Savoie takes fellow Rotarians on historic ride

Rotarian David Savoie finally had the opportunity to do a program he has “been wanting to do” for quite some time.
It started with Savoie taking Rotarians back to the year 1938. He began the program by setting the scene through the oration of a typical radio broadcast that depicted the landscape of the world through news and sports.
The stories told focused on Nazi Germany, attacks that were killing Jews and destroying businesses and how even the World Cup was not without controversy due to the ongoing turmoil in Germany.
It set up the scene that helped lead to the creation of the John Deere Battalion in 1942.
The John Deere Battalion was the creation of Charles Deere Wiman, who served as president of John Deere Company. Wiman was the great-grandson of John Deere. He was a veteran and served his country during World War I.
Wiman, according to Savoie, was also a close friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which helped lead to the John Deere Battalion’s creation.
You see, World War II brought about Wiman’s re-entry into the military. In 1942, he was commissioned as a colonel in the U.S. Army and attached to the staff of Gen. Levin H. Campbell, chief of ordnance.
In 1944, Wiman was appointed director of the Farm Machinery and Equipment Division of the War Production Board. To better carry out his duties, the Army placed him on inactive status.
In the midst of this, however, Wiman had sent a letter to all of the John Deere dealerships across the country inviting all to join the “John Deere Battalion” of the U.S. Army.
“The Ward Department has asked the John Deere organization to form a U.S. Army Battalion for service as a maintenance unit for keeping mechanized combat equipment in operations. Men will be recruited from John Deere factories, branch houses and dealers’ stores,” read the letter.
As it would turn out, two Crowley-area men answered the call to action in that letter, Milton Miers and Savoie’s father, Lucien Savoie.
It is from Lucien’s stories and pictures, as well as outside research that David Savoie presented his program to his fellow Rotarians Tuesday at the Town Club in Crowley.
The John Deere Battalion, according to David Savoie, was made up of five companies — a Headquarters and Service Company and Companies E through H.
In these companies were men ages 18 to 45 that were comprised in majority by John Deere employees, which would become an invaluable asset during the war effort.
The battalion’s first stop was Savanna, Illinois, before traveling for training to Camp Sutton, North Carolina, Los Angeles and Mojave Desert, California. The battalion then traveled Warminster, England, to continue training and begin preparing for D-Day exercises.
But, the battalion didn’t travel to England on any normal ship. Instead, they traveled by way of the Queen Elizabeth, which David Savoie explained, was painted battleship gray for the trip.
Preparing for the invasion, the battalion was tasked with things such as waterproofing the tanks.
It was, however, other work with tanks that made the battalion such an important cog in the war effort.
“The Germans were famous for something going broke, things would break in the tank, and they would walk away from it; they had another tank a couple of miles away,” said David Savoie.
The mechanics in the John Deere Battalion were tasked with taking tanks that were not working and repairing them for the U.S. A repair shop was created for their work in Manage, Belgium.
David Savoie continued his slideshow of old photographs from his father’s old war album all the way through the battalion’s return home.
The battalion traveled home on the SS Argentina and landed in New York City on Jan. 1, 1946.