John Steele's and Lynne Busby's Genealogy Pages
Jr Fred Monroe ( Jack ) STEELE, Jr.
1915 - 1993 (78 years)
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Name Fred Monroe ( Jack ) STEELE Prefix Jr Suffix Jr. Born 26 Sep 1915 Pelahatchie Mississippi 
Gender Male _UID F54B542765360848AC63AE2F3EE86B91B459 Died 26 Sep 1993 Jackson Mississippi Buried Jackson 
Siblings5 Siblings Person ID I7530 Steeles_Genealogy Last Modified 27 Mar 2022
Father Fred Monroe STEELE, b. 23 Mar 1878, Woodbine Iowa , d. 21 Dec 1943, Jackson Mississippi (Age 65 years) Mother Margueritte Alice DENSON, b. 18 Aug 1884, Ludlow MS , d. 4 Feb 1978, Jackson MS (Age 93 years) Married 28 Aug 1912 Family ID F27 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family Julia Lynn HOWELL, b. 6 Aug 1914, Cleveland MS , d. 05 Feb 1995, Jackson, MS (Age 80 years) Married 1 Sep 1940 Children 1. Fred Monroe STEELE, III 2. Julia Allen STEELE, b. 6 Feb 1947, Cleveland Miss , d. 26 SEPT 2020, Northport, AL (Age 73 years)3. John Francis STEELE + 4. JoAlice Denson STEELE, b. 17 Nov 1957, Jackson, MS , d. 5 May 2020, Appleton, WI (Age 62 years)Last Modified 29 Sep 2013 Family ID F2563 Group Sheet | Family Chart
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Photos 
daddy 1940.jpg 
cccdays.jpg 
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daddy@va 09-91.jpg 
daddy softball.jpg 
daddynohit2.jpg
Daddy, Ace Picture.
daddyoct1942.jpg 
Daddy loved to fish.
Daddy's catch circa 1955 from Yucatan lake near Port Gibson, MS.
Daddy loved to fish.
Daddy, Jack and I at Eagle Lake, MS near Vicksburg.
Daddy has a Jax beer hidden behind his back.
Daddy's Birth certificate. 
daddy's professional studio picture. 
daddystudio3.jpg 
johndad.jpg 
katiebabymackdaddy.jpg 
meanddaddy.jpg 
meanddaddyFeb91.jpg 
meanddaddyFeb911.jpg 
dad1.JPG 
dad2.JPG 
dad@ccc camp.jpg 
dad@ccc camp1.jpg 
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dadccc1.JPG 
daddy and JoAlice.jpg 
daddy friend.jpg 
daddy softball mpl.jpg 
daddy1943@moms.jpg 
daddyand.jpg
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Notes - Notes from tape
Fragmented comments from audio tape I took while talking to Daddy one night, probably in the late 80’s. Mother’s voice can be heard too. We were sitting around the dining room table. There are a lot of paper rattling sounds as we were looking at maps.
He was in the Épinal (France) hospital maybe a week after being wounded. And another damn hospital someplace. He said he was also in Dijon and Masul (sp).
He served in the infantry and was on an outpost when a “damn” shell hit a tree.
He said it was an aerial burst, and he didn’t know he was hit until he started to
run for shelter in a nearby dug out—a place in the ground with a dead guy
(American) killed by the same burst. Daddy said, “The burst killed that SOB dead.”
Daddy was at Anzio where the worst fighting was, and fought at Aix les Baines, and Aix en Provence. He said that Grenoble was “all rolling…
It was rolling worse than Vicksburg. He also said he walked and rode from St. Tropez up to where he was wounded, near St. Die, France. He said you walked depending on the resistance. If the fighting was heavy you walked and if it all was quiet you rode on trucks. Sometimes it was 150 miles before they had to stop, but when they moved they moved. When they stopped they had to walk.
He said that up on a hill road the “SOB” Germans shot a tank gun or self propelled gun at the jeep they were riding in and “KABOOM”--the bastards missed. He said the Germans would shoot a cannon at one person if they saw them and figured they could kill them.
