CPL. George Steitz
U.S. Army – Infantry
1st Army – 4th Infantry Division
128th Evacuation Hospital
753 Field Artillery Battalion
1942-1946
U.S. Army – Infantry
1st Army – 4th Infantry Division
128th Evacuation Hospital
753 Field Artillery Battalion
1942-1946
George Steitz was born in the Bushwick section Brooklyn, NY in 1924 where he lived until he was 6 years old. George was the youngest of four children: three boys and one girl. After being burglarized five times his father moved the family to Beacon, NY. where he grew up during the Depression. “My mother and father always made sure we had everything we needed.” In 1941 George was in his house practicing basketball and listening to the radio when the reports of the Pearl Harbor bombing were broadcast.
George attended Beacon High School and although he loved sports, he had to work during his high school days and was not able to participate in school Athletics. George graduated high school in 1942 and he wanted to enlist in the Air Force, but his parents said no. They had two sons and a son-in-law serving and they told George, ‘wait until they come and get you’. As sure as the sun rises the Army drafted him on his 18th birthday.
He was sent to Camp Upton located at the far eastern end of Long Island in Yaphank, NY for his induction. Then it was on to Peoria Illinois for basic training. “We were there five months and then went to OCS – over the choppy seas.” In November of 1943 George and 22,000 other GI’s boarded the Queen Elizabeth and headed for Scotland. Three and a half days later they disembarked. “It was the fastest ship afloat.” The ship zig zagged across the Atlantic to avoid Nazi U-boats. George recalled, “We were so fast the subs couldn’t catch us.”
The GI’s boarded a train in Scotland headed to Salisbury, England. In Salisbury they trained for the invasion that was yet to be defined for them. In June 1944, they received orders to board a train and head to Exter, England. “The whole place was flooded with tanks, all kinds of vehicles.” George remembers living in a castle while in Exter.
I asked George if he experienced any fear as they trained to go into battle. “We weren’t really scared. We didn’t know what was in front of us. Especially me. I was only 19 years old (on D-Day). We kept hearing about the Krauts. That’s what we called them. Once we got into live fire, that was a different thing.”
The night of June 5th, 1944 they departed as part of the D-Day invasion. George and his unit were in three troop transport ships headed for Utah Beach. I asked George what went through his head as he crossed the channel. “Now you were scared. Now you were worried.” Utah was the western most beach in the D-Day landing and was the closest to Cherbourg. Utah Beach had three landing zones and George and his company were headed to the middle zone named Uncle Red.
“The ship behind us got hit with a shot that blew it right out of the water.” When the ships came to a halt the GI’s climbed down cargo nets into Higgins Boats which would take them to shore. Each Higgins boat held approximately 36 GI’s. “We were told we would be dropped off in knee deep water and we’d be alright.” George was in the back of the Higgins Boat and he and everyone else were praying as they listened to the explosions of the naval bombardment, the U.S. aircraft overhead and the booms of the Nazi guns in defense of the beaches. The Higgins Boat was being piloted by a Navy Ensign and another lower ranking Navy seaman.
On the way into the beach the Higgins Boat had to fight through enemy gun fire and strong tides. The Ensign driving the Higgins Boat yelled, “OK boys, this is it. Jump in and go.” The front gate of the Higgins Boat dropped into the water exposing the men to Nazi defensive fire. I asked George if anyone was shot when the ramp dropped. He said he didn’t know because he was only concerned with the GI’s immediately next to him. After the ramp dropped the Ensign screamed “go”, but no one moved. He yelled again, “go”. Gripped with fear, no one moved. The Ensign screamed to the young Navy seaman working with him, ‘Billy, cock the 50 (caliber machine gun). We’re gonna give them 30 seconds, then start firing from back to front.’ George followed instruction and charged forward. His first step put him in ice cold water up to his shoulders. The next order he heard was, “get those damn rifles up in the air. We can always get new men but we can’t get new rifles”. George couldn’t remember which wave he was in. “We didn’t know what wave we were in; we were too busy prayin’.” There are no atheists in a foxhole.
