A Humble Hero
By Monica Kleyman
Donald William Hofsess
August 9, 1925-December 2, 2014
Donald William “Bill” Hofsess was born on August 9, 1925 in El Dorado, Kansas.[1] Early on in his life, Bill’s family moved him and his younger sister to Manhattan, Kansas. There, his family ran a bakery in the small town where he delivered bread to customers on his bicycle. His daughter described his upbringing as “simple, rural” and filled with “farm Christian life.” He was athletic and ran both sprints and cross country for his high school. He always wondered if he was made a scout in the Army because of his ability to run fast. Bill loved literature and wanted to become an English professor before he joined the U.S. Army.
While Bill was never involved in politics, he knew that enlisting into the U.S. Army in 1943 was the right thing to do to save the world from Fascism. He enlisted right after he graduated high school, as he felt that it was his duty to help the United States defeat Adolf Hitler. Bill hadn’t come from a military family, as his father was never drafted into World War I. The reason he chose the Army over the other military branches was simply because there was a U.S. Army recruiting base in his small town. Bill hoped he could become an officer, but he trained to be a rifle infantry man. He quickly learned how to survive and shoot, before being sent over to the raging war in Europe.
U.S. soldiers landing on Utah Beach
World War II officially began when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The United States entered the war after Japanese forces attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Bill was involved in what was perceived as one of the most famous American war battles of all time. On June 6, 1944, the Americans invaded the beaches of Normandy, France in a battle that would go on to liberate Europe from Fascist control. More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed in this battle. The fight was on five different beaches and Bill landed on Utah beach, which was known as the fight that saved the war because it led to the capture of the port of Cherbourg. Bill served as a 4th Division Combat Infantryman, where the 4th Infantry had a 150% turnover rate during the march to Cherbourg. As soldiers were being replaced right and left, they were also being promoted instantly on the battlefield without it ever being properly recorded. After surviving three minor wounds in his shoulder, thumb and knee, Bill was severely injured by a sniper. This led to him being discharged from the Army. Though his discharge papers list his rank as Corporal, his field commander had promoted him to Staff Sergeant the morning he was shot by a sniper.
Back in small town Kansas, there was a lot of patriotic pride for those like Bill who had gone on to fight the Nazis. Bill’s own family had been very proud of him, but he had been just a kid when he was sent off to war. Bill never thought of himself as a great hero, but as a scared soldier, who just understood that Fascism needed to be stopped in Europe. Combat was terrifying, where Bill remembered that soldiers routinely filled their canteens with wine from barrels in deserted French wine cellars to help them cope with fighting in combat.
After the war, Bill was inspired to become a surgeon. He studied at Kansas State University and majored in pre-med. He then went on to get his M.D. at Northwestern University and specialized in urology. Bill then moved to Colorado for his residency at Colorado General Hospital, where he met his future wife, Patricia Littell. Bill was a great urologist who was part of the American Urological Association. Patty, as he called her, and Bill had two daughters, Holly and Lisa, and a son named William. Holly gave him three grandsons: Riley, Schuyler and Koby, whom he adored. It is possible that Bill was healing others to heal himself, but he struggled with an alcohol addiction. He was able to become sober by going to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings and then never missed a meeting until he was diagnosed with dementia. Bill retired from his job as a surgeon when he was 63 years old, after he finally had the hip that was shattered by the sniper replaced.
Bill never had a strong sense of comradery when he was in combat, considering everyone was dying around him during WWII. Bill never was involved with veteran organizations as he felt that he had never connected with many other veterans during his service, but he did go on to give talks to kids about World War II at schools. He thought it was important for kids to know what happened. Bill wrote about his experiences in training and his stories were very charming, even though he went through a lot of pain during his time in combat. His daughter Lisa felt that she took on a lot of the pain that her father felt after the war. It was Lisa who took her father back to Normandy when he was eighty years old. This was possibly for closure, but also to show his daughter where he had served. Lisa is now working on a biography about her father to help others understand what many veterans went through during World War II.
Bill was diagnosed with dementia when he was 84 years old. The dementia had caused him to forget most of the details about the war. He died peacefully in hospice, holding Lisa’s hand, when he was 89 years old on December 2, 2014. In the hospital prior to hospice, a French nurse who had been a little girl in Normandy, France during the war thanked Bill (and all-American soldiers), for liberating her country. The nurse’s family had rescued wounded soldiers left on battlefields and hid them in their home until they could find safe places to send them. Seeing this nurse’s conversation with Bill helped Lisa make the decision to move him into hospice.
Bill was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his time in service. He wanted to be remembered as a wonderful grandfather and a good surgeon. He loved Colorado, especially for its camping and fishing. Bill never lost his sense of humility, no matter what it was that he lived through. He wanted to be buried with military honors at Fort. Logan cemetery, where he received a 21-gun salute at his funeral service. Bill believed that you should never give up or stop fighting for what you believe in. He was a person who was always down to earth and used his talents to help the world. Bill had never thought of himself as a hero, but his story is one of the many that deserve to be told. There is much more behind a grave and as Bill explained to Lisa standing on Utah Beach, that while the beaches at Normandy were used for an intense war operation to save the world from Fascism, they were after all just beaches.
Footnotes ↓
[1] Lisa Hofsess, “Interview on William Hofsess,” Interview by Monica Kleyman, April 10, 2019. All information for this biography came from this interview that was conducted by the author.
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