R.I.P. Charles Durning, actor and decorated WWII soldier

[Broadsword56]

I was struck by this passage in today's New York Times obit for actor Charles Durning, 89, who died Christmas Eve:

----

...Then came World War II, and he enlisted in the Army [rifleman with the 398th Infantry Regiment, later with the 3rd Army Support troops and the 386th Anti-aircraft Artillery (AAA) Battalion]. His combat experiences were harrowing. He was in the first wave of troops to land on Omaha Beach on D-Day and his unit’s lone survivor of a machine-gun ambush.

In Belgium he was stabbed in hand-to-hand combat with a German soldier, whom he bludgeoned to death with a rock. Fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, he and the rest of his company were captured and forced to march through a pine forest at Malmedy, the scene of an infamous massacre in which the Germans opened fire on almost 90 prisoners. Mr. Durning was among the few [only three, according to other sources] to escape.

By the war’s end he had been awarded a Silver Star for valor and three Purple Hearts, having suffered gunshot and shrapnel wounds as well. He spent months in hospitals and was treated for psychological trauma...

...Mr. Durning was also remembered for his combat service, which he avoided discussing publicly until later in life. He spoke at memorial ceremonies in Washington, and in 2008 France awarded him the National Order of the Legion of Honor.

In the Parade interview, he recalled the hand-to-hand combat. “I was crossing a field somewhere in Belgium,” he said. “A German soldier ran toward me carrying a bayonet. He couldn’t have been more than 14 or 15. I didn’t see a soldier. I saw a boy. Even though he was coming at me, I couldn’t shoot.”

They grappled, he recounted later — he was stabbed seven or eight times — until finally he grasped a rock and made it a weapon. After killing the youth, he said, he held him in his arms and wept.

Mr. Durning said the memories never left him, even when performing, even when he became, however briefly, someone else.

“There are many secrets in us, in the depths of our souls, that we don’t want anyone to know about,” he told Parade. “There’s terror and repulsion in us, the terrible spot that we don’t talk about. That place that no one knows about — horrifying things we keep secret. A lot of that is released through acting.”

----

CM is just a game, but part of me always tries to be mindful of what the characters and actions I'm seeing on the screen represent. I think one reason for my enduring fascination with WWII is sheer amazement at what some of these men went through, and wanting to better understand it.

Also, it amazes and fascinates me to that so many of these seemingly bland, conformist, everyday Dad types I saw and knew as a suburban American kid of the '60s were carrying incredible, unspeakable secrets around with them. Even if I had known, for example, about my high school principal's valor when he parachuted into predawn Sicily, I most likely wouldn't have properly appreciated it then (since he was angrily suspending students at the time for a Vietnam walkout protest).

[Broadsword56]

That obit also reminded me of a more mundane game issue:

Note to self: When the Market-Garden module comes out, remember that the German troops of that era bore little resemblance to the armies that the Allies faced even a few short months earlier in Normandy. By fall, a GI might find himself facing elite SS formations with Ostfront experience one day, 14-year-old green-but-fanatical Volksgrenadiers the next, and various ad-hoc mixtures of NCO school classes, regimental bandsmen, invalid Luftwaffe members, or military police units. To have realistic battles of the time period, make sure to reflect that wider variety in the "soft factors" of battle setups.

[John Kettler]

Broadsword56,

Tut! Tut! No ear and stomach battalions?! Thanks for sharing Mr. Durning's truly remarkable story.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Mord]

Also, it amazes and fascinates me to that so many of these seemingly bland, conformist, everyday Dad types I saw and knew as a suburban American kid of the '60s were carrying incredible, unspeakable secrets around with them.

It's always been my contention that that is exactly why they were so conformist, and straight laced, or square, by flower power standards. They spent a good deal of their innocence watching cities burn, women and children die, killing other men, watching buddies gunned down, most of Europe turned to rubble, and confronted the holocaust face to face. When they finally left it behind they wanted nothing but normalcy, peace, a chance to build (instead of destroy), create and live.

Most of the counter culture, that thumbed their noses at the WWII generation's "old fashioned" thinking and needed to rebel against it, had no clue what those guy's went through to put them in that mindset. What they'd sacrificed in body, mind and soul.