Once they reached the beach, they tried to find their group and find cover from the enemy fire. Utah Beach was not as heavily fortified as Omaha Beach but the Nazi’s were dug in, the fighting was fierce and progress was measured in feet. George was an infantryman and assigned to the 128th Evacuation Hospital. His job was to bring the wounded to the medics and provided them with protection. It was slow moving off the beach. They had to wait for the Rangers to scale Pointe-Du-Hoc and the infantry in front of them to take out the Nazi fortifications. “People forget the Germans started the war in ’39. They had five years (experience) and we’re going in ’43. We’re rookies. A lot of us never heard real bullets flying at you.”
I asked George if he saw any great acts of heroism on D-Day. “Everybody there did something great. We were there killing Germans, so we’re here today.”
Once they advanced from the beach into the local towns the biggest factor slowing their advance was the countryside itself. The most formidable obstruction to First Army’s advance forward was the miles and miles of thick hedgerows. The hedgerows were barbed hedges ranging in height between 4 and 15 feet. Along each row ran a deep, high-banked trench. This created a natural defensive fortification for the Nazi’s as they battled to slow the Allied advance.
The 1st Army moved ever so slowly through the small French towns just behind the beach. “The British held us up. Montgomery did a terrible job, he was supposed to take Saint Lo, which was a hub. He futzed around and futzed around. Finally, we just destroy every house in Saint Lo and were able to get through.”
“We just kept moving forward. We controlled the skies. We were making great progress. The Germans were pulling back quickly. “We were in Paris the day after it was liberated. They (the French citizens) went out in the back yard and dug up the good Cognac. We all got blind drunk.”
The 4th continued on through Northern France, into Belgium and then into Germany. “We were going so far, so fast, once we went eight days without eating.” George recalled reaching the Hurtgen Forest in Germany. “They took ten of us, the best shooters, and they said ‘you guys go in there and shoot the deer’. I got 11. We finally got some good food.”
George was transferred to an artillery battery but he could not recall the date.
In December of 1944 George and his unit were approximately 12 miles from Bastogne when the Battle of the Bulge started. George recalls the Nazi’s being dressed in white camouflage and switching the road signs to confuse the Allied armies. “It took us a while to get on to what they were doing to us.” George recalls the difficulty in identifying Nazi’s or Allies. The GI’s started asking, “Who did Joe DiMaggio marry? If they didn’t say Marilyn Monroe, boom, boom”.
George recalled much of the time the Americans were chasing the Germans as they were retreating. When the Germans felt they had to protect a location they felt was strategic, there would be a battle. “Tough fighting and everybody had to work together.” George saw a lot of fighting and shot a lot of bullets. “There were two guys that took me under their wing. One was 38 and one was 39. Good thing. They showed me what to do and how to do it.”
George recalled the fighting. “We’re here to kill as many German’s as we can.” “War is war. You have to be in a war to know what war is. They talk about (on the news today) 5 people got killed and two children. It’s war. It’s going to happen. We’re not there to make friends.”
After turning the tide at the Battle of the Bulge and Bastogne the 4th crossed the Rhine and headed toward Munich. George recalled on one occasion, “we were steaming down the road at about 40 mph trying to catch the Nazi’s. All of a sudden, we see a bunch of guys out there in their black and white pajamas”. The pajamaed men started to wave, and the GI’s slowed down. These were prisoners from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. I asked George if they entered the camp and he said no, “but we could smell it.”
I asked George if he recalled taking many prisoners. “Oh Yeah. Most of the German prisoners were happy because they knew they would be well treated.” The Germans wanted no part of the Russians.
