Women Remembers WWII

[conlor]

(From my home town.)

Daily News photos/BRETT MARSHALL

"He was the greatest guy there ever was," Martha Albrecht said of her late husband, William Howard Taft Albrecht.


Martha Albrecht had been married four short years when her husband, William, was drafted during World War II.

"It was so hard. We wrote each other every day," she said. The couple lived in Wyndotte at the time. William — whose full name was William Howard Taft Albrecht — also carried around a picture of his sweetheart.

Martha, 95, sat in her pleasant dining room overlooking Sanford Lake, drinking coffee out of a dainty china cup, as she talked about that time and place.

"He was drafted at the age of 32," she said,
marveling that he was drafted into the Army at that age. She said he was one of the oldest men drafted. It was September 1941.

He was in the infantry. He was sent to Springfield, IL and there joined a company. On April 1, 1942, they sailed out of New York and landed in Wales.

"They were brought in for the Battle of Normandy," she said. This is known as D-Day and was a decisive victory for the Allies.


William fought in France and Germany, the infantry pushing the German soldiers back. They lived in foxholes and trenches, dug with small shovels. Martha still has one; US 1943 is still legible on the steel part.

"It saved their lives many times," Martha said. "That was one of his prize possessions.

"He fought like that for two years," she continued.

Then the war was over and he thought he was coming home. But that wasn’t to be. He became a military policeman and was put in charge of a prison camp.

"While he was there, he made a lot of friends. They didn’t want to fight either. They had to," Martha said of the Germans.

One of the prisoners painted a picture of William’s photograph of Martha. The unknown artist created a remarkable likeness of her, from the dark hair pulled up a bit in a small pompadour to the shiny white teeth.

The picture now hangs in Martha’s home. The frame was made of pieces of wood that could be found in the camp. There is no name on the painting, and it is not known if the artist is still alive.


Martha Albrecht William and other men were sent to Marsailles in November 1945, and were told they would be home for Christmas. But that wasn’t going to happen.

The ship he got on lost its propeller and couldn’t steer. It bobbed in the ocean for 33 days, while the water and food started to run out.

A large ship came to help, only to find out it couldn’t get close enough. They finally were rescued and put on a hospital ship.

He arrived in Detroit and they took a room at the Stafford Hotel to celebrate.

"He told me all the stories," she said of the war. "He felt very strongly he was going in there and doing our country good."

They returned to civilian life, William going back to his job as a powerhouse engineer at Firestone. They saved enough to build a brick house in 1951. The couple never had children.

William retired in 1973 and they found the perfect place after a drive.

"On the way home, I said this is where we want to be," Martha said of Sanford Lake. "We had six beautiful years before he died."

Martha returned to her husband and why he and others should be honored.

"People should learn to appreciate what these men did to save this country," she said. "People today don’t even know what went on, the sacrifices. Once you got over there, you never had a break."

Midland Daily News - Midland woman remembers war: 'It was hard'

[Snowden]

That last sentence; "once you got over there you never had a break." One man in my husband's company had a head wound, was in a hospital in France where a silver plate was put in, and he went back to the front lines. I met him at the company's 50th Anniversary.

In that war, the men went for the duration.