Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in WW II

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He entered Cornell University in 1940 to study science, but instead turned to journalism. By his own admission, Vonnegut was destined to flunk out of university, so he dropped out instead and enlisted with the US Army Reserve in November, 1942. He was later to recall that at the time, he was glad to be out of university and “delighted to go to war.” He was assigned to the infantry, specifically the 423rd Infantry Regiment of the 106th Infantry Division, which was activated in Fort Jackson, South Carolina in March, 1943.

Over the next 20 months, the 106th was several times gutted for replacements to other units and rebuilt, and the Division did not head overseas until November of 1944. After a brief training period in England, the 106th was sent to the front, arriving in Belgium near the Luxembourg border on December 11th, taking up positions in the Ardennes Forest.

Although the Germans had launched their initial 1940 blitzkrieg attack on France through the Ardennes, faulty Allied intelligence indicated the Germans would not be capable of launching a winter offensive in 1944, and the Ardennes region was considered a quiet sector by the Allies, suitable for training units newly arrived at the front. Thus the 106th Division had only five days of front-line experience when on December 16th, the Germans launched an attack of nearly 30 armored and infantry divisions through the Ardennes, in what came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge.

As an infantry scout, Vonnegut was trapped behind German lines for five days before being captured. Two of the three 106th Division regiments – including the 423rd - were wiped out, and over 7,000 Americans taken prisoner, the largest mass-surrender of US troops in Europe during WW II. Along with hundreds of others, Vonnegut was sent by boxcar to eastern Germany, arriving 10 days later at Stalag 4B, a multi-national POW camp near the Czech border. After a few weeks in the camp most of the American POWs were sent to work in the near-by city of Dresden, which was overflowing with German refugees fleeing the advancing Russian Army. In Dresden, the Americans were housed in a former meat-packing plant, with Vonnegut and 100 others specifically housed in a building called ‘Schlachthof – funf’ or, ‘slaughterhouse - five’.

Along with others, Vonnegut was given the task of packing medical supplies, a job that was carried out in a former meat-locker three stories underground. This is where Vonnegut was on February 13-14th, 1945, when the Allied Air Force undertook a massive, 1,000-plane bombing raid on Dresden. Incendiary bombs dropped on the city created huge fires, which eventually grew into a fire-storm that virtually destroyed the entire city, killing an estimated 130,000 people. When Vonnegut and the others emerged from the underground meat-locker, they were given the task of pulling charred bodies from the rubble.

Stalag 4B was liberated by the advancing Russians in early April, although American POWs were not officially returned to US control until July. Vonnegut had spent 10 days as a combat soldier, and almost 200 days as a POW.

Vonnegut would publish Slaughterhouse-Five, his sixth novel, in 1969. In the midst of the Vietnam war, the book would prove to be a huge hit among young Americans, and an instant anti-war classic. In all, he wrote 14 novels, as well as numerous works of non-fiction, plays and short stories. In 2005 he enjoyed best-seller success with his final work, a collection of non-fiction essays A Man Without a Country.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. died April 11, 2007 in New York City. He was 84.

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