Butler lad worked at Bantam, assigned to drive Jeeps in WWII
WINFIELD TWP — John “Jack” Sanders was just a boy, fresh out of high school, when he was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army during World War II.
But he had something most others didn't — Sanders had worked for the American Bantam Car Co. for about a year before being called up.
It had been a year that Sanders, then 19, had spent cataloging automotive parts in Bantam's receiving department.
That might not seem a huge distinction to some people, but it landed the Butler native and U.S. Army corporal behind the wheel of Bantam-designed Jeeps throughout the war as his unit, the 557th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, supported the 84th Infantry Division, also known as the “Railsplitter Division,” on its combat tour of Europe in 1944.
It was a tour that would take Sanders and the 84th through the end of the Allies' European operations in World War II.
Cpl. Sanders — the driver for his unit's captain — navigated the Ardennes Forest during the Battle of the Bulge, survived capture by German soldiers in the fading months of the Allied assault on Germany, and eventually returned home to make a name for himself as the operator of a series of service stations in and around Butler.
He even has his own catch phrase, said his son, John Sanders Jr.: “Have a good day today, and a better day tomorrow.”
For the Sanders family, military service in general has long been something bordering on tradition. Three of his children served in the U.S. Navy, Sanders' brother, also in the Army, was wounded in D-Day, and he has at least one nephew in the U.S. Marine Corps.
The elder Sanders' service in World War II, though, is quite a tale.
It begins with Sanders receiving his draft letter in June of 1942, and heading to North Carolina for training in the newly formed 557th, which was one of three artillery divisions Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower formed using about 800 recruits from Pennsylvania.
The Army, which had earlier approved Bantam's Jeep design for production and widespread use in the war effort, didn't fail to notice Sander's work history. Almost before his feet touched the ground in North Carolina, Sanders said, he had become a driver for his battalion.
It wasn't until about two years later, in 1944, that Sanders' skills behind the wheel would be put to the test in combat.
The 84th was eventually deployed to Europe in the immediate aftermath of D-Day. The division had been ferried across the Atlantic Ocean to Scotland by the Queen Mary earlier that year, and about a week after the Allied invasion of France, Sanders found himself on the battlefields of Europe.
For Sanders, whose artillery unit was usually called upon to soften up German installations and troops before river crossings or other assaults, the war boiled down to driving. A lot of driving.
Usually tasked with ferrying the company commander to and from the front lines, Sanders said he didn't see much time in combat. But he did get to test the limits of Bantam's Jeep, and drove two of them “to death” during his unit's deployment.
For a 19-year-old corporal in the 557th, Sanders said, World War II mostly boiled down to following orders from his captain.
“I was just a kid, 19 years old,” Sanders said. “What the hell — what he says, you do.”With one notable exception: Ardennes Forest during the Battle of the Bulge.In December 1944, the 84th had been moved into Belgium to help stymie the German winter offensive, which meant Sanders often found himself driving at breakneck speed across a forested, broken landscape.It was enough to prompt his captain to tell Sanders to ease up on the gas, but the corporal said he knew the Jeep could handle the trips through one of Europe's bloodiest battlefields.“I said, like hell; I'm not slowing down in here,” he said.Sanders' closest brush with death came during the closing months of the Allied assault on Germany.With the 84th and other Allied units moving along the autobahn, Sanders and about 20 other soldiers went on a fuel run and became separated from the main force, which was moving through the countryside and routing stray German elements from villages on their way to Berlin.Sanders, who was driving a Jeep accompanying larger supply and troop transports, and the detachment decided to stay overnight at a dairy farm. They awoke to find a German detachment with an armored half-track at their doorstep and demanding surrender.Sanders said some officers with the group managed to slip away, but he and most of the others were taken to a nearby farm, where the Americans were herded with Polish soldiers and captured migrants toward what appeared to be a mass grave.Luckily for them, elements of the 84th were nearby and their approach scared the German soldiers off, Sanders said. It didn't stop him from seeing his life flash before his eyes, though.“I was scared to death then,” he said.By the end of European operations, Sanders said, the 84th was destined for home in the United States, though some soldiers were frightened by the rumor that the unit could be pressed into service in the Pacific.Ultimately, though, Sanders rode the Queen Mary a second time — this time home to Butler, where he went back to work at Bantam for a time.Then he went into business for himself with a service station at the corner of Chestnut and Jefferson streets. Sanders would go on to open a succession of stations through the years, and ultimately retire at age 65, from IDS American Express, where he worked as a financial planner.But whenever his mind turns to the war and his time in Europe, Sanders said, a Jeep is never far from his thoughts.“I love the Jeep. It got me through the war; it did the job,” Sanders said.