Not saying you...I just mean the sixties scene in general.

Anyway, Durning had a helluva story...hope he's at peace, now.

Mord.

[Broadsword56]

Yes. Just as you can't understand the Sixties without looking at the Fifties they were a reaction to, all you have to do is look the war years to realize why adults wanted the peace to be as bland and quiet and predictably stable as possible.

[Sgt Schultz]

CM is just a game, but part of me always tries to be mindful of what the characters and actions I'm seeing on the screen represent. I think one reason for my enduring fascination with WWII is sheer amazement at what some of these men went through, and wanting to better understand it.

My feelings as well sir. My father was a WW2 vet(SeaBee in the Pacific), so I tend to cringe a bit when I see troops buy the farm due to obvious commander error, be it mine or my opponent's.

That may have something to do with why I set troops to higher motivation and experience levels than historical accuracy may call for. I want them to have what they may need to make it through the battle alive more than I want them to be "Terminators".

I wonder if the veterans and sons of veterans in this community have lower average casualty rates in battles than those without military family members.

Not so much of a video game when that pixeltruppen could have been your dad/uncle/grandpa.

--------

R.I.P Charles Durning

[Silkwraith]

War.....

notwithstanding it creates heroes, it should never be glorified

my quote

[Vinnart]

Thanks for sharing his story Broadsword. It was very interesting reading of his ww2 experience that I never heard before. I can only imagine how it effected him in having to kill that boy. He was a great character actor. R.I.P Charles.

[Badger73]

It's always been my contention that that is exactly why they were so conformist, and straight laced, or square, by flower power standards. They spent a good deal of their innocence watching cities burn, women and children die, killing other men, watching buddies gunned down, most of Europe turned to rubble, and confronted the holocaust face to face. When they finally left it behind they wanted nothing but normalcy, peace, a chance to build (instead of destroy), create and live.

Most of the counter culture, that thumbed their noses at the WWII generation's "old fashioned" thinking and needed to rebel against it, had no clue what those guy's went through to put them in that mindset. What they'd sacrificed in body, mind and soul.

<snipped>

Mord.

Yes. Just as you can't understand the Sixties without looking at the Fifties they were a reaction to, all you have to do is look the war years to realize why adults wanted the peace to be as bland and quiet and predictably stable as possible.

My thinking is that these men and women of Durning's generation, as children of the depression who matured in the crucible of war and holocaust, came home from that horrible conflict and worked very hard to insure all the benefits of peace and the blessings tranquility for their own children which they themselves never knew. They succeeded remarkably. It seems their children and my peers never really appreciated it. In may ways we couldn't. Chalk it up to human ignorance and inexperience.

CMBfN is a tool I use to make up for some of that as well as a form of entertainment.

<snipped>

I wonder if the veterans and sons of veterans in this community have lower average casualty rates in battles than those without military family members. Not so much of a video game when that pixeltruppen could have been your dad/uncle/grandpa.

<snipped>

I don't know that I achieve a lower casualty rate. Although I try and curse myself often for taking casualties when greater care would have prevented their loss. (On the other hand, over-caution was Montgomery's achilles heal as a commander and it impaired his judgement in Normandy, particularly in his lack of leadership speed and fortitude seizing Caen.)

CM is the game which helps me better realize the accomplishments of our father's fathers. May Charles Durning now rest in peace with those comrades. Bless them all.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Thanks for sharing his story. Had never really seen any details about his service. Going through that and then trying to live a "normal" life would take a tremendous amount of strength and faith.

[Broadsword56]

The image of Durning sobbing and holding the boy "enemy" he just had to kill and who'd just bayonetted him is one that will stay with me a long time.

War just can't get any more brutal, personal or primal than that. How stunning to realize that for all the technology of modern mechanized warfare, a combat with a rock could happen and send things right back to the Stone Age.