In May of ’45 a German plane strafed George’s unit, put its wheels down and landed on a nearby runway. The Nazi jumped from the plane and began running in hope of escaping. The American’s took off in hot pursuit after him and George chased him down into an underground bunker. George peered into the bunker and found the German soldier who was pointing his Lugar at George. George, pointing his baretta (handgun) at the German, yelled “hands up”. The German soldier didn’t move. George yelled again and on the fourth try the German dropped his weapon. A fellow GI arrived and asked George if he was ok. George said he was fine and had the situation under control. The GI told George to check his baretta. It was jammed. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
When the Nazi’s surrendered, George went to Czechoslovakia as part of the Occupational Forces. From there they were scheduled to join up with Patton and head to Japan. Before they could ship out the Japanese surrender. George recalled, “we all got drunk as a skunk.”
George and his company were in Marseille France to be discharged. He was having a problem seeing out of his left eye but didn’t want to tell anyone because he wanted to stay with his company for the trip back to the states. He waited until their ship, The Liberty, was underway before he asked to see a doctor. He was told there was no doctor on the ship and the best they could do was to start him on penicillin. At the time penicillin was a new drug and it was administered once every four hours. On the19 day trip back to the states, “I had 104 shots of penicillin.” When the ship arrived in Boston George was sent to a local hospital.
During his time in the service, George faithfully wrote home to his sister who read the letters to his parents who were both immigrants from Romania. Many years later these letters were discovered in a metal box in George’s attic. The local ABC television crew interviewed George and that was the first time any of the people who knew George, many of them longtime friends and former students, learned George was in World War II and that he was, as George referred himself, “a D-Day boy”.
George’s first job when he got home was in construction. His brother suggested he use the GI Bill to go to college. George took that advice and enrolled at Ithaca College to pursue a career as a Phys Ed teacher. While at Ithaca he met Judy Sherrell. At the time both George and Judy were dating other people. In their freshman year Judy came down with appendicitis and had to leave school. When she recovered her parents told her Ithaca was too expensive and Judy enrolled at Cortland University. Three years later George, who was now 27, had graduated in three years to “to beat the crowds and get a job”. He was attending a Phys Ed conference at Syracuse University and “It was a Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I was making the rounds. I was young and single.” George went to the bar and “saw a beautiful red head”. It was 23-year-old Judy Sherrell. They hadn’t seen each other in three years, and both were unattached. The couple tied the knot in 1953 and were married until 2012 when Judy passed away. The couple had two sons and a daughter.
George’s first teaching job was at a K-12 school in Macedon, NY. “I taught physiology. I was the school nurse, I drove the bus and I coached three sports (baseball, basketball and soccer). All for $1,900. The first year I won three championships, and the baseball team was undefeated (22-0).” In 1954 he took a job at Penfield High School, just outside of Rochester, NY.
George had an incredible career as a high school coach. At Penfield High School he coached soccer, baseball, basketball, swimming and girls softball. He didn’t just coach. He built a career molding the lives of student athletes for 66 years and setting records for wins in soccer, basketball, and baseball. He retired in 2020 with 563 wins in baseball. Not bad for a kid who never participated in organized sports.
George also was a referee and umpire and officiated over 7,000 games. He remained active until the age of 95. I asked George which was his favorite sport. “Baseball. There is so much in baseball people don’t notice…lots of intricacies.”
Among George’s many accolades are National High School Coach of the Year, induction into the New York State Soccer Hall of Fame, the Ithaca Sports Hall of Fame, the Rochester Sports Hall of Fame and many more that could be the subject of a separate story.
To round out his athletic accomplishments, George was an avid fisherman and has hooked a lot of fish around the world. The walls of his office are packed with awards, mounted fish and other testimonials of a jaw-dropping career.
Now in his golden years George has also been honored by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. I asked George if he had ever returned to Normandy. “I’m not going back.”
At 99 years of age George Steitz is the poster child for a life well lived. He served his country by landing on D-Day and fighting across Europe until the embodiment of evil was soundly defeated. He then went on to serve thousands of others through his teaching and coaching and all of those whose lives he touched have never forgotten him. That is evident by spending an hour at a local country club bar before dinner. Former students, athletes and opposing coaches, each with their own memories and stories about “the coach” stopped by to say hello.
