artillery shells began to drop
on their location. The officer
yelled, "We'd better get our
tanks out of here," and the of
ficer started running back to
his tank. It was then, Ser
geant Fields was hit by shrap
nel. The blow had thrown
him to the ground, knocked
the breath out of him, and he
was unable to get up.
He recalled, "It felt like a
piece of shrapnel tore
through my back and out my
stomach." He feared that he
was paralyzed. As the pla
toon of tank destroyers fired
up their engines to move out,
an American tank headed
straight toward him. Fearing
he might be crushed beneath
the tank's tracks, he started
waving and over the din of
battle begged, "Please don't
run over me!" At the last sec
ond, the tank turned and
veered away.
After lying there several
minutes, Fields remembered,
"I finally got my breath, took
a sulfur pill, drank some
water, and got nerve enough
to feel my belly expecting to
feel a handful of guts," but
the fragment "had not come
through." He began to crawl
toward where his platoon
was deployed. After several
excruciatingly painful min
utes, he reunited with his unit
and was evacuated to a field
hospital where a doctor told
him, "I trace a fragment left
in your back but it doesn't
show on X-ray." Fields said
that after nearly eight
decades, "I have some shrap
nel in me yet."
It was that wound which
resulted in Fields receiving a
Purple Heart. He recuperated
in the hospital for two weeks,
and by mid-March, he had re
turned to his platoon. In ad
dition to that Purple Heart,
Fields also received the
Bronze Star. Less than two
weeks after being wounded,
he was awarded his battle
field commission and trans
ferred to another unit and
away from the 3rd Platoon, B
Company with which he had
served for four years.
A few weeks later, he and
Lieutenant Holbrooks had
heard the "commotion" and
jumped into a Jeep to inves
tigate when Fields was hit
again. After he was asked if
he was hit, Fields lifted his
leg to show Holbrooks his
left boot with blood spurting
out. Ironically, this time, it
was not enemy fire that had
wounded him, but Lt. Hol
brooks' 45 caliber pistol "had
gone off' when the Jeep had
lurched forward.
Nevertheless, it was a
"Million Dollar Wound," and
Lt. Fields was soon headed
stateside from Aachen, Ger
many by way of Goose Neck,
New York and Richmond,
Virginia to Battey General
Hospital in Rome, Georgia
where he continued his recu
peration near his home. In the
meantime, Germany surren
dered.
Shortly after returning to
his parents' home, one day he
walked into the front yard
and he spied an attractive
young girl in the yard of the
house across the street. He
walked to her and struck up a
conversation. It was Martha
Whorton, the same girl about
whom Don's mother had
written earlier.
The following year, in
1946, he and Martha were
married and after a Gatlin-
burg, Tennessee honeymoon,
made their home in the At
lanta area, eventually settling
in Marietta. They had three
daughters, Joy, Donna, and
Susan and their progeny also
includes four grandchildren
and 10 great-grandchildren.
Fields soon found em
ployment as a fireman with
the Nashville, Chattanooga,
and St. Louis (NCSL) rail
way, but eventually began a
career with NL Industries
(National Lead) and became
a supervisor of refining alloy.
Because of his supervisory
position, he often traveled
across the country including
stints in Los Angeles and
Miami. In a recent interview,
Fields said, "We enjoyed
traveling around the coun
try." He retired after 35 years
with the company. Martha,
who worked for the Ohio
Medical Co., also retired
after many years with that
company.
In that same recent inter
view, Donnis Fields was
asked about his early child
hood, growing up in Marble
Hill. Even after more than
eight decades, he said, "I
have very fond memories of
those days." He added, he has
especially fond memories of
attending the Marble Hill
School.
Now, at the age of 99,
Fields is looking forward to
marking his 100th birthday
on October 22nd, as well as
celebrating with his wife,
Martha, their 75th wedding
anniversary in November.
(Unless otherwise noted,
all photographs are from the
private collection of the
Fields family.)
In addition to being a
Pickens Progress contributor,
Larry Cavender is also the
author of four books. His lat
est, Thank You for Your Serv
ice - A Tribute, is a collection
of 24 stories about veterans
similar to the one featured
here. The book is available at
several locations including
the offices of the Pickens
County Progress in Jasper;
Bell's Family Pharmacy in
Tate; Ball Ground Phar
macy; and, Northside Phar
macy in Canton; as well as at
Amazon.com and Barnes and-
Noble.com.
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