Filmmaker salutes forgotten WWII unit

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The journey

It was 2009. A handful of World War II veterans were back in Europe, following the route their division took during the liberation of France, Belgium and Holland.

In village after village, town after town, grateful senior citizens, along with their children and grandchildren, lined parade routes, waving American flags and cheering the aging men who had liberated their homeland.

All of it was captured on camera by Austin filmmaker Lew V. Adams.

“We were absolutely astounded,” he said, “as we traveled through the different villages and towns that they had liberated, how hundreds and hundreds lined the streets, waving American flags, to welcome these men.

“Every American, every young person, needs to see that America has never been forgotten in Europe for what we did and the sacrifices we paid to restore their freedom.”

But if the Europeans had not forgotten, the Americans, it seems, most assuredly had.

Ranked the top division in the European Theater of Operations (EOT) by Allied Supreme Commander and later American president Dwight Eisenhower’s military historians, the 30th infantry division of the United States National Guard was recommended for the Presidential Unit Citation , the highest honor that can be awarded a combat division.

It never happened. More on that in a bit. First, some history.

The history

The division’s nickname was, “ Old Hickory ,” so named for its toughness, in remembrance of General and President Andrew Jackson.

Rushed into battle to shore up the Allied invasion of Normandy, the guardsmen from Old Hickory wound up fighting and dying in all five of the major campaigns in the EOT, and never lost a battle.

“The division was unusual in the sense that it was made up primarily of young farm boys, southern farm boys from southern states,” Adams said.

“It was formed up in North Carolina and Tennessee and they drew upon the soldiers and the reservists from the southern states, including Texas.

“They were not regular army, but what was significant and a part of the story is that because they were rural farm boys, they knew how to fix a tractor.

“They knew how to fix a tank; they knew how to live in the outdoors; they knew how to kill and skin a rabbit if they had to eat; they knew how to build shelter.

“And the Germans really didn't know who these guys were. It was like, 'Who are these guys?’

“You know, 'They can do anything; we throw everything at them and they continue to come.’”

“The 30th came up against some of the toughest SS divisions that Hitler could throw at them,” Adams said, “and so they took some tremendous casualties.

“But they were never turned back; they were never stopped; they never lost ground; they continued to move forward during the entire war.”

Hill 314

Among the most bloody operations involving Old Hickory, was an almost week-long stand-off against elite German troops on Hill 314, near Mortain, France.

“The Battle of Mortain was actually a secret attack planned by Hitler, himself,” Adams said.

“Hitler rounded up some of his best SS troops and his idea was to punch through Mortain, which is very near the Normandy peninsula, all the way to the ocean and sever the Allied forces, cut them in half. Had he been able to do that, the outcome of the war could have tremendously changed.

“During that onslaught, Eisenhower realizing that the high ground of Hill 314 was so strategic, ordered the men to hold it at all cost. They did for 6 1/2 days and, of course, they lost more than half their men.

“It was one of the most incredible stands of World War II. And yet, for this National Guard division, no one knew about it in this country. It's virtually unknown.”

The film

In fact, Adams himself didn’t learn about Old Hickory until the mid-2000s.

“It began in 2005 or 2006,” he said, “when I met an Old Hickory veteran here in Austin, Texas: Frank Denius, who was one of the most highly decorated veterans in World War II.

“He had served in the Old Hickory division and his story of surviving the onslaught on top of Hill 314 where they were surrounded for six or seven days by four Panzer divisions, and how his battalion of 700 men managed to hold that hill, was so compelling.

“These stories grab you and won't let you go. So at that moment in time, I decided this is something that really needs to be told.”

Adams lined up a crew and headed to Europe with the Old Hickory veterans for the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II. Their movie was to be called, Heroes of Old Hickory .

“There are tens of thousands of World War II veterans buried in cemeteries across Europe,” Adams said. “What we also discovered is that every single grave site of every soldier is adopted by a Dutch, a Belgian or French family. There's a waiting list of those families for the honor to adopt a grave when, in fact, one were to become available.

“It was quite overwhelming to see that type of adoration, that type of honor still paid to our men today.”

A percentage of the money given