John Lowsky, Sr. - Dad's military experience as he told it to his niece, Alexandria Vitomski Ennik

Dad’s military experience, as he told it to his niece, Alexandria Vitomski Ennik
John Lowsky, 96, passed away Friday, July 20th, 2018, in Charlottesville, Virginia. John was born July 10, 1922 to Sophia Dietlovitch Lowsky and Joseph Lowsky in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the second of 5 children. He graduated from Jamesburg High School in 1940 and went to Rutgers University at night while working full time at American Cyanamid. Cousin Sandy(Alexandria) Vitomski, recorded some of Dad’s Army travels. She was 6 years old when he came home from the war.“Uncle John joined the 29th Division of the Army and on Memorial Day 1942, he traveled to boot camp via train to Georgia. His division boarded the Queen Mary on August 2nd, which had been fitted with bunks for transporting troops. He was in a suite with 30 other soldiers. It was the first time a complete division was carried on any ship. First Armored Infantry Division (15,125 troops, 863 crew).They landed at Gourock, Scotland on August 7th and took the British train down to the English Channel where they boarded a small ship that took them across to Le Havre, France.  They traveled by train through Belgium and then entered the fighting on the Belgium/German border at Aachen.They pursued the Germans to the Rhine River where they met the Russians. That was the agreed upon termination of the invasion. General Eisenhower had set that up.  During the occupation of Germany, Uncle John was in charge of a motor pool. I remember seeing pictures of this, but I don't remember where.”“When Uncle John came back he told stories of seeing the ruined houses and farms and sent back a feather quilt that he had liberated from one.  I remember sleeping under it in Grandpa and Grandma's row house on Grove Street in Elizabeth.  (Grandpa owned the block of houses.) Come to think of it, Grandma had hung a flag with one star on it in the front window to denote that she had a son overseas.”“ Uncle John lived with us when Pat and I were very small.  I remember him giving us a bath when our mom and dad went to the movies one night. I also remember him giving me sleigh rides down our very long driveway.  (This farm house has been demolished and you probably have no recollection of it. But, I have very loving memories of it.)”During his time in the Army, Dad I remember Dad saying he was a machine gunner’s assistant, After the machine gunner was killed, he became the machine gunner. Later, when he was in the motor pool, he had to drive a truck over a mountain. He was transporting nitroglycerine and his brakes went while coming down the mountain. He survived by using the clutch and downshifting. He told another story about his group of soldiers “harvesting” fresh fish after his Sargent threw a grenade into a koi pond. After his return stateside, he was discharged on Memorial Day, 1944.
These facts are not necessarily perfect, but pretty close, I suspect.The quoted areas are from Sandy Vitomski and the rest I gathered from things I heard from Dad and some of the facts about the Queen Mary on Wikipedia.Margaret Lowsky Bordak,      July 30, 2018