Fremont Gruss, a veteran of the 97th Infantry Division and liberator of southwestern Bohemia, turns 102!

Today, Fremont Gruss, a veteran of the 97th Infantry Division, 303. Regiment, Company M who helped liberate southwestern Bohemia, is celebrating his 102nd birthday.

We wish him all the best and, above all, good health!

Annandale native fought through Germany and Czechoslovakia, then shipped out to the Pacific in preparation for the invasion of Japan before World War II came to an end in August of 1945.

The hardest combat came when his 97th Infantry Division battled across the Sieg River in Germany under heavy machine gun fire in April of 1945, just one month before the war ended in Europe.

"I saw a lot of buddies afterward. They all laid very still. Most of them were quite bloody," Gruss recalled. "I know a lot of those 19-, 20- and 21-year-olds never came back to their mothers and fathers. They never came home to share the love of a family, have a wife and children. They gave their lives for your freedom and my freedom."

Life before war

Gruss grew up in Annandale, the youngest of five children, one of whom died in infancy.

His father Albert owned the Annandale Mercantile Company on Main Street, but when drought ruined harvests during the Great Depression years the farmers that made up most of his clients were unable to pay for items they had purchased from the store throughout the year.

The Gruss family lost their business, home and Bass Lake cabin, and a hardscrabble existence followed in which Gruss remembered gathering coal that fell from trains passing through town for heat, and fishing and hunting constantly to help keep food on the table.

A member of the Class of 1943 at Annandale High School and a co-captain of the football team, Gruss left Annandale after his junior year of high school to help his mother care for her parents in Minneapolis.

He never returned here to live, but still visits his hometown from time to time from his current residence in Deephaven and enjoys the Fourscore and More Reunion held each fall.

"It was difficult to leave when so many of the kids I grew up with from kindergarten on were still here," he said.

Army life

Shortly after graduating from West High School in Minneapolis Gruss was drafted into the Army and entered basic infantry training at Camp Roberts in California. He considered himself fortunate to be assigned to a heavy weapons company with .30-caliber machine guns and 81-millimeter mortars rather than a rifle company.

"The blessing to me was I wasn’t a rifleman looking at the Germans, but I had some protection and a better chance of survival," he said.

The camp was located near a desert that featured "excruciating heat," and the men trained there each day before marching home carrying their equipment at night. Each man had to exercise "water discipline" and empty half of his canteen on the ground at the end of the day, so the march home was accompanied by ambulances that picked up numerous soldiers who collapsed from heat exhaustion and dehydration after each excursion.

One day a flight of P-40 fighters flew overhead while Gruss marched along with his heavy gear.

"I could see one of the pilots looking down and I remember thinking, ‘Why am I here and why is he up there?’" Gruss said with a laugh.

A short time later he had his own chance to fly. All 175 men in his company had the opportunity to take physical and mental examinations to join the Army Air Corps. Only Gruss and two others passed the tests, and he eventually went to Kansas for training.

Only two weeks before flying, however, the Army deemed foot soldiers more important and disbanded the group of aviation cadets. Home on leave before rejoining and infantry unit, Gruss looked up a friend from his old unit and learned that half of the men from that company had been killed in New Guinea.

"How blessed I was, for my life to be saved while I went to school rather than war, and to live when half of my buddies died," he said.

To Europe

The 97th Division shipped out to Le Harve, France, in February of 1945, surviving a storm and U-boat attacks along the way.

By this time Gruss had been assigned to the motor pool to drive a jeep that hauled ammunition, food and other supplies to the battle lines.

"We were in constant combat," he said.

At times the mortars fired so fast that 12 shells were in the air before the first one hit the ground, and the base of the mortars glowed bright red.

Gruss said his country background and hunting experience served him well in combat.

"Lots of men were killed because they didn’t understand some of the basics of hunting: move slow, stay low, stay hidden, but stay alert," said Gruss.

In late April his division crossed into Czechoslovakia and liberated Cheb, but the fighting continued up until the final moments of the war. In fact, the 97th Division was credited with firing the last shots of the European war.

How did Gruss feel when the Germans were beaten?

"Just doggone thankful to have made it through. In the infantry you known you’re going to get shot at every day, and somebody’s going to get it," he said. "You’re always thinking of survival. When you wake up in the morning you know something back can happen but you don’t know what. You’re never completely at ease."

He said a particular terror were the German 88-millimeter guns.

"They could shoot two miles and hit a fly with it," he said.

Japan

Germany’s defeat was only half the war, and Gruss and the rest of the 97th Division was sent to the Pacific in preparation for the invasion of Japan. From an island used as a staging base Gruss had a 12-mile view of the surrounding ocean, and it was filled with the invasion fleet.

"I couldn’t comprehend there were that many ships in the world," and that was only a portion of the fleet, he said.

After the atomic bombs were dropped in August the 97th landed in Japan as part of the occupation force. Gruss and his unit were assigned to a huge airfield about 75 miles from Tokyo where about 2,000 planes had been marshalled to repel the invasion. The barracks building they inhabited was infested with lice and fleas.

"You could never stop scratching. It was just hideous," he said.

Eventually he escaped the fleas by qualifying to become a military policeman. In that capacity he had freedom to travel the countryside, and everywhere he saw preparations that had been made to contest the invasion.

"Japan was ready to fight the war for decades," he said. "There was ammunition and positions all over the countryside, and the shoreline was like Swiss cheese with gun emplacements. So it was truly a blessing that the war ended abruptly."

Despite the particularly savage nature of the fighting in the Pacific, Gruss admired the Japanese people.

"They were absolutely beautiful," he said. "I never met one - and I knew a lot – who was not kind, courteous and respectful. They were truly wonderful people and I made some good friends."

Afterward

Gruss returned home, married and raised children. He served as the historian for the Legion Post in Excelsior, helped veterans share their stories through interviews on DVD, and arranged for a group to fly to Washington, D.C., for the opening of the national World War II monument there.

He said it is not particularly difficult to reflect on his own experiences because they came so long ago, but when Memorial Day comes around each year Gruss feels the full weight of the day through the memories of his lost friends.

"I ask each American citizen to do all they possibly can … to give honor and respect to so many young men who gave their lives," he said.

https://www.annandaleadvocate.com/news/3262/europe-and-japan-gruss-served-in-both-world-war-theaters