Aaron Hastings
Age: 90
Born: April 16, 1920
Hometown: Buffalo, Minn.
Residence: Quail Valley Park in Desert Hot Springs
Military branch: U.S. Army; 5th Infantry Division; 10th Infantry Regiment
Years served: June 3, 1944 to Dec. 3, 1945
Rank: Corporal
Family: Wife, Helen; three children, Jerry Stothers of Hesperia, Beverly Regan of Saginaw, Texas, and Steven Hastings of Pomona; four grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren.
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U.S. Army veteran Aaron Hastings was wounded twice while doing battle in Europe during World War II.
Hastings, a member of the 5th Infantry Division, served as a gunner in a four-man 60 mm mortar group, firing shells at enemy targets.
Soon after arriving in Le Havre, France, around early December 1944, the troops were sent to southern Belgium.
“At that time, they told us to be on the lookout. Some Germans had parachuted in behind our line,” he said.
The division was training to cross the Saar River, then face the Germans at the Siegfried line, a heavily fortified area on the German border.
“We didn't go because the Battle of the Bulge hit on Dec. 16. ... We moved in behind the 1st Army in Luxembourg,” Hastings said.
The Germans breached the Allied front lines and were on the move until the U.S. was able to throw the might of its air power at the enemy troops.
“The planes couldn't get out of England because of the fog,” he said. “On Dec. 23, they were able to get in. Man, the ground shook for days. ... It was really something.”
At one point, the men ran out of food when backup supplies failed to arrive.
“There was no food except flour and powdered eggs,” he said. “They made pancakes,” which were eaten for days.
“Pancakes with orange marmalade. ... I didn't eat pancakes again until the last five years,” he said, laughing.
On Jan. 14, 1945, his division moved south to relieve the hard-hit 4th Division.
“We went in there and took the high ground and pushed the Germans back into Germany. It was a hard fight. We were lucky we had two tanks with us,” he said.
In Echternach, on the eastern border of Luxembourg, the men lived in two-man foxholes, pulling two-hour shifts patrolling the perimeter of the camp in the dead of winter.
From Echternach, “when we came out of the woods, we got hit with 88 mm cannons. Those guys were accurate. They put a round right in the path where we were walking.”
A friend lost sight in one eye, while Hastings got hit with shrapnel, bloodying his left leg. He was treated by a medic.
Two days later, on Jan. 18, 1945, the troops crossed the Saar River and began the push into Germany.
On Jan. 19, the division met the Germans, but this time the enemy had the upper hand.
“We had no tanks,” Hastings said. “We ran into the infantry. They had tanks.”
The German 88s started pounding away at the troops, and Hastings said he took cover.
“I had my head in a shell hole, but I had my right foot sticking out,” he said.
Shrapnel found its mark.
“It tore my arch apart,” he said.
He was treated in a field hospital and spent a month in a hospital in Verdun, France, where he came down with pneumonia. After another monthlong stay at 82nd General in England, he was sent by hospital ship back to the states.
“On May 8, I was in the mid-North Atlantic when Germany surrendered,” he said. “I arrived in New York on May 11 — Mother's Day.”
He said he called home to his mother to let her know he made it back safely to the U.S.
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II on Sundays. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
