A Vet’s Story - Wallace Worth, Jr.

Head wound doesn’t deter ‘Granitehead’

They called him “Granitehead,” both for the strength of his opinions and the strength of his skull. Fighting was in his blood. Through two major wars, not even a bullet through his helmet could stop him.

Wallace Worth Jr. sits behind the vast mahogany desk in his small Allentown law office. His blue eyes (or are they green?) twinkle kindly behind the flash of his large, gold-rimmed bifocals. Yet his gaze is direct, an almost stern quality tempering the kindness.

He is revisiting a time 60 years past, his first war, World War II. It is not hard to see the soldier in him. At 81, Worth’s stocky, average-height figure seems built for strength and endurance.

Born on March 26, 1922, in Bethlehem, Pa, Worth was a child of the Great Depression. Duty to family and country were instilled at a young age. “In those days, everybody was poor, but we didn’t know it,” Worth says, shrugging slightly.

Fresh out of high school, 18-year-old Worth entered the U.S. Army voluntarily in April of 1940. “I’m of Scottish extraction,” he explains. “My clan is a highland clan, and highlanders are a warrior race. My father would have expected me to be a soldier, at some time.”

Service in the Army, to Worth and many of the men beside whom he fought, was a profession. “Twenty-one dollars a month, and out of that they took your insurance and quartermaster laundry,” he said. “So you netted about $9 to $11 a month.” He laughs appreciatively, leaning back in his chair. “That was the old army, before World War II.”

Worth went into training at Virginia Beach, Va, and was then moved to Ft. Stewart, Ga.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Worth and a fellow soldier were watching Gary Cooper’s “Sergeant York” in a small theater in Savannah, Ga.

“They stopped the movie and announced that all troops from Ft. Stewart and Savannah Air Base were supposed to report back to their posts immediately,” Worth says. “The Japanese had been bombing Pearl Harbor since 11 o’clock that morning. So that was our introduction to World War II.”

“I was very lucky,” Worth reflects, looking back on his military experiences. He participated in three invasions, earning the maximum Combat Stars for the African, European, and Middle Eastern campaigns, as well as the Arrowhead for D-Day assaults, on his ribbon.

A small rectangular pin, deep purple with gold on the edges, glints modestly on the chest of Worth’s tweed sport coat. “You know what that is, honey?” he asks, pointing proudly to the pin. “That’s the oldest decoration in the United States Army. That’s the Purple Heart, for wounds received in action.”

***

It was 1945. Nearly five years had passed since he joined the service, and hardly a scratch. He was battling the law of averages, and he knew it.

“Somehow I was just waitin’ to get hit,” he remembers. “A man may shoot at you one time, and miss ya, He may shoot again, and miss ya. He may shoot another time, and miss ya. But eventually, one of them has to hit ya.”

On March 16, just short of his 23rd birthday, Worth found himself in a field in Germany. A day like any other, he could only guess at his exact location. Orders were all that really mattered, and theirs were to keep moving forward.

Suddenly, the unit was under artillery fire, and Worth dove for cover. Foxholes lined the road, dug by the Germans to protect their troops from strafing by American fighter planes.

Safe in a hole, Worth lost sight of the corporal, and was certain he’d been hit. Going after him was his first reaction.

“I put my rifle and bayonet on the ground outside the hole, and I put my hand on the side and just pulled myself up,” he says. He laughs, shaking his head. “Did you ever just say, ‘Oh, s---’? As soon as I pulled myself up, I thought, ‘Oh, how stupid!’” He chuckles again. “Pow! I went right down.”

His helmet, knocked off by the force of the blast, was spinning on the ground beside him, holding a puddle of blood.

“You see, they do save lives,” Worth says, reaching behind his office desk and pulling out the battered old helmet. The harsh, discolored metal is riddled with dents and scratches. A small hole in the right side reveals where a bullet had penetrated, pushing the steel aside like a tiny door.

“They don’t keep everything away, but they took the shock of it. That would have gone clean through my head.”

The hit knocked him to the ground, but he felt no pain. The wound was bleeding profusely, as head wounds do; blood ran freely down the sleeve of his field jacket.

“This fella next to me – his name was Tremble, I never saw him after that – he yelled to the corporal, who I was looking for, who it turned out was in this other wing [of the foxhole],” Worth says. “He said, ‘The sergeant’s been hit! His whole blankin’ head’s blown off!’”

Worth could hear what was being said, but could not speak and had no sense of equilibrium. He heard the corporal yell for the private to take the sulfanilamide (powdered chemicals effective against infection) from his aid pouch and apply it to the wound.

Tremble looped his finger gingerly into the cuff of Worth’s sleeve, lifting his arm as he lay there, blood running from his head. The private proceeded to sprinkle the sulfanilamide down the sleeve of Worth’s field jacket.

“I didn’t even have a scratch on my field jacket,” Worth remembers, chuckling again. “The corporal came over, and he called him a name, which I won’t go into, grabbed [the sulfanilamide] and poured it on the head wound. Then Mr. Tremble, Private Tremble, proceeded to vomit on me.” Worth laughs heartily at the memory.

Despite the location of the wound, no lasting damage was done, and Worth was back at the front 11 days later.

“There were guys who got it a lot worse than I did,” he reflects. “Men blinded by white phosphorus, people scorched by flame throwers… In those days they didn’t have counselors and send you home and honor you or anything else. You went back to the front,” Worth says sternly. “That’s what you were paid to do.”

Just over one month later, America’s war with Germany was over.

Sixty-one countries fought in World War II, with approximately 110 million people put into active military service. Casualties have been estimated at over 55 million – about 25 million in the military and 30 million civilians.

***

After the war, Worth was in the first group to be sent back home.

“They had a point system, honey,” he explains. “You got a point for every month in the service – and of course I had that from April 12, 1940 – and you had two points for every month overseas.” By the end of WWII, Worth had fought in Africa, Italy, Germany, and France.

After the war, Worth was sent to Muhlenberg College and then Dickinson School of Law, finishing six years’ worth of study in half the time. In the meantime, he accepted a commission as officer.

While studying at Dickinson, Worth married Eileen Kelly, a girl he had known since they were teenagers. They have been married for 54 years, with one daughter and three grandchildren.

“In the type of unit I was in, it didn’t lend itself to marriage, you know, unless you wanted someone to collect $10,000 insurance or something,” he laughs. “It was a combat arm, and I don’t think that’s a place for married people. But she knew my background, and she would never try to talk me into transferring, or anything like that. She knew how I felt about it.”

After graduating, Worth was called back to reorganize the unit in which he had invaded Africa and was made an officer. “We then went on active duty for the Korean War, and went to Korea,” he says. “So I’ve been in two wars.”

“Military, honey, is the greatest fraternity on earth, as far as I see it,” Worth says, “The camaraderie is unparalleled. We would drink together, fight with each other on occasion over stupid things, but band together like glue when it came to anybody else.”

“We were all of the Depression, and we knew what a tough life was, and so we didn’t look on this as being exceedingly tough,” he says. “Today they’d say we were brave – we did not think so. We were just doing what every fighting man should do.”

And what today’s fighting men are still doing, Worth points out. Political correctness and liberal leadership have led the military in unattractive directions, in Worth’s point of view, but the quality of the soldier remains the same. “These kids are great, doing a great job, and they are all volunteers. They’re all willing to put their lives on the line for their country.”

“Liking to kill isn’t the point. Defending your country, defending your culture, defending your way of life, that’s something. Defending your family, defending the people around you, that is something.”

Jennifer Iwinski is a senior at Lehigh University. Her hometown is Ligonier, Pa.