CHRISTENING: At Saint Marks Lutheran Church, St. Paul & 20th Streets, Baltimore, Maryland.
EDUCATION: BA- Business Administration, June 1936, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. He was president of the class of 1936. He played freshman lacrosse- 1933, varsity lacrosse- 1934 to 1936, and was elected to the All American Lacrosse Team in 1936. He was in the US Reserve Officers Training Corps there & was awarded a commission as 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army on 6/4/1936.
MARRIAGE: Evelyn Brandt at St. Marks Lutheran Church, Sept. 16, 1939.
MILITARY: Active duty 5/5/1941 to 1/10/1946- He reported to Fort Benning, Georgia (near Columbus) where he was made 1st Lieutenant and joined a company in the 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Division. He was 5ft. 11 in. and 143 lbs. As a good soldier and citizen he purchased a $25 war bond every month from his army pay. The 22nd was transferred on Dec.20, 1941 to Camp Gordon near Augusta, GA for further training. Sometime prior to June 1942 it was discovered that Herb had been a personnel officer at Western Electric so he was made regimental personnel officer. He was promoted to Captain 6/25/1942. The regiment took beach assault training at Camp Gordon Johnson (beginning 9/28/1943), near Carabelle, Florida below Tallahassee in preparation for the invasion of Europe. Dec.1, 1943 they moved to Ft. Jackson, SC for staging, i.e. joining movement of troops to England. On Jan.6, 1944 the regiment moved to Camp Kilmer, NJ to be loaded aboard the British passenger ship "Capetown Castle". The ship left for England in a convoy on January 17, 1944, arrived the 29th in Liverpool, England and Regimental Headquarters was at Camp Denbury near Newton Abbott, 35 miles from Exeter. There they were visited by General Eisenhower, SHAEF Commander, Gen. Bradley 1st Army Comdr.. & Gen. Montgomery, British Comdr.. The regiment participated in 1) the invasion of Europe at Normandy, France landing at Utah Beach on 'D' Day, June 6, 1944 (Capt. Brill, 22nd Infantry Regiment Adjutant, and the personnel section disembarked June 23rd {WWII Army Journal, p.132}); 2) the St. Lo Breakthrough; 3) the Battle of Paris; 4) the initial penetration of the Siegfried line at the German border; 5) the terrible battles in the Hurtgen Forest (11/16 to 12/3/1944- to take 600 yards of forest and one village, it cost in casualties 85% of the normal complement of 3257 men); 6) the Battle of The Bulge and 7) the conquest (beginning 2/7/1945) of Germany. During these times, as regimental personnel officer, he was responsible for keeping records of casualties. He had a pup tent & bed roll for sleeping and ate 'K' rations which contained spam- a compressed meat product. On July 4, 1945, after a short period of occupation duty, the regiment left for the US aboard the "James Parker" & landed in New York City, pier 84, on July 11th. They went to Camp Kilmer, NJ & then to Camp Butner, NC. 30 day furloughs were given the men in rotating order. The regiment was to spend time training for Pacific warfare, refitting and repairing equipment and absorbing replacement personnel in anticipation of departure for the Pacific War Theatre in Nov. 1945. However, the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan leading to unconditional surrender. The use of these weapons saved hundreds of thousands of American lives which would have been lost in the invasion of the Japanese homeland. On 1/10/1946 Herbert was released to civilian life and service in the army reserves. He remained in the US Army reserves working with the selective service and was promoted to Major on 5/16/1946 & Lt. Colonel on 1/3/1955. He retired at the mandatory retirement age of 60 on his birthday 8/20/1971.
OCCUPATION: Personnel and Industrial Relations supervisor with Western Electric (where pre-war he had met his wife, Evelyn) in Baltimore. He retired on 12/31/1973.
PERSONAL: On 2/8/2000 I had a conversation with Dr. Boice, 22nd Infantry Regimental Chaplain, Aug.1943-Feb.1946. He described Capt. Brill as "one of the finest officers he has known and that the very complete records of the regiment are to his credit." On the same day, Dr. James M. Kirtley, Regimental Surgeon, commented that "Herb Brill kept impeccable records and was one of the kindest officers he had known. While he & Herb were only occasionally under fire, the keeping of records of casualties and care of the wounded were heartrending." I can echo their sentiments. Uncle Herb was best man at my wedding. (Merrick Edwin Shawe, 6405 Fairborn Terr., New Carrollton, MD 20784-3315)
THE DEATH FACTORY - HURTGEN FOREST
"Show me a man who went through the Battle of Hurtgen Forest and who says he never had a feeling of fear, and I'11 show you a liar or a damn fool. You can't get all of the dead because you can't find them, and they stay there to remind the guys advancing as to what might hit them. You can't get protection. You can't see.You can't get fields of fire. Artillery slashes the trees like a scythe. Everything is tangled. You can scarcely walk. Everybody is cold and wet, and the mixture of cold rain and sleet keeps falling. Then we attack again and soon there is only a handful of old men left." T/5 George Morgan, First Battalion (22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.
The following narration concerns only one of the battles fought by the Twenty-Second Infantry, but even though it lasted only eighteen days, the percentage of casualties far exceeds those sustained at any other time, including the invasion of Europe. Many of the combat veterans who fought through the D-day landing and later the Hurtgen Forest remarked that Hurtgen was by far the bloodiest, most filthy fight they had encountered. They knew then they were really the front line riflemen. It was in such a battle as this that the true heroism of the infantry doughboy came forth. There is no other branch of the service where the men must eat, fight, and live in the mud. These heroic men fought continuously within fifty yards of the enemy, often with actual physical contact and with sure death only seconds away. These men ate the issue rations when they were frozen, muddy, and stale. Fires were unheard of. These men lived day and night in the bloody slime to be found only in the Hurtgen Forest. It was not an uncommon sight to see a dead soldier with the pit of his stomach ripped open, with his head blown completely off, with his back broken by shrapnel, or to hear the wounded scream in terrifying pain with their legs or arms completely blown off by an enemy shell.