I also think, from what I've read and learned about PTSD, that Durning's immediate empathy and his ability to express it right in that moment might have played a role in his postwar ability to recover eventually and live a somwehat normal life. Most soldiers who see or participate in battlefield trauma don't get the luxury of processing their feelings about it at the time. They have to blot it out and keep going, so the repressed feelings and the numbness vets develop to keep those feelings at bay do the real long-term damage.

[mjkerner]

Durning was one of my favorite character actors in the 70s-90s. He should have won an Oscar for his turn as an NYPD Lieutenant in Dog Day Afternoon. Incandescent performance!

The article you're quoting got things a little skewed, though. He was in the 398th Infantry (100th Division) apparently after he returned to duty from his wound. (I don't think the 100th went into the line before or during the Bulge, but I could have that wrong). It's not clear from what I've read whether he was in the 1st Div at Omaha or in the Rangers, but I do recall that he or another announcer stated he hit the beach there in the Normady Special from about 10 years ago that he narrated.

He wasn't one of the 3 survivors at the Malmedy Massacre (not listed as one of the survivors nor called to testify at the war crimes trial--one of the most researched and documented German war crimes against Americans) but rather was most likely one of the many captured around there and in the Bulge generally.

This Internet story is like the one about Lee Marvin getting wounded at Iwo Jima and that his squad leader/platoon sergeant was Captain Kangaroo, Bob Keeshan, which is total BS. He was wounded at Saipan, and Keeshan wasn't his sergeant or in his outfit even. Why the Internets have to embellish someone's honorable, valorous WWII achievements is beyond me. The truth about Marvin, Durning and others is stellar as is.

Peace be with all those now-fallen heroes!

[Broadsword56]

Thanks for setting it straight, mj -- didn't mean to perpetuate any errors about Durning's war record.

I had looked around on the web to try and find better detail about his actual unit(s) and whereabouts -- but since many of the sites are erroneous and since Durning himself said so little about it publicly, the details take some digging to pin down.

[mjkerner]

Oh, I wasn't knocking on you, my friend. It's the often stupid internet that's the culprit.

By the way, I'll be emailing you about future plans for MG campaign...I think I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as far as RL and work interferences.

[Broadsword56]

Hey that's great news! Looking forward to that immensely. I paused that MG campaign to wait for the module to come out anyway.

[Streety]

There are two WW2 veterans (one commando, one sailor) who still appear at my local pub a couple of afternoons a week. They don't talk about the war - apart from once when the ex-commando got chatting about D-Day (cutting comms and then a lookout half a mile from Pegasus Bridge) and then told me about his first kill (of a German sentry in Norway) when aged 19 and on his first raid. He said the nightmares affected him for decades. He was in tears by the time he finished, and since that chat 2yrs ago he won't talk about any of it any more.

My granddad would never (ever) talk about the war - he lost too many close family and friends at the front or in the blitz, according to my mum.

But just a counter-note to some of the themes earlier in this thread:

1) Monty was not too hesitant in Normandy - his plan was to take Paris by D+90, and he managed it a few days early. Caen on D+1 was an over-optimistic idea pushed by overall air and sea plans (Monty was the overall land-forces commander) and the initial Caen attack was poorly executed by junior commanders. And Eisenhower took direct command from Monty just as the outskirts of Paris was reached, and took all of Monty's glory. Monty's Normandy campaign was not without mistakes but today he is only mentioned with regard to not taking Caen on day one whilst Eisenhower took all the credit for Monty's overall success.

2) Not that I doubt those returning GI's worked extremely hard and were all great guys, but the US economy in the 1950s-60s benefitted mainly from the way the US government had managed the war, being the only major power to make a profit during the war and the way they forced the British Empire over a barrel to give up all of its cash and gold reserves (1939-1942) to pay for all that "aid" (as US histories put it). Then from 1942-1945 the US forced Britian to permanently give up most of it's Empire's trade protections in return for Lend-Lease. Thus after the war, most returning British servicemen worked hard, but the British government was bankrupt, and times remained hard. Rationing in Britain didn't end until 1954. And Austerity lasted even longer. And recovery from the Blitz was slow - when I was kid in the late 1960s, there was still one local bomb site (it got redeveloped in the 1970s). And after the war (1946), while the US reaped all those profits from the cash and taking most of Britain's trade away, Britain had to go cap-in-hand to the US for a loan just to stop those poor British soldiers returning to their factories from revolting - a loan which Britain finally paid off (many times over, due to the fixed format and all the interest) in 2006.