George, thank you for saving the world from evil and setting many young people on the right path in life. But as a former catcher, I can only think, you might have heard, “Come on, ump your killing us! That was straight down Broadway! @#!&#!!!!
George attended Beacon High School and although he loved sports, he had to work during his high school days and was not able to participate in school Athletics. George graduated high school in 1942 and he wanted to enlist in the Air Force, but his parents said no. They had two sons and a son-in-law serving and they told George, ‘wait until they come and get you’. As sure as the sun rises the Army drafted him on his 18th birthday.
He was sent to Camp Upton located at the far eastern end of Long Island in Yaphank, NY for his induction. Then it was on to Peoria Illinois for basic training. “We were there five months and then went to OCS – over the choppy seas.” In November of 1943 George and 22,000 other GI’s boarded the Queen Elizabeth and headed for Scotland. Three and a half days later they disembarked. “It was the fastest ship afloat.” The ship zig zagged across the Atlantic to avoid Nazi U-boats. George recalled, “We were so fast the subs couldn’t catch us.”
The GI’s boarded a train in Scotland headed to Salisbury, England. In Salisbury they trained for the invasion that was yet to be defined for them. In June 1944, they received orders to board a train and head to Exter, England. “The whole place was flooded with tanks, all kinds of vehicles.” George remembers living in a castle while in Exter.
I asked George if he experienced any fear as they trained to go into battle. “We weren’t really scared. We didn’t know what was in front of us. Especially me. I was only 19 years old (on D-Day). We kept hearing about the Krauts. That’s what we called them. Once we got into live fire, that was a different thing.”
The night of June 5th, 1944 they departed as part of the D-Day invasion. George and his unit were in three troop transport ships headed for Utah Beach. I asked George what went through his head as he crossed the channel. “Now you were scared. Now you were worried.” Utah was the western most beach in the D-Day landing and was the closest to Cherbourg. Utah Beach had three landing zones and George and his company were headed to the middle zone named Uncle Red.
“The ship behind us got hit with a shot that blew it right out of the water.” When the ships came to a halt the GI’s climbed down cargo nets into Higgins Boats which would take them to shore. Each Higgins boat held approximately 36 GI’s. “We were told we would be dropped off in knee deep water and we’d be alright.” George was in the back of the Higgins Boat and he and everyone else were praying as they listened to the explosions of the naval bombardment, the U.S. aircraft overhead and the booms of the Nazi guns in defense of the beaches. The Higgins Boat was being piloted by a Navy Ensign and another lower ranking Navy seaman.
On the way into the beach the Higgins Boat had to fight through enemy gun fire and strong tides. The Ensign driving the Higgins Boat yelled, “OK boys, this is it. Jump in and go.” The front gate of the Higgins Boat dropped into the water exposing the men to Nazi defensive fire. I asked George if anyone was shot when the ramp dropped. He said he didn’t know because he was only concerned with the GI’s immediately next to him. After the ramp dropped the Ensign screamed “go”, but no one moved. He yelled again, “go”. Gripped with fear, no one moved. The Ensign screamed to the young Navy seaman working with him, ‘Billy, cock the 50 (caliber machine gun). We’re gonna give them 30 seconds, then start firing from back to front.’ George followed instruction and charged forward. His first step put him in ice cold water up to his shoulders. The next order he heard was, “get those damn rifles up in the air. We can always get new men but we can’t get new rifles”. George couldn’t remember which wave he was in. “We didn’t know what wave we were in; we were too busy prayin’.” There are no atheists in a foxhole.
