Web Editors note:  Gilbert and Neil reunites after 50 years.

It was near Fritzlar in 1950 or 1951. Most of the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment was out in the field and the 1st Battalion, which normally pulled base guard duty, was out in the field too. I very seldom was called to do guard duty because as a radio operator we were exempt from that because of our duty hours and later as a radio repairman, I was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, when the 1st battalion was out, they called on as many people as were needed to guard the base. I got called for guard duty and I was assigned as a guard in a town near Fritzlar. Our job was to be on call if American dependents in the town needed help. We would report for duty at 6:00 PM at the German police station in town, remain there overnight, and get off duty at 6:00 AM. This morning after we got off duty we started back to the base in Fritzlar. As we were going down the road, it started to drizzle and the driver, PFC James Lizyness, was driving a bit too fast for the road conditions. Many roads in Germany are cobblestone and this one was one of them. I told Lizyness to slow down because the road was too slick. He didn’t slow down and as we got to the top of the small hill we were climbing, I told him to slow down again and before he could do it, he slid out of control and we slid to the side of the road. We hit the ditch sideways and we rolled over. The last thing I remember was starting to roll over and the next moment, I was on the ground face down. When I was coming to, I could hear far off in the distance a voice calling, “Sandy, Sandy!” It was Lizyness. I opened my eyes but I couldn’t see and my first thought was, “I’m blind!” I touched my face and it felt like hamburger and I thought I tore my face all up! It didn’t hurt so I brushed my face again and then “I could see!”. I looked at my hand and expected to see a bloody mess. It wasn’t, it was just mud from where my face had been jammed into the ground. Then I felt this crushing weight and I twisted my head and saw the jeep lying on top of me. The jeep had rolled 360 degrees and the left rear wheel had landed on my lower back and was pinning me down. I yelled to Lizyness “to get this damned jeep off of me!” He tried to lift it up by hand and he couldn’t budge it so he then got in the jeep, started the engine and tried to drive it off. However, because the rear wheels were in the muddy ditch, the wheel started spinning on top of me. I screamed for him to stop and he did. He then put it in 4-wheel drive and was able to drive it off. I got up from the mud and started picking up the radio that had fallen off the radio mount and had to look for my “45 caliber” weapon that got out of the holster and was buried in the mud. Once I found everything I told Lizyness to get the jeep out of the field so we could go home. He was crying and said he couldn’t because he was very nervous. He later told me that he was scared because he thought that I was dead because I wasn’t responding when he was calling me. I climbed in the driver’s seat and got the jeep back on the road and we drove to Fritzlar. I was mad at him for driving too fast so I didn’t even stop at the gate when we arrived at the base. I drove straight to our company area but the guard had phone our orderly room to report that one of our vehicles had just gone through the gate without stopping and that the top was damaged. When we got to the company area, the 1st Sgt. and some other people were waiting for us. The Sgt. asked us what had happened and I told him about our accident and when I tried to get out of the jeep, an excruciating pain hit me in the back and I couldn’t get out. I told the Sgt. to call the medics because I was driving over there and tell them to help me get off the jeep. When I arrived, they had several medics waiting outside and they lifted me out. It hurt like hell and I kept yelling for them to give me a shot for the pain. They ignored me and put me on a gurney and wheeled me inside to take an x-ray. They found out that my back wasn’t broken so they finally gave me a shot and some pain killer. They put me under a heat lamp where I stayed for several hours. They told me I was badly bruised but that no bones had been broken. I was given light duty for several weeks. I limped around for a while but being a young enough kid I recovered eventually. I recovered enough to not feel any pain for long periods of time but over the years I would have recurring bouts of back pain and they would last from a few days to several weeks. Sometimes I had to miss work because of the severe back pain. But I believe that I’m a lucky man. I recovered from the accidents I had in the Army and am very proud to have served in the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the United States Constabulary.