I could go on about late-war and post-war US policy in Sicily, eastern Europe, China, south Asia, and Central and South America, to either protect that American profit margin or later to preserve US hegemony. But the point is this: by all means remember and honour the fallen, but don't append any benefits or "big up" the US war generation with benefits that actually came via their government's machiavellianism and your own rose-tinted lenses.

[Broadsword56]

The higher-level politics and machinations of governments are completely outside and beyond the scope of this thread.

I started it to discuss one individual soldier's experience and what it can tell us about the true horrors of war.

[Silkwraith]

Why are you complaining Streety, Britain took for itself the Marshall Aid which should have gone to its colonies one of which suffered a much tougher blitz then that experienced by the English during the war.

Malta - the only Nation which was awarded the George Cross for the bravery and suffering it had to go through had its Marshall Aid taken by England giving nothing in return. And this not to mention the thousands of historical artifacts such as the prized bronze cannons left in the Maltese Islands by the Knights of Malta which are today brazenly displayed at the Tower of London - I leave it up to your imagination how they ended there !!

Oh, and by the way, in Malta war damages can still be seen until today, unrepaired !!!!!

bahh

[Navy992]

It turns out Durning fabricated most of his wartime experiences. He told many conflicting stories over the years and the truth has finally come out. Read this all the way through -

http://nmisscommentor.com/random-firings/charles-durning-obit-in-the-new-york-times/

[Tempestzzzz]

So in the end- he was a veteran and a good actor.

Devils always in the details and facts always ruin a good story.

Durning-that's an Irish name.

Ohh those people can tell a story.

It's in their genes.

Let's listen in.

[Navy992]

Yes, too bad just having served, apparently honorably, wasn't enough for him. I recall some years back watching an NBC special about D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge, he was supposedly retracing his steps during the battle with Tom Brokaw and making up all his exploits as he went along. He told one too many stories and accepted too many accolades for his fictitious heroism. It's hard to respect someone with such character.

[mjkerner]

So in the end- he was a veteran and a veteran.

Wrong. A wounded veteran and a great actor.

[Tempestzzzz]

Indeed. Somewhere he is playing a harp and telling his stories.

Gawd I'd wished I'd seen that interview with Tom Brokaw. Brokaw looking all serious and earnest as Charles held forth with his stories (which one -the one where he fought hand to hand with one of Adolf's warrior bashing his blond head in with a rock while the German plunged a bayonet into his side?) Yes I remember that one with it's lurid details, blood curdling.... and that's when a glimmer of doubt.... ah well no one was hurt. Least of all the German Soldier.

Into the beer cooler with you Mr. Brokaw.

[Rokko]

The timeline in this comment section strongly suggests that he never actually saw real combat. Got of the boat in mid-june, got wounded by shrapnell behind the lines and was a replacement until March 1945 or so, not being in combat units or units-in-combat afterwards.

So how did he get the Silver Star? Or is it actually possible that someone's headstone/discharge papers/military files are THAT wrong?

[Navy992]

So how did he get the Silver Star? Or is it actually possible that someone's headstone/discharge papers/military files are THAT wrong?

The below quote is from Steve Karras, author of the article that questioned Durning's version of his service and provides a reasonable explanation:

As for the Silver Star, his discharge papers reads “Silver Star” and not "Silver Star Medal" which also leads me to believe that one of his outfits had 5 bronze campaign stars (the 20th Special Services Battalion) which is usually replaced with one silver star. However, that’s just a hunch..

I've been in contact with Steve and he sent me a copy of Durning's discharge papers and medical report. They list one Purple Heart, for wounds received from the S mine explosion behind the lines, and "Silver Star" vs. "Silver Star Medal". The medical report lists no wounds other than those from the S mine disproving his claim of being bayoneted. Steve put me in contact with the researcher from the National Archives who is absolutely convinced that Durning saw no combat at all.