Once they reached the beach, they tried to find their group and find cover from the enemy fire. Utah Beach was not as heavily fortified as Omaha Beach but the Nazi’s were dug in, the fighting was fierce and progress was measured in feet. George was an infantryman and assigned to the 128th Evacuation Hospital. His job was to bring the wounded to the medics and provided them with protection. It was slow moving off the beach. They had to wait for the Rangers to scale Pointe-Du-Hoc and the infantry in front of them to take out the Nazi fortifications. “People forget the Germans started the war in ’39. They had five years (experience) and we’re going in ’43. We’re rookies. A lot of us never heard real bullets flying at you.”
I asked George if he saw any great acts of heroism on D-Day. “Everybody there did something great. We were there killing Germans, so we’re here today.”
Once they advanced from the beach into the local towns the biggest factor slowing their advance was the countryside itself. The most formidable obstruction to First Army’s advance forward was the miles and miles of thick hedgerows. The hedgerows were barbed hedges ranging in height between 4 and 15 feet. Along each row ran a deep, high-banked trench. This created a natural defensive fortification for the Nazi’s as they battled to slow the Allied advance.
The 1st Army moved ever so slowly through the small French towns just behind the beach. “The British held us up. Montgomery did a terrible job, he was supposed to take Saint Lo, which was a hub. He futzed around and futzed around. Finally, we just destroy every house in Saint Lo and were able to get through.”
“We just kept moving forward. We controlled the skies. We were making great progress. The Germans were pulling back quickly. “We were in Paris the day after it was liberated. They (the French citizens) went out in the back yard and dug up the good Cognac. We all got blind drunk.”
The 4th continued on through Northern France, into Belgium and then into Germany. “We were going so far, so fast, once we went eight days without eating.” George recalled reaching the Hurtgen Forest in Germany. “They took ten of us, the best shooters, and they said ‘you guys go in there and shoot the deer’. I got 11. We finally got some good food.”
George was transferred to an artillery battery but he could not recall the date.
In December of 1944 George and his unit were approximately 12 miles from Bastogne when the Battle of the Bulge started. George recalls the Nazi’s being dressed in white camouflage and switching the road signs to confuse the Allied armies. “It took us a while to get on to what they were doing to us.” George recalls the difficulty in identifying Nazi’s or Allies. The GI’s started asking, “Who did Joe DiMaggio marry? If they didn’t say Marilyn Monroe, boom, boom”.
George recalled much of the time the Americans were chasing the Germans as they were retreating. When the Germans felt they had to protect a location they felt was strategic, there would be a battle. “Tough fighting and everybody had to work together.” George saw a lot of fighting and shot a lot of bullets. “There were two guys that took me under their wing. One was 38 and one was 39. Good thing. They showed me what to do and how to do it.”
George recalled the fighting. “We’re here to kill as many German’s as we can.” “War is war. You have to be in a war to know what war is. They talk about (on the news today) 5 people got killed and two children. It’s war. It’s going to happen. We’re not there to make friends.”
After turning the tide at the Battle of the Bulge and Bastogne the 4th crossed the Rhine and headed toward Munich. George recalled on one occasion, “we were steaming down the road at about 40 mph trying to catch the Nazi’s. All of a sudden, we see a bunch of guys out there in their black and white pajamas”. The pajamaed men started to wave, and the GI’s slowed down. These were prisoners from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. I asked George if they entered the camp and he said no, “but we could smell it.”
I asked George if he recalled taking many prisoners. “Oh Yeah. Most of the German prisoners were happy because they knew they would be well treated.” The Germans wanted no part of the Russians.
In May of ’45 a German plane strafed George’s unit, put its wheels down and landed on a nearby runway. The Nazi jumped from the plane and began running in hope of escaping. The American’s took off in hot pursuit after him and George chased him down into an underground bunker. George peered into the bunker and found the German soldier who was pointing his Lugar at George. George, pointing his baretta (handgun) at the German, yelled “hands up”. The German soldier didn’t move. George yelled again and on the fourth try the German dropped his weapon. A fellow GI arrived and asked George if he was ok. George said he was fine and had the situation under control. The GI told George to check his baretta. It was jammed. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
When the Nazi’s surrendered, George went to Czechoslovakia as part of the Occupational Forces. From there they were scheduled to join up with Patton and head to Japan. Before they could ship out the Japanese surrender. George recalled, “we all got drunk as a skunk.”
