St. Mary's School stirs

memories for ex-Marine

Schobert

attended school from 1927 to 1935

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Eighty-three-year-old Art Schobert still fondly remembers his grade school days at St. Mary's School 70 years ago.

The combat-decorated Marine who was shot under his right shoulder by the Japanese on Okinawa, returned to his roots Tuesday to take a good look at the inside of the school he attended from first through the eighth grade, from 1927 to 1935.

The school building is set for demolition within a few weeks.

Now a retired postman living in San Diego, Schobert talked about his formative years while standing under the St. Mary's bell tower and pulling an imaginary rope, as he did 75 years ago as a small child.

"The nuns were strict but they turned out good students," Schobert said. "I have lots of fond memories, although I went to school at times when I didn't feel so good."

He recalled some of his favorite classmates, including organist Marie Gulden of Searles.

At age 16, Schobert joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and built dams for three years. He worked with much older people, pushing wheelbarrows full of concrete and dumping them into concrete forms. Some of his projects were on Lake Elysian, near Waterville.

Returning to New Ulm, he cleaned up parks and burned the brush for the National Youth Administration for a year.

Schobert worked for the New Ulm Brick and Tile Yard at the south end of town before joining five Twin Cities friends who journeyed to Hawthorne, Calif., near Los Angeles.

The men attended trade school and later built B-24 center sections for Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Co. The firm built nearly 6,000 bombers that were used to bomb Germany near the end of World War II.

Schobert joined the U.S. Marine Corps in the spring of 1944. Following machine gun training at Camp Pendleton, Calif., he traveled to the Solomon Islands and Guadalcanal for jungle training before going to Okinawa where the fighting got intense.

Schobert spent 50 days and 50 nights in Okinawa where he was shot in the right shoulder by the Japanese. He was awarded the Purple Heart from the injury sustained during an 82-day battle.

Things could have been worse.

"I had many close calls in Okinawa. There was some rough fighting in thousands of caves. The Japanese were well-hidden. We used flame-throwers to burn them out. Then we blew up all the ammo outside the caves." Schobert explained. "We didn't eat much chasing the Japanese through rice paddies, mountains and canyons."

Following a stay at a Navy Hospital in Hawaii, Schobert went to Sasebo, Japan and burned the Japanese out of tunnels up to 300 feet deep.

After the war, he returned to San Diego and delivered mail for 28 years.

(Fritz Busch can be reached at fbusch@nujournal.com).