Farm Progress

Remembering war is not glorifying war — it’s reminding others about history.

Tom J Bechman 1, Editor, Indiana Prairie Farmer

October 20, 2017

3 Min Read
SERVED WITH HONOR: Laurel Hardisty served in World War II and then returned home to marry Marjorie and start a family. Their daughters are Jane Hardisty (left) and Sue Nigh.

For Laurel Hardisty and many other Hoosiers who served in the U.S. Armed Forces, Nov. 11 is more than just another day. It’s Veterans Day, a federal holiday first proclaimed in 1919 and officially named Veterans Day in 1954.

Laurel comes from a long line of farmers. His grandparents farmed and ran a country store in Greene County, Ind. His father, Festus, was a carpenter and served in World War I. Laurel graduated from Solsberry High School in 1944 and was drafted that summer.

“It turned out to be the greatest experience of my life because I grew up,” he recalls. “At the same time, I would never want to go through it again.”

Tough fighting
Laurel’s daughters, Sue Nigh and Jane Hardisty, helped put together a description of his time in the service. He was embroiled in one of the last big battles of the war in Germany — the attack on Heilbronn in April 1945.

“It required an assault crossing of the Neckar River in small boats, in full view of dozens of German artillery pieces,” Sue explains. The Germans were in a church tower shooting down.

“Usually the U.S. tried to preserve church buildings, but not this time,” she continues. Once the tower was destroyed, the boats were able to cross the river.
“The first two boats didn’t make it,” Laurel recalls. “I was in the third boat, and we made it. Savage combat went on for over a week. The last German soldiers were SS troops, and they were the smartest.” Finally, Laurel’s 100th Infantry Division seized the key industrial city, and the enemy fled.

Once the war was over, Laurel’s division was disbanded. He finished the war in a quartermaster position in France, returning home in late 1945.

“We went to Europe on the Queen Mary, which had been converted to haul troops,” he recalls. “It kept getting hotter. We didn’t know that we were sailing to the equator to avoid German submarines. I shipped home aboard a banana boat!”

Home of the free
Once home in Indiana, Laurel soon married. Hourly wage jobs kept him and wife Marjorie going until 1961, when he moved the family to Hancock County to farm with an aunt and uncle. Eventually he bought that farm, and farmed full time until his retirement in 2001.

Recently, Jane took her father to a re-enactment of World War II battles on the grounds of the Indiana Military Museum at Vincennes. “They demonstrated various guns used in the war,” she recalls. “Dad would whisper, ‘That’s the gun I carried.’”

“What I got from that experience,” Laurel says, “is what the moderator said over and over. They didn’t do the re-enactment to glorify war. They did it to preserve history and educate people. Freedom is not free.

“I feel bad when I see how some people act today. We were respected when we came home, but that hasn’t always been the case.”

Jane was moved when several strangers at the re-enactment spotted Laurel in his WWII cap and shook his hand, thanking him for his service. “

There aren’t many of us left,” Laurel notes. “We had a job to do to keep us all free, and we did it.”

 

 

About the Author(s)

Tom J Bechman 1

Editor, Indiana Prairie Farmer

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