Menu
Warren Harber: From the Missouri Bootheel to the World War II Italian Campaign
EDITOR'S NOTE -- The following story on Sikeston resident and World War II veteran Warren Harber was first printed in the August edition of the "Missouri Times," a publication of the State Historical Society of Missouri.
CAPE GIRARDEAU - In November 1942, Warren Harber of Matthews boarded a bus in New Madrid and went off to war. He left behind Jewel, his wife of six months, as well as friends, relatives and his students.
Harber received training at Camp Wolters in Texas as well as Fort Benning and Camp Wheeler in Georgia. He rose from a private to the rank of captain, benefiting from high exam scores and his experience teaching at Fairview School, a three-room elementary school. In February 1944 he recorded in his journal, "I guess I am about as near ready for overseas and combat as I can expect to be. I have had much more training that most of the men. I have really been through three cycles of basic training. . . so I guess I am ready to go."
On March 23, 1944, Harber and several hundred other young men boarded the USS Breckinridge and headed out to sea. After a 27-day voyage across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea, the Breckinridge docked at Naples, Italy, and the men were dispersed among various units as replacements for those killed or wounded in the Italian Campaign. Harber was assigned to the 135th Infantry Regiment and moved through Anzio and Rome to the front lines in northern Italy.
Although there were strict rules against officers keeping a diary while in a combat zone, Harber kept one, making daily entries that he expanded during breaks and periods of rest. In June 1944 he wrote, "I think we are the front. There is no one between us and the enemy."
German troops were retreating to the norther Italian high ground, while U.S. forces pursued them in trucks. Harber wrote, "I did not know a war could be fought on trucks."
For the full story, see our e-edition.