George and his company were in Marseille France to be discharged. He was having a problem seeing out of his left eye but didn’t want to tell anyone because he wanted to stay with his company for the trip back to the states. He waited until their ship, The Liberty, was underway before he asked to see a doctor. He was told there was no doctor on the ship and the best they could do was to start him on penicillin. At the time penicillin was a new drug and it was administered once every four hours. On the19 day trip back to the states, “I had 104 shots of penicillin.” When the ship arrived in Boston George was sent to a local hospital.
During his time in the service, George faithfully wrote home to his sister who read the letters to his parents who were both immigrants from Romania. Many years later these letters were discovered in a metal box in George’s attic. The local ABC television crew interviewed George and that was the first time any of the people who knew George, many of them longtime friends and former students, learned George was in World War II and that he was, as George referred himself, “a D-Day boy”.
George’s first job when he got home was in construction. His brother suggested he use the GI Bill to go to college. George took that advice and enrolled at Ithaca College to pursue a career as a Phys Ed teacher. While at Ithaca he met Judy Sherrell. At the time both George and Judy were dating other people. In their freshman year Judy came down with appendicitis and had to leave school. When she recovered her parents told her Ithaca was too expensive and Judy enrolled at Cortland University. Three years later George, who was now 27, had graduated in three years to “to beat the crowds and get a job”. He was attending a Phys Ed conference at Syracuse University and “It was a Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I was making the rounds. I was young and single.” George went to the bar and “saw a beautiful red head”. It was 23-year-old Judy Sherrell. They hadn’t seen each other in three years, and both were unattached. The couple tied the knot in 1953 and were married until 2012 when Judy passed away. The couple had two sons and a daughter.
George’s first teaching job was at a K-12 school in Macedon, NY. “I taught physiology. I was the school nurse, I drove the bus and I coached three sports (baseball, basketball and soccer). All for $1,900. The first year I won three championships, and the baseball team was undefeated (22-0).” In 1954 he took a job at Penfield High School, just outside of Rochester, NY.
George had an incredible career as a high school coach. At Penfield High School he coached soccer, baseball, basketball, swimming and girls softball. He didn’t just coach. He built a career molding the lives of student athletes for 66 years and setting records for wins in soccer, basketball, and baseball. He retired in 2020 with 563 wins in baseball. Not bad for a kid who never participated in organized sports.
George also was a referee and umpire and officiated over 7,000 games. He remained active until the age of 95. I asked George which was his favorite sport. “Baseball. There is so much in baseball people don’t notice…lots of intricacies.”
Among George’s many accolades are National High School Coach of the Year, induction into the New York State Soccer Hall of Fame, the Ithaca Sports Hall of Fame, the Rochester Sports Hall of Fame and many more that could be the subject of a separate story.
To round out his athletic accomplishments, George was an avid fisherman and has hooked a lot of fish around the world. The walls of his office are packed with awards, mounted fish and other testimonials of a jaw-dropping career.
Now in his golden years George has also been honored by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. I asked George if he had ever returned to Normandy. “I’m not going back.”
At 99 years of age George Steitz is the poster child for a life well lived. He served his country by landing on D-Day and fighting across Europe until the embodiment of evil was soundly defeated. He then went on to serve thousands of others through his teaching and coaching and all of those whose lives he touched have never forgotten him. That is evident by spending an hour at a local country club bar before dinner. Former students, athletes and opposing coaches, each with their own memories and stories about “the coach” stopped by to say hello.
George, thank you for saving the world from evil and setting many young people on the right path in life. But as a former catcher, I can only think, you might have heard, “Come on, ump your killing us! That was straight down Broadway! @#!&#!!!!