Henry H. Pennock

Former paratrooper still standing tall, with stories to tell.

By R. Kurt Osenlund, Pennington Post Editor

A lot of war veterans might tell you they “leapt” into battle, or just kind of “fell into” their military careers, but such statements take on literal meanings when coming from Henry Pennock, a Levittown-based WWII hero who experienced first-hand many tumultuous events that shaped our nation’s military history. Pennock became a paratrooper, a skydiving soldier who sails into combat zones from above. He has the scars and long-term effects to prove just how much action he saw, and though he’s not doing very much leaping these days, Pennock values all that he is and all that he’s come from.

“I enlisted in the paratroopers while I was in boot camp,” Pennock says. “The jump pay earned me an extra $50 a month, and all the girls liked the paratroopers, so it was a good gig.”

Pennock had originally wanted to join the Air Force. Born in Altoona and raised with sisters Betty and Suzanne by parents Henry Sr. and Lillian, Pennock, now 85, attended Altoona High School, where seniors were graduating early each month after January 1943 to meet the military’s high demand for soldiers. Pennock’s flawed eyesight rendered him ineligible for the Air Force, so he enlisted with the Army that March. His boot camp was based at Alabama’s Fort McClellan.

His paratrooper enlistment led him to Fort Benning in Georgia, where he commenced six weeks of jump school training. The rigorous, daredevil program tested soldiers’ psyches as much as their athleticism, consisting of tethered practice leaps off the top of telephone poles and base-jump drills off of 350-foot towers.

“My class started out with 8,000 guys,” Pennock says, “and only about 2,000 got their boots. Some of these guys were really physically fit, but they just couldn’t handle it mentally. If you could imagine jumping off the side of a building, that’s what it was like. The object was to toughen you up for the future.”

And that future came soon enough. Pennock – who says the humiliation that befell those who quit inspired him to keep focused and complete training – logged four true “day jumps” and one “night jump” before diving into a week of combat training, then boarded a French luxury-liner-turned-troop-carrier that would take him to Liverpool, England.

There, Pennock was assigned to the 101st Division, the military’s premiere paratrooper outfit that’s since been instrumental in battles in Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. From Liverpool, Pennock and his company moved on to Bastogne, Belgium, where, he says, they weren’t present for two days before they were surrounded by seven German Panzer divisions. The Siege of Bastone had begun. In their attempt to split the allied forces and enter Brussells, German troops bombed Bastogne, leaving nothing, Pennock says, but the basements of houses. The town was a war zone, and the soldiers, who’d moved to the outskirts to escape the bombing, re-converged to battle the ground troops.

Fighting amidst the rubble, and in the bitter cold, Pennock struggled on in Bastogne for 30 days before he and his fellow surviving division members were liberated by Gen. George Patton and his canon-wielding cavalry. This was the battle that would leave Pennock with serious shrapnel wounds and near-frostbitten feet. It was where he’d get by on oatmeal and turkey dinners generously dropped in canisters from airplanes overhead. It was where, on Christmas Eve, Americans and Germans would temporarily drop their weapons and join each other in the singing of carols, the very scene that’s etched itself into history books and been shared with multiple generations.

“When you think about George Washington, and how his men suffered on Christmas Eve, it was a lot like that,” Pennock says.

After recuperating in a Belgian hospital, Pennock traveled to Berchtesgaden, Germany – specifically its Kehlstein peak – where American soldiers had taken control of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest hideaway. It was 1945. Pennock offers anecdotes about vast German estates where hundreds of Americans guarded thousands of possessions collected by the Nazis, and swanky restaurants that, having once served the Fuhrer himself, were now catering to U.S. troops.

Pennock began training as one of the paratroopers who would enter Japan, but the subsequent dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima nixed the mission. It was just about time for Pennock to return to the States, where he’d land in January 1946 after 25 days of travel. He’d have one last big jump with the 17th Airborne Division, then spend a brief time studying topography at Penn State Altoona. In Kenosha, Wis., he worked with Simmons mattress company and met his first wife, Winnie. They had two daughters, Sonya and Cynthia.

Returning to Altoona, he worked for the Altoona News until, around 1952, he got a job with Seaboard Finance Company – a job that would lead to a 35-year career. Pennock retired in 1985 as a managing supervisor, giving him more time to do as he pleased while based at his home in Levittown. It’s where he still lives today, with his second wife, Elaine, whom he met in 1960 and with whom he’ll soon be celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary. Pennock and Elaine have two children, Diane and Henry, and Pennock has a total of 13 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

During his time as a paratrooper, Pennock endured an injury whose effects haven’t been fully apparent until recently. His left ankle, he says, has become devoid of cartilage, making walking on uneven terrain rather difficult. But he says he’s not ready for any motorized scooters yet, nor does he have any trouble keeping balance. He stands tall, in more ways than one.

“I’ve taken a lot of pride and discipline away from my military service,” he says. “You realize you’re a small cog in a big wheel, but it’s all those small cogs that keep our country free.”