A Comedian at War
Mel Brooks was born Melvin James Kaminsky in 1926. The Brooklyn-born funnyman is best known for directing side splitting farcical comedies such as Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles, The Producers, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He is not somebody people expect to have once performed life and death type of dangerous work. Yet, Brooks did just that in WWII. Brooