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By MICHELLE MCLEAN

Wally Christopher is “approaching 90” — and he’s contemplating a sequel.

About a year ago, the former Hillsboro farmer published a 58-page book with stories and photos of his days in the Army during World War II.

Christopher planned to print five copies of “A Soldier’s Life” for his wife and four children. Instead about 100 copies have been printed and distributed to friends and family from coast to coast. He’s sold out but another batch is due from the printer this week.

He’s got more stories to tell, he says. A sequel may be in order. 

Now living in Fergus Falls, Minn., Christopher penned the first volume of stories over a year’s time, writing in longhand. He didn’t rely on just his memory; he referred to two small diaries he kept while in the service. Important dates had been jotted down — for posterity — on the inside of a camel-skin wallet he carried as a soldier. To verify major military events, he checked with Gen. Eisenhower’s book — since they often traveled the same path.

Christopher’s editorial “staff” — his wife Donna and daughter Echo would read his drafts and offer suggestions; then his teenage granddaughter Amanda Breen would type his manuscripts.

The family project was intended to preserve Grandpa’s stories for younger generations. It’s done that — and much more. The stories have found a broader audience, eager to hear first-hand this soldier’s story.

Christopher, like so many other North Dakota farm boys, was called to military service shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He left for Ft. Snelling, Minn. on March 20, 1942. He boarded a troop train in Grand Forks and would not return home again until September 1945.

More than six decades later, Christopher says he’s “proud to have given three and a half years of my life to serve my country.”

Christopher’s military service would take him from North Dakota to north Africa, Italy and France.

Growing up on a farm six miles north of Grand Forks, he attended country school. He started high school in Grand Forks but a harsh winter made travel nearly impossible and he soon dropped out, never to return. Instead Christopher went to work — “and you know how that goes,” he offered.

He rented a farm not far from his father’s place and raised potatoes. By happenstance, he fell into a job with the N.D. Seed Department as a licensed potato inspector.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Christopher’s boss predicted that his young worker would soon hear from the draft board. The 24-year-old Christopher was single — a prime candidate for the military. His boss at the seed dept. urged him to sign an important paper prior to getting his draft notice, Christopher recalled. The paper was essentially a “pass” out of the infantry to a preferred assignment with the quartermaster section. The best that Christopher could tell was the mention of “potatoes” in his record suggested to the military that the draftee knew something about “food.”

After two months of basic training at Fort Warren in Wyoming, Christopher was sent to Ft. Hamilton, N.Y. for six months.

His first job there was as a driver for the motor pool, transporting officers around New York in a “Ford car.” He writes of one encounter with a friendly civilian on a busy New York street one afternoon. The man also struck up a conversation with another military driver parked nearby. The next day the man’s picture was in the newspaper, detailing his arrest as a German war saboteur.

Christopher was handpicked for his next assignment.

“We were standing there like four rows of corn, when an officer came and took a bunch of guys for engineers. Then he took a bunch of guys (including myself) for the motor pool. It was the beginning of the 6th Port.”

The unit shipped out November 1, 1942 on the flagship John Erickson, an ocean liner converted into a troop ship. Christopher wrote how he felt the ship vibrate to life at 3 in the morning and went up on deck in time to see the Statue of Liberty as the ship sailed out to sea.

After a day on the Atlantic, the soldiers — packed below deck “like rats” — were told their destination was Africa.

Cramped quarters and poor ventilation made the two-week voyage unpleasant, Christopher remembered. “I tried to stay topside as much as I could.”

A convoy with a heavy cruiser escort and sub chasers kept German submarines and their torpedoes at bay.

The 6th Port Headquarters TC was to be responsible for the movement of troops and supplies in support of the Tunisian campaign in north Africa, operating ports at Casablanca, Fedala and Safi.

After waiting several days off the coast for Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and the French to negotiate control of military forces in Africa, Christopher and the rest of the 6th Port finally landed in Casablanca November 19, 1942.

The welcoming committee included another general. “The first man we met was General George Patton. He asked what outfit we were with. I said, ‘The 6th Port’ and he responded, ‘Go in.’ That was the end of the conversation.”

Christopher noted that his finances as a soldier were bleak. A scheduling and paperwork snafu left him without pay for his first two weeks in the Army. The backpay never caught up with him, he recalled.

“We only got paid $21 a month and then they took out insurance and laundry — I actually got $11 a month. I had 20 cents when we went from Wyoming to New York and 30 cents when I went from New York to Africa. The extra $5 or $6 would have helped to buy some ice cream.”

In Casablanca, Christopher’s first job was again as a driver. After getting lost one night — because headlights weren’t allowed — he opted to work in the motor pool shop — where the mechanic stayed for the rest of the war.

The job had its perks, though. Good food was scarce on the docks where Christopher worked. At a nearby shop, the Red Cross regularly served up doughnuts and coffee. To enjoy the good food, the mechanics would commandeer an ambulance at lunch time and exit the gates with sirens blaring and lights flashing — and no questions asked.

Back on the docks, work continued non-stop as the 6th Port unloaded “everything from brooms to train locomotives.”

