Bob Vetter
Ballplayers Wounded in Combat
| Date and Place of Birth: | November 30, 1924 Buffalo, NY |
| Date and Place of Death: | October 30, 2006 Buffalo, NY |
| Baseball Experience: | Minor League |
| Position: | Pitcher |
| Rank: | Private |
| Military Unit: | C Company, 1st Battalion, 134th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division US Army |
| Area Served: | European Theater of Operations |
Robert L. “Bob” Vetter, the son of Louis and Anna Vetter, was born on
November 30, 1924, in Buffalo, New York. He attended Fosdick-Masten Park
High School, played American Legion Junior League baseball with Marlow's
and sandlot ball with Babcock Drugs in the Buffalo Suburban League. Aged
19, the bespectacled right-hander with a natural submarine and sidearm
delivery, was signed by the Rochester Red Wings of the Class AA
International League in the spring of 1943. He pitched one regular
season game for the Red Wings under manager Pepper Martin before being
sent to the Jamestown Falcons of the Class D PONY League for seasoning,
where he was 4-7 in 19 appearances, which included a no-hitter over
Batavia on June 16.
His rookie season was cut short when, on July 14, he had his screening
test for the Army and was inducted into military service on August 4.
Private Vetter trained at North Camp Hood, Texas, with Company D, 129th
TDTB (Tank Destroyer Training Battalion), and Camp Butner, North
Carolina, before departing for Europe on May 11, 1944, with Company C,
1st Battalion, 134th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division aboard
the USS General A. E. Anderson. Vetter arrived at the port of Bristol,
England, on May 25, 1944, then landed at Omaha Beach, Normandy, on July
6, 1944 (D+30), and was engaged in heavy action as his battalion, along
with the 2nd Battalion, led the charge for Hill 122 in St. Lo, France,
on July 25, 1944.
"We were supposed to move on St. Lo screened by a roving barrage," he
told Jamestown Post-Journal sports editor, Frank Hyde. "The barrage was
to have lifted at intervals to give us a chance to go in and mop up, but
this mission was just like a ball game where someone bobbles the first
grounder. Everything goes wrong after that. Guess that's the way it was
at St. Lo.
"In the first place the Germans were smart. They moved back with the
first barrage and planned one of their own with the advantage of knowing
every fox hole and barrier since they had just deserted them. When we
moved into that pock-marked slaughter pen you can imagine what
happened."
During the barrage, Vetter was wounded and his platoon sergeant, who was
standing beside him, was killed. Further men were killed and wounded as
the German troops opened fire. Then came the American barrage, adding to
the horror as the shells fell directly among their own troops.
"Everyone was down but a couple of us," Vetter continued. "We finally
decided to get out of there because we could see American's falling back
on both sides of us as the smoke cleared at intervals. Then they really
tossed the book at us. Mortars, machine guns, bazookas - the works, if
you get what I mean."
The 134th Infantry Regiment suffered 35% casualties in two days,
including 102 men killed, 589 wounded, and 102 missing.
"I was lying on my back when I came around. A fellow named Bonzar from
Lowell, Massachusetts, came rolling down into my ditch. I could only
wiggle my hand a little and my mouth was hanging open. I rememebr trying
to shut it so I could shout something but was no dice. My whole face was
paralyzed but I sensed being hit several times. Later I learned it was
in the head, chest, stomach and side. Shells were nicking the trees and
it was fascinating to lie there on your shoulder blades and watch them.
A burst would come over, sending down a little cascade of clipped leaves
and wood splinters.
"We finally decided to try and move out. My helmet, glasses and canteen
were gone and I remember wanting a drink of water awfully bad. About
that time a fellow named Newberry came up the gulley, walking straight
up in shell-shocked rigidity. He was laughing out loud in a strange and
terrifying sort of way as he headed straight for the German lines. I
never saw him again.
"Corporal Kent finally joined us and between he and Bonzar they
plastered me with a few first aid dressings. They said I was hit pretty
hard in the right side, but my left side was numb. That's the way it is
today, seems to effect the opposite side. Pretty soon a first aid man
came through the smoke and took over. I never saw Kent or Bonzar after
that, but heard they got out. The first aid man started along a shell
swept ridge as we headed back for our stations. I sure figured this was
the end, but he said the Germans wouldn't fire on a Red Cross worker.
They didn't either, although we must have been in plain sight.
"We worked down into a gulley where they had a jeep backed up. They put
me in the front seat and laid another fellow on the hood. I held his
head. Guess he was about done in. That's how we reached a temporary
hospital set up in a hedge grove.
"Something happened then that seems sort of funny now. They left me
sitting on the ground for a few minutes. I had on a regulation field
jacket turned inside out to keep it from reflecting the sun's rays. A
big lump under the jacket aroused my curiosity and I kept working at it
in a dazed sort of way. Suddenly out fell eight grenades! Hate to think
what would have happened had a shell knocked off a pin during all that
shooting. Anyway I picked up one and was holding it in my hand when a
big sergeant spotted me. He let out a war whoop like a Comanche and dove
at me head first, grabbing the grenade and brushing the others out of
reach. Guess he thought I was daffy and was going to blow up the whole
bunch of us."
Eventually, Vetter was shipped to England where he convalesced at
various hospitals before being flown home to New York. Following two
operations on his wounds at Ashford General Hospital in White Sulfur
Springs, West Virginia, Vetter was honorably discharged on November 17,
1944, with a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman Badge
(CIB).
Despite a metal plate in his skull, a semi-paralyzed left arm and hand,
and a numb side, he returned to professional baseball in 1945. He made a
single appearance for the Rochester Red Wings and a handful of relief
appearances for the Winston-Salem Cardinals of the Class C Carolina
League, before sending a telegram in May to Harry Bisgeier, president of
the Jamestown Falcons, where he had played before military service in
1943. "Those fellows [Bisgeier and manager Jim Levey] had a lot of faith
in me," Vetter recalled. "They taught me to have faith in myself."
Vetter rejoined the Falcons and was 10-9 in 22 appearances with a 3.73
ERA.
In 1946, Vetter, still only 21 years old, started the year with the Rome
Colonels of the Class C Canadian-American League before being purchased
in early May by the Auburn Cayugas of the newly-formed Class C Border
League. He was manager, Barney Hearn's opening day pitcher and defeated
the Watertown Athletics, 14-3, for the beginning of his best season in
professional baseball. On July 22, he pitched an exhibition game against
a young Jackie Robinson, who was in his rookie season with the Montreal
Royals, and, during the regular season was 13-7 with a 3.66 ERA,
including a string of six consecutive wins when he was forced to ask for
his release from the club on August 14. Pieces of shrapnel lodged in his
shoulder were causing problems and his physician ordered an immediate
operation. It spelled the end of Vetter's professional baseball career
as a pitcher.
Although he made a very brief return to minor league baseball in 1950,
appearing in 13 games for the Class D Georgia State League Jesup Bees
(he did not pitch and batted just .098), he spent the rest of his
working life as a car salesman, a guard with Globe Protection and at
Trico and Bell Aerospace.
Reflecting on his military service during an interview with Garrett
Smith, Vetter was asked if there's one thing he'd do differently. “I’d
like to tell the guy interviewing me that I wanted to play ball in the
service instead of being stupid and telling him I wanted action in the
service!”
A longtime resident of Eggertsville, a suburb of Buffalo, New York, Bob
Vetter died on October 30, 2006, in the Veterans Affairs Medical Center,
Buffalo, after a short illness. He was 81 years old.
Date Added December 18, 2017
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