The 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment had been on field exercises before we went to Vilseck. We went to there so that the Tankers and Weapons Platoon guys could receive extra training. Since the training was only for them, the rest of the company was basically off duty. However, the Radio Operators and the Message Center guys still worked our normal shifts. The town of Vilseck was “off limits” for the troops, so the company commander allowed beer to be sold in the mess hall during duty hours. We played horseshoes and ball during the day to pass the hours. Beer was only ten cents a canteen cup. After the completion of the training, we left the camp and were on our way to Fritzlar. We stopped outside the base in a bivouac area for an overnight stay and the Colonel, the regimental commander, parked his jeep under a high tension line and ordered the rest of the Hq. Company to park in line beside his jeep. We should not have parked there because communication radios do not work well under electric wires but you don’t argue with a Colonel so we did as we were ordered. Neil Aikin was in the back of a 2 ½ ton truck in the HO17. (Radio hut that slides into the bed of the truck). We were pulling a PE 95 power generator in a trailer behind us. Before we left camp, the operator on duty, maybe Neil, noticed that the generator was missing and so when we stopped outside in the bivouac area, Sgt. Harry Robbins, our radio chief, noticed that the sediment bowl on the fuel line was filled with sediment. He told me to remove it and to clean it and blow on the fuel line to unplug the line. We both worked on it, he was on top of the generator and I was on the ground. As I put the sediment bowl back in place, we turned on the generator and noticed that the bowl was leaking. I couldn’t tighten it with my hand so I grabbed a pair of pliers and started to tighten the knurled nut on the sediment bowl to stop the leaking gas. While I was doing that, Sgt. Robbins told the operator on duty to get back on the air so one guy jumped on top of the HO17 to raise the three whip antennas that had been tied down during our trip. When one of the released antennas hit the high voltage line (they told me later that it carried 18,000 volts), the high voltage arced across the antenna insulator and went through the trailer hitch and through me as I was standing on the ground and leaning on the trailer fender. The pliers I had in my hand caused a spark and the leaking gas caught on fire. I felt as if I were flying through the air and 50 years later, Neil Aikin confirmed that I did indeed was thrown through the air and did a ground loop and landed on my stomach. I knew I had been hit with high voltage and as I went flying, I told Sgt. Robbins, “Help me Robby” and that’s all I remember as I passed out. When the guys checked me, they found that I was not breathing. Sgt. Robbins started artificial respiration on me. Another guy, I think it may have been Sgt. Robert Bauer, the Platoon Sgt., grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out the fire at the sediment bowl. I received a burn on my leg where I was leaning on the fender of the PE95 trailer (the high voltage shock burned a hole in my pants‘ leg). I got another burn on my hand where I held the pliers and another on my arm where it was resting on the trailer side. As a bunch of the fellows continued to performed artificial respiration because I still was not breathing, I remember starting to come to my senses and it seemed to me as if I was in a glass of green milk. It was springtime and there was a lot of green grass growing all around and all I could see was a green milky fog swirling around me. But I still wasn’t breathing on my own and as I struggled to breath in air and I could hear the guys working on me say that I still wasn’t breathing and to keep pumping but I struggled so much trying to suck in air that they couldn’t hold me down. As I stood up, I finally was able to start breathing air on my own and they were still holding on to me until I said, “You can let me go, I’m alright now.” But when they released me, I fell to the ground because I was so weak that I couldn’t stand up on my own. An Ambulance came and whisked me off to a field hospital and the medics carried me into a tent where a doctor treated me. The skin and flesh on my leg was gone all the way to the bone by my right knee where I was burned and it hurt like hell. I could see the shiny bare white bone when the Doctor raised my pant’s leg and he asked me if it hurt. I was hurting so much that I didn’t think when I answered, “Of course it hurts, you dumb son of a bitch.” He grinned and got up and got an icy cold cream and put it on my wound and it almost immediately got rid of the pain. After he dressed it, I apologized when I realized I had called a Captain, an SOB. He smiled and said that he should have realized it was hurting and there was no need to apologize. He was going to send me to a hospital but I didn’t want to go so he finally released me back to my unit and he put me on light duty. However, the next morning I was so stiff I couldn't move anything but my eyes without hurting all over. I was one lucky fellow!! It did seem to affect me though, I spent a lot of time just sitting in the sun - not talking - just sitting and thinking that I was one lucky son of a gun. Days later after we were in Fritzlar, Sgt. Joe Babineau told me that I owed him a bottle of cognac. I asked him why and he said that when I had the accident, that he had just opened a new bottle of cognac and was about to take the first drink when someone came running and told him, “Sandy just got killed!” He was so shocked that he dropped the bottle and it broke. I gladly bought the new bottle. I sure was glad that I could because I was able to drink it with them and not have them drink it in memory of me. They deserved a lot more, they saved my life.


Back