Uncle Billy

January 1945, a few days before he shipped out

I have always been intrigued by the fate and short life of my Uncle Billy.  Born on December 5th, 1927, he was only 2 years old when he and his 4 year old brother and 7 year old sister were separated from their mother and sent to live as foster children with Clara and Sealey Carpenter in Bassett, Nebraska.

Uncle Billy had finished his junior year of High School in Bassett and was about to enter his senior year when the lure of fame and glory in the military got the better of him.  Since all of his brothers, and now his sister Eleanor had moved to the west coast to join the war effort, he was the only one of the siblings who still remained at the foster home in Bassett.  It must have seemed awfully lonely to him.

In July of 1944, he headed west to Sacramento, California, to be with the rest of his family.  On August 28^th of that year, in San Francisco, he lied about his age and enlisted in the U. S. Army.  He was 99 days short of his 17 birthday!  Billy had barely finished basic training when things heated up in France.  The Germans had just completed “Operation Northwind” at Colmar, France, wherein they split the forces of the U. S. 7^th Army and placed them in a grave situation.  The following is the speech given by Adolph Hitler to his troops on the eve of the offensive.

"This attack has a very clear objective, namely the destruction of the enemy forces. There is not a matter of prestige involved here. It is a matter of destroying and exterminating the enemy forces wherever we find them. The question of liberating all of Alsace at this time is not involved either. That would be very nice, the impression on the German people would be immeasurable, the impression on the world decisive, terrific psychologically, the impression on the French people would be depressing. But that is not important. It is more important, as I said before, to destroy his manpower."

General Eisenhower ordered reinforcements, a few of which came from the beleaguered troops who were still embroiled in the “Battle of the Bulge” just to the north in the Ardennes, and a contingent of fresh recruits from the United States.  Billy was one of those fresh recruits.

Billy’s unit, the XXI Corps was subordinate to the 3^rd division of the U.S. 7^th Army when they began combat operations in mid-January of 1945.  Their goal was to regain the ground lost to Germany’s New Years offensive, “Operation Northwind” into Alsace, France.  For this effort, Billy’s unit would be attached to the French 1^st Army, under the command of Jean de Lattre de Tassigny and they would be pitted against the command of none other than  Heinrich Himmler himself.  It was a fierce pitched battle in bitter winter cold that ultimately collapsed the “Colmar Pocket” and ended German resistance in France.  This is where William Raymond Henderson lost his life on February 2nd, 1945.  He had taken cover in a small farm building that was hit by tank fire.  The seasoned veterans knew better than to take cover in buildings that were inevitably the targets for artillery, but green recruits did not.  Billy is buried in the military cemetery in Epinal, France.