One of my grandfather’s first cousins was Robert Gere Vosler (1904-1968) of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. Before entering the navy in 1942, Robert worked as a musician, touring the northeast and mid-west of the United States, playing the trumpet and saxophone with the dance band The Keystone Serenaders. He enlisted in the US Navy in October of 1942 and served as a band musician. Shortly after the official end of World War II in Europe on May 8, 1945, Robert boarded the troop ship USS West Point at Norfolk Virginia, according to his war diary. The ship’s mission was to bring many thousands of GIs home from the European war as part of the huge Operation Magic Carpet deployment.
In a handwritten diary that I am fortunate to have inherited, he recorded his experiences aboard the West Point from May to July of 1945. In addition to the basics of land sightings, meal menus, weather conditions, and his band work details, he added fascinating accounts of people he met, places he traveled to, and the sights and sounds of Europe and North Africa just a few weeks after the war had ended.
His first days shipboard were spent crossing the Atlantic, drilling for emergency situations and playing his trumpet for various naval functions. The band played concerts on deck, for movie showings, and at ceremonies such as the captain’s inspection. The naval training practices he participated in included man overboard and lifeboat drills, loading of antiaircraft guns, and night time target practice. He wrote eloquently about his excitement and wonder, seeing sights he’d never experienced growing up in Ellwood City.
Passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, he wrote
“A commander allowed me to look thru his binoculars. I looked at the rock and also towns in Morocco. The towns had many Mohammedan dome-shaped white temples. As we cleared the straits, two porpoises play at the prow of the ship – racing it and diving back and forth in front of it. They were large, but fast and graceful. We were up on the bow of the ship leaning over and looking right down at them thru the clear blue water.”
He wrote about taking on the first contingent of US troops headed for home from North Africa:
“Took on 1100 sailors – mostly sea-bees. Some from Bizerte [Tunisia], others from Oran [Algeria]. Many said they liked the duty. Others said they were glad to get out because everybody anticipates trouble between the French & Arabs anytime now. Seems the French promised the Arabs more freedom when Frances was down. But now that she is back again France does not expect to fulfill the promises”.
Robert again waxed poetic about later sailing into the Bay of Naples in Italy:
“Got up at 0530. Was along coastline of Italy and passing Isle of Capri. Sun had not appeared yet but light from it was coming over the mountains and Mt. Vesuvius – also smoke from Mt. Vesuvius – a few fishing vessels were out. Another beautiful sight.”
He mentioned demolished buildings along the waterfront, and that an aviator had told him that all the damage was accomplished in just seven minutes of bombing. He wrote about getting leave to travel via train to Pompeii, seeing war damage to village houses and train tracks along the way. In a very parochial comment, he said he got a spaghetti dinner near Pompeii that day, and that it was “much better in the U.S.”
He wrote that on June 9, the ship loaded casualties and started the journey back home – mostly soldiers but a few sailors, totalling close to 8000 men in all. One afternoon on the journey back to the US, he recounted:
“I went up on the Sun Deck at about 1430. The water was very calm and clear. The rays of the sun were penetrating the water deeply. Then I saw a shark. The height at which I was looking down into the water, together with the angle of rays of the sun were striking the shark made it look like a neon fish, or else like a fish made out of those butterfly wings from Brazil.”
On June 18, the West Point docked at Newport News, Virginia, and the GIs unloaded. On the 24th, the ship again set sail for the port city of Le Havre in France, reaching their destination on July 1st. He reported:
“Le Havre is shot up worse than Naples. Coming in we passed a liberty ship sunk in the harbor. Many buildings, practically all, demolished along the water front. All docks demolished and a large ship on her side along side of one dock. Saw the docks which were transported across the channel, having been made in England first and then floated over”.
On July 3, barges began pulling along side the West Point to bring more returning troops on board, including some from the British navy. As a Western Pennsylvanian of German ancestry, Robert Vosler wrote:
“During this time German PWs were also brought aboard to work in the hold and also to unload barges (cargo into the nets) which were brought along side of the ship. The barges carried the equipment of the troops – rifles, helmets etc. They (PWs) seemed to be fairly decent sort of people – just like us. In fact many GIs told me that they liked Germany better than France or England. These PWs ate on our ship”.
He also noted that he was told by American soldiers that the Germans blew up the docks in Le Havre themselves before they retreated, filled the harbor with scuttled ships, and left booby traps. Sailing on to England, he wrote that:
“Thirty three members of the Japanese Diplomatic Corps are aboard under guard as PWs. They were captured at the Japanese Embassy in Berlin when that city fell to the Russians. They got an hour a day for fresh air outside. We saw them. They were very intelligent and well-dressed.”
Robert recounted several stories told to him by GIs he met, regarding “loot” that they were bringing home from Germany, including pistols, binoculars, and a German officer’s dagger:
“[One GI] was on an advance patrol of 13 men who entered Wolfenhausen, Germany at night. They held the 6th Panzer Div. off for over a day until their army caught up with them. The next morning they started to investigate to find out who the Nazis and their leaders were. They found the leader – a man of 70 but active and vigorous for his age, medium height and short-cut grey hair. They brought him into the room for questioning. Two American officers, an interpreter and the GI were in the room. When the leader entered he clicked his heels and bowed. He was all dressed up and wearing this dagger. The leader’s district was about 100 miles square and he was a big shot in the party. Took his orders direct from Berlin. The people feared him. He said, in answer to questions, if the party started up again and he was able, he would join again. [The GI] took the dagger off of him. An American officer took a gold swastika he was wearing”.
In the last entry of Robert Vosler’s diary, he wrote that on July 11th, they passed the ship Queen Mary as they approached New York City, and they:
“pulled into NYC about 1300 amid a roar of sirens, fire boats spraying & bands playing – a wonderful welcome for the GIs.”
Sources
- West Point II, Naval History and Heritage Command, 2022
- History: Troop Movements, West Point, 70th Infantry Division Association, 2025 (from a pamphlet published in 1976)
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