From GMI to WWII
Editor’s Note: At the onset of World War II, a great many Kettering/GMI students suspended their higher education and heeded the call to serve our nation during this historic conflict. Unfortunately, many did not return. But a great many did return to their studies at the institution. This article is the first in a series that honors the commitment and service of our graduates during WWII, and reminds readers about the debt paid to secure our nation’s freedom. The “Kettering Perspective” conveys special thanks to “The Flint Journal,” from which portions of Smith’s account are derived for this story.
By Gary J. Erwin
Stanley Joe Erwin. Walton Aluard Erwin. I barely recognized their names on the list of deceased when my father, a Navy vet, showed me the issue of “Life” that honored those service people who perished on the USS Arizona during Pearl Harbor. As my father slid his finger along the page, he was quiet and had a wistful look in his eye, perhaps recalling a day of baseball with his cousins, or a family Christmas. He closed the magazine, handed it to me and whispered, “Take care of this. It’s part of our history.”
When the first call for stories about service of GMI students during World War II first appeared in this magazine several months ago, we received many amazing accounts. As a result, this is the first of several articles that will appear in the “Kettering Perspective” that honor the sacrifice and commitment of those who delayed their GMI education to support the cause for freedom.
Croner, an Army Private, was part of a massive group of soldiers heading for Europe when he learned that his assignment would switch from ordinance to infantry. “Needless to say, there were 5,000-plus long faces about that day on the ship when we heard it on the loudspeaker,” he explained. After his group reached France and completed their infantry training, they were immediately assigned to Co. G, 333 Infantry, 84 Infantry Division, which was already in combat on the Siegfried Line in Geilenkirehen, Germany. But soon after their arrival and engagement in combat, he and his unit were pulled from the front line and transported to the Ardennes of Belgium, otherwise known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Once he checked in at G Company after his arrival at the Ardennes, officers told Croner’s group that they would engage in combat the following morning and to wait until then in their fox holes.
As he sat on one side of his fox hole, a mortar landed on the other side, but fortunately, it was a dud. His good luck would last a long time. Once, a bullet ripped through his pant leg, knocking him down, but he received no wound. At another point, a bullet struck his ammunition bandolier and he thought it would rip his neck off, but again, he was not wounded. A bullet also clipped off the lapel of his coat, but he was uninjured. And while searching through a building looking for the enemy, an 88 mm round fired from a German tank exploded in an adjacent room, collapsing the building and trapping him—yet he received no wound.
But his luck did not hold.
Although he endured difficult surgeries, he returned home and following his discharge from the Army, attended Kettering/GMI. He retired from his position as superintendent of Industrial Engineering for Fisher Body in 1981 and resides in Grand Blanc with his wife, Anne.
  |
To request an issue of Kettering Perspective, contact us at
Kettering Perspective, Office of PR & Communications, 1700 West Third Avenue, Room 4-934 CC, Flint MI 48504.
810 762-9538 voice; 810 762-7435 fax; gerwin@kettering.edu