LAKEPORT — World War II veteran Mac Hurn is as feisty, vigorous and eloquent as men half his 92 years.
Born Francis McFall Hurn in Canadian, TX. on Dec. 22, 1918, Hurn was a member of the U.S. Army”s 9th Infantry Division during World War II.
Hurn served in seven of the nine campaigns the division took part in during the war. They are some of the most famous battles of the war, such as the Allied Invasion of Sicily, the D-Day Invasion and the Battle of the Bulge.
Hurn spoke much of a little known battle that took place a few days after D-Day, known as the Breakthrough Battle in Saint-L?, France.
“It doesn”t compare to the Battle of the Bulge, but it was a very, very intensive battle,” Hurn said. “They (the German Army) were wanting to push us back into the sands of Normandy. That was a big push. It was a tough one. They tried to surround Saint-L?.”
Hurn, who served as a truck driver and 105mm Howitzer cannon operator during the war, said the U.S. Army Air Corps was called in to bomb the German army at one point during the battle.
“I witnessed squadron after squadron after squadron after squadron, and I”m not exaggerating,” he said. “I was safe in my foxhole, thank God.”
At one point, Hurn began uncrating some of his Howitzer ammunition shells and then began to fill the crates with dirt for his foxhole to better protect him from any shrapnel. Other soldiers asked him for crates to do the same and he obliged.
“That night, the German Nighthawks came over and dropped personnel bombs on us,” he said. The extra protection of the crates spared Hurn from injury.
Hurn was drafted into the Army in December 1942. Prior to being drafted, Hurn served in the Sea Scouts and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). During basic training at Camp Roberts, which is located on the border of Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties and is now a National Guard post, Hurn was elevated to the rank of corporal.
He credits his rise to corporal for his ability to entertain.
“I could whistle like a bird and do all kinds of imitations and impersonations,” he said. “The drill sergeants, they got wind of that. They wanted to be entertained, so they invited me to their quarters. When it came time for them to evaluate GIs, they made me an acting corporal, in basic training no less. You know how tough drill sergeants can be. I guess they took a liking to me.”
Hurn first arrived in northern Africa in 1943. He was sent in as a replacement for a soldier who was combat fatigued. “I had to keep that in the back of my mind all the time,” he said. “I sure didn”t want to be combat fatigued because he went crazy.”
The 9th Infantry Division was fighting the Afrika Korps of the German Army under the command of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, infamously known as the “Desert Fox.” Hurn first took part in the Tunisian Campaign around the time of March 1943.
Following Tunisia, the 9th Division took part in the Invasion of Sicily in July 1943. The division entered the campaign four days after it began. During the campaign, Hurn contracted dysentery.
“The thing is, if you check in (to the field hospital) and they send you to an evacuation hospital or tent, you may not get back to your favorite outfit that you”re in,” he said. “So I tried to cure myself.”
He acquired pills from the medic and was able to successfully cure himself, though it left him prone to illness. After Sicily, the 9th Division moved to Great Britain and Hurn discovered he had contracted malaria.
“I got weak from that (dysentery),” he said. “My resistance was low. People asked, ?What are you doing getting malaria in England?” I got it in Sicily. I was so weak, I guess.”
He spent 10 days in a hospital with a fever as high as 104 degrees.
After he recovered, Hurn was assigned his own truck, a two and a half ton GMC triple-axle 10-wheeler he used to transport ammunition, troops and prisoners of war (POWs).
Hurn has an extensive collection of World War II-era German army memorabilia that he acquired firsthand from the prisoners he transported. He said he also has a large foreign coin collection that “would knock your eyes out” that he acquired during house-to-house fighting during the Battle of the Bulge, which took place during December 1944.
On Dec. 22, 1944, Hurn was part of a gun battery in the Battle of the Bulge. The fight was so intense that he said he “didn”t sleep all night long.”
“We were known for our rapid fire,” he said. “They (the German army) couldn”t advance because we peppered them (with gunfire).”
Following the end of the war in Europe, Hurn was discharged on Oct. 10, 1945 and arrived shortly after in Yonkers, N.Y. He said he called his wife, Aileen, whom he married four months before he was drafted, for the first time in two and a half years.
“My youngest granddaughter thinks that”s just terrible,” he said with a laugh. He met Aileen at the Avalon Ballroom dancehall in San Francisco. Like most soldiers and their spouses during the war, they kept in touch via mail.
“You got email, we had v-mail (victory mail),” he said. “She wrote me three times a day herself.” He said he kept all her letters, along with his writing stationary and utensils, in a small ammunition box in his truck.
After the war, Aileen and Mac settled in San Mateo County. Son Garey came along in November 1946. Hurn became a carpenter until he retired in the mid-1970s.
Hurn and his wife wanted to get away from the Bay Area after his retirement. Garey said he was living in Potter Valley at the time and suggested his parents move to Lake County. They found a quaint walnut and pear farm in Finley. They moved there in 1977 and lived there happily until Aileen died in 2005.
Since then, Hurn moved to Lakeport to be closer to Garey, who helps take care of him a few days a week.
Defying his age, Hurn is every bit the entertainer he has been most of his life. Hurn teases Garey about telling a story that would implicate him in something he declined to share.
“It”s a good story, too,” he said. “Everybody always gets a real kick out of it.”
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14.