In August 1943, the 6th Port was split. Half the unit stayed in Casablanca while the other half was sent to Italy. They were to meet up with the 5th Army at Naples. But first they were detoured to Salerno.

“General Mark Clark called for more help. Things were not going well at Salerno. There was so much broken down equipment and dead bodies, the troops had a hard time getting in.”

Two troops ships sailed into the Atlantic, dodging German subs. The men aboard slept where they ate. Christopher traded his hammock for a table — no more comfortable but a better place to stretch out his long legs.

The convoy grew as it passed the Rock of Gibraltor. It stopped at Algiers and a week later at Bizerte, waiting for orders to continue.

“General Clark sent word not to come any farther. He didn’t think they could hold the area. Eisenhower ordered the Navy to shell the area from off shore and also the Air Force in Africa to get in there. The British 8th Army was coming up from the south and it got to be too much for the Germans and they retreated 50 miles to the north. . . . We soon got orders to come running. The water in the Mediterranean was real smooth.”

“We crossed the Mediterranean in two landing crafts with no escort. It took 36 hours. We could hear the guns before we got there. It turned out to be American guns. We waded in knee deep water to get to land. It was dark.”

The men dug fox holes 20-30 feet from the water. During the night German planes flew overhead and fired their machine guns and American ships returned fire with anti-aircraft guns.

“All of this was going on over our heads. There was a lot of noise. Foxholes don’t help much from above. I didn’t hear anybody call for medics. I think this was the most terrifying incidence I ran into.”

Christopher would spend the next month up the road a ways — in another foxhole. The area would be the scene of heavy fighting and many casualties as the Allies invaded Italy and forced the Germans out.

Christopher made note of some of the practical concerns of a soldier. Clean water was scarce in Italy and the U.S. military issued each soldier a six-pack of beer. Christopher drank one can a day instead of water.

He found a scrub board on the beach near Naples — it was a treasure he kept and used until he was shipped home two years later.

In the aftermath of the invasion, Christopher saw how civilians suffered. He recalled small children dressed in rags — or less —scavenging for food scraps by the mess tent.

The 6th Port’s motor pool set up shop in an old school.

“It’s hard to put in writing the sounds of bombs whistling, coming down and not knowing where it will land. Or the sound of the machine guns firing and not knowing just where they are pointed. But you do know what their intentions are. When I heard a bomb coming down whistling, I froze right there. I didn’t even run for cover. We had air raids every night. So many I lost count. We would lay out our shoes and pants each night. When the air raid siren sounded we would grab our pants and shoes and run. Concussion was a bugger. We didn’t know if we should inhale or exhale.”

Christopher had an Army buddy named Danny McArthy, an Irish immigrant from New York. He hadn’t told his mother in Ireland he had been drafted. He kept her in the dark by writing letters to her and mailing them first to a friend in New York who in turn mailed them to his mother in Ireland.

The 6th Port was stationed in Naples until April 1944 when they were sent to Marseille, France aboard a freighter — about a month before D-Day and the invasion at Normandy. Christopher recalled how Marseille was to be a backup port for supplies if the battles at Normandy didn’t go well.

The busy motor pool was open 24 hours a day and Christopher slept in the shop, sharing a bed with a co-worker who worked the opposite shift. In time, Christopher snagged a much-deserved three-day pass to Paris. As he writes in his book, his hungry misadventures again involved a Red Cross cafe and doughnuts.

After, Germany surrendered May 7, 1945, Christopher and the 6th Port expected to ship out to Japan.

“But then they dropped the big bomb on Japan and all that changed. In spite of what we had gone through, I was ready to go to the Pacific.”

“I didn’t want to go home until we’d cleaned up the mess,” he said.

In September 1945, Christopher was in the midst of repairing a Jeep when his sergeant asked if he wanted to go home.

“That was it. I was done right there. I hope somebody got that Jeep fixed up.”

In a few days, Christopher was on a ship home. He landed in Norfolk, Va. on September 14, 1945 and was sent by train to Camp McCoy, Wisc. the next day. From the train window, Christopher saw a farmer plowing with horses close to the track. He still remembers the simple gesture the farmer made toward the soldiers aboard the troop train.

“He stopped his horses and took his hat off. That brought tears to many eyes. That was the most respect we had gotten any place.”

Christopher was discharged September 24, 1945 — ending his military career of three years, six months and four days.

He arrived home in North Dakota in time to help with potato harvest and would later resume his job as a potato inspector.

He eventually took the advice of N.D. seed commissioner R.C. Hastings and rented a farm a few miles west of Hillsboro. After “trying it out” for a few years, he bought the farm. In 1959, he married “a blonde girl” — his wife Donna. They would raise certified seed potatoes — and four children on the farm — Tom, Bill, Echo and Jim. When the sugar beet processing plant was built near Hillsboro in 1974, Christopher switched crops to sugar beets. The farm was a family operation involving everyone in the work. He “officially” retired when he turned 62, but maintains a keen interest in farming.

He and Donna moved to Fergus Falls about six years ago, living close to his daughter Echo and her family.

Mindful of the success of his first book, Christopher suspects he’ll be writing more stories soon and his three-women editorial staff will again be drafted into service for a sequel.