Avignon was a familiar town as was Aix en Provence. He said they zigzagged all over. The Germans were up north. He said a German POW gave him a pistol and a pretty knife with a swastika on it, but that he lost it all after he got wounded. They took his pipe too and he never got it back either.
He pointed to the map and said we were here—Abt —he referred to it as Abbott—said in Austrian it meant Abbott, and knew a guy at the VA named Abt and he pronounced it Abbott.
He said he was at Montremont also. I asked if there was time to visit or rest. “Shit no!!’ , only after Montremont. We were always on the move.”
Phone rings in kitchen. Mother answers.
I asked him about Switzerland and he said there were some old Swiss who sold milk, and made their own shoes. Montremont was way high on a ridge and he said you could look down and off into the distance and see lakes--it was the most beautiful country he had ever seen.
Aix en Provence—Avignon—Montremont were all pretty well torn up and bombed out as well as other towns on the Rhone River.
Looking at the map of France he said Lyon was off to the left, and the names of other places escaped him. He mentioned the Ain River which is an eastern French river rising in the Jura Mountains and flowing SSW into the Rhone River. He also mentioned other names such as Roen?? Roan?? Le puve? I could not find them on a map of France.
He said he went though towns and didn’t know the names of them because the signs were all torn down.
He was in St. Die, and I believe this is the approximate location where he received his wound—a nasty leg wound in the shin area. As a matter of information, I was stationed at Hahn AB Germany from 1975-1978 and was not more than a three hour drive from where he was wounded. He mentioned Besancon and said they referred to it as (Ba San San). He told me that St. Die was in the Bosgue Mountains.
Said they didn’t have many hot meals—mainly C rations and later K rations.
When they got up to Montremont and St. Die they were able to eat meat, steak and fish. He said an old German lived on the river and was a blacksmith and they traded stuff. Daddy told about dropping grenades in the river to kill fish. He explained difference in fragmentation grenade and concussion grenade as it relates to the sound and water disturbance-fragmentation was bubbly and a concussion grenade was like a high water fountain.
Said he walked out on a log that had been blown down by a shell and dropped the grenade by where the fish (pike and pickerel) were and “Kaboom”, directly he (the fish) came to the surface and the son of a bitch was three feet long. The old German fixed poles with steel rods attached because the fish were so deep—I didn’t really understand this but have included in anyway,
The old German traded soup and wine for the fish as the fishing was out of season for them so they couldn’t fish. But the Americans could. They also got beef steaks, schnapps, and liquor—annise or anisette. As a matter of historical information, this region (Alsace-Lorraine) has been fought over and switched back and forth between the Germans and French for centuries. Swiss is also spoken there.
He said it was the fall of the year when he got wounded and you can hear Mother say it was November 4, 1944. He said the fragmentation grenades would just make the water boil while the concussion grenades would shoot a water spout 20 feet high. That was how they got most of their fish—concussion grenades.
Said he landed August 15 at St. Tropez. Said he was in Billey, and Aix les Baines. When I asked him about when Anzio was he said, “Beats the shit out of me!” He also said that after time you forget everything. Suggested the 3rd Division history would tell all about that. Also the VFW or DAV magazines might have that info.
He ended the interview with, “that’s’ all I can remember!” He said he wasn’t hurt at Anzio and I heard Mother say he was a replacement, and that he got to Rome in June 1944. This was all in Mother’s voice. Daddy is also heard to say, that he almost got hurt, but didn’t elaborate.
As an aside, when I was in Italy in November of 2006, I was within some thirty miles of Anzio, and it occurred to me that Daddy and I no doubt saw some of the same Italian soil and may have in fact traveled the same route, but under entirely different circumstances.
Forgive me if this is somewhat disjointed and grammatically flawed, but I had to translated from the spoken word, and you know we don’t write like we speak.
- Notes from tape
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