Page 62 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2018- Online Magazine
P. 62
Earl Robinson “The Good Lord Had My
Hand”
by Larry A. Williams
Lincoln County, a gold dig a foxhole!” His unit
strike in the mid-1880s moved forward into a wooded
by R.C. Parsons gave area when “the German 88
the town its beginning cannons opened up, cutting
and its name. Earl had through the trees” in the
two sisters and four Ardennes Forest and raining
brothers. His family flak down on the troops.
later moved to Melrose,
New Mexico where Moving into an open field,
Earl enjoyed playing Earl saw the body of a
football, basketball and German soldier and realized
baseball. When asked “this was the real thing.”
his favorite subject in He noted that “about this
high school, he jokingly time, I was hit.” Earl had
said, “athletics”. He been hit by shell fragments,
“dropped out of high one tearing into his leg. He
school in May of 1944 at was sent back to France and
the request of the Curry then to a hospital in England
County draft board,” to convalesce. He was
entering the Army in returned to the front lines in
June of 1944. Three of Belgium in April 1945 and
his brothers also served moved with his unit toward
t was a cold, winter day during WWII. When Germany. Here he received
in Belgium on January 3, told not all brothers should the Purple Heart for his
I1945 when Corporal Earl serve at the same time, he wounds. After crossing the
Robinson and his company said, “Tell that to the draft!” Wessel River, his unit was
were ordered to move out. “just clearing the way – the
This was the middle of what Earl completed a “13-week Germans were disorganized,
came to be known as the crash course in basic infantry and resistance was light
Battle of the Bulge during training at Camp Wheeler, unless we ran into the SS, and
WWII. On December 16, 1944, Georgia.” He was assigned to they kept fighting.” During
the Germans launched the the 3rd Army’s 84th Infantry, their advance, “his company
deadliest and most desperate the so-called “Rail-splitters”, commander was standing
battle of the war in the west. and “sailed out of New York in a doorway directing his
The blitzkrieg was from the on the Ile De France, a cruise men and was hit by a mortar
Ardennes to Antwerp. It liner converted to a troop shell and killed.” He also
was to be the costliest battle ship” in the fall of 1944, recalled that the 2nd Platoon
ever for the U.S. Army with headed to Ireland and then was “trying to outflank some
over 100,000 casualties. to Southampton, England. Germans across an open field,
This scenario was Corporal They boarded a ship to cross and the enemy opened fire on
Robinson’s indoctrination into the English Channel to France the platoon and killed eight
combat. and were moved near the GIs.”
front lines in Belgium via bus.
Earl Robinson was born at Moving to the front lines, When asked why the 84th
home to rancher James and the men were told to “start Infantry stopped at the River
his wife Mabel Robinson on digging foxholes.” But, as Elbe in Germany, Earl said,
October 9, 1925 in Parsons, Earl recalled, “the ground was “We could see the Russians
New Mexico. Located in frozen solid, and you couldn’t on the other side of the
62 Lubbock Senior Link
