Soldiers & Heroes and Small Michigan Towns
Part 5
by Julie Albrecht Royce

Join in the conclusion as Harold Nehmer recalls his World War II homecoming.

Walking down the Benson’s corridors Harold spotted Louis Bauslaugh, another soldier returning from war to Croswell, Michigan. Croswell is a tiny dot on the map in Sanilac County and the chances of their meeting was slim to none, but it was good to see a face from home. It was even better to be going home.

Aboard ship, Harold gave his serial number in exchange for credits he could use to buy items at the onboard PX. He was dreaming of chocolate. He bought himself chocolate – not a piece of chocolate, not a chocolate bar, but a whole box of chocolate bars. He thought he would never get enough chocolate. He savored that first bite but should have stopped there.

His stomach was not prepared for the rich sweetness and about a third of the way through his first bar his stomach told him he had had enough. Harold told Bauslaugh to come to his cabin and he would give him a whole box of chocolate bars. Aboard ship, the men were fed bland food to try to improve their nutritional status without causing further gastrointestinal distress. White bread, a slice of turkey, nothing exciting, but to men who had been underfed for so long, it was like manna from heaven.

As they got off the Benson, each man was handed a little carton of milk. Harold “babied it along” to make it last as long as he could possibly string out that sweet taste of something he had missed for so long.

He was sitting at a table after disembarking in New York on June 12, 1945, when a man came along asking if there was anyone from Michigan aboard. It was a reporter from the Detroit Free Press and when Harold returned to Croswell he saw the picture in a subsequent issue of the paper.

Harold was now 33 years old. He had been gone for four years. His father died in October, 1944, and the sad news reached Harold by Red Cross telegram. He missed the funeral. With the help of Jake Hanel, Harold’s mother was running the jewelry store in Croswell. The additional pressures were taking their toll on her. Martha Nehmer learned in December 1944 that her son was missing in action and spent Christmas with an agonizing cloud hanging over her head.

In February, she learned Harold was a German Prisoner of War. The good news was it meant he was still alive, but the worry continued. In June of 1945, exactly four years after he first left, Harold caught a bus to Port Huron, Michigan. He hitchhiked from Port Huron to Croswell. The first car along stopped. They always did for a man in uniform.

He arrived home amid much joy and relief in the Nehmer family. He spent two weeks acclimating to civilian life and while there learned the Germans had surrendered. After his short 14 days were up, the army sent him to Florida for some R & R. They put him up at the Shellborne Hotel, a new luxury hotel in Miami. Harold went back to Florida a few years ago and the hotel had lost some of its glitz. But, in 1944 he was happy to be on the beach with a few days to absorb some sunshine and get ready for the next chapter the military had written for him. The war still was not over and the army was not quite finished with Harold Nehmer.

From the Shellborne Hotel, Harold was sent to Fort Sill and then Fort Robinson, Arkansas. He was being retrained, this time Japan was his anticipated destination. While he was at Fort Robinson, the war ended. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought about the final surrender of Japan. No more troops would head to Asia. You can see the regret in Harold’s eyes when thinking about the number of civilians killed by the bombing, but he quietly notes, “The final body count for both sides would have been significantly higher with an all-out invasion. It would have been a slaughter. The death toll was dramatically reduced by ending the war.”

The Army laid out Harold’s choices: He could stay in the Army and keep his commission, or he could be discharged. It was hardly a choice. The small town boy was ready to return home for good.

Mr. Nehmer married and had five children. In the 1980s his son, Carl, worked for General Motors in Germany and invited his parents to visit. Carl arranged cars for a family trip to the places Harold had fought and been held captive during the war. Harold, his wife Beverly, Carl, Carl’s wife and their two small babies, along with another son, David, all headed to Walbelig in Luxembourg. It was a town devastated during the war. The house Harold had stayed while there had been destroyed.

Although Carl spoke fluent German, the dialect in Luxembourg was unfamiliar and the Nehmer family could not make their questions understood. They were searching for the little schoolhouse where Harold had set up his command post nearly 40 years earlier. Finally, in frustration they drew a teeter-totter with a child on each end. The man from whom they sought directions smiled and pointed. Although it had been razed and rebuilt, Harold was able to find the spot where he had set up operation and from which he was captured. It was the place where Harold had almost died. A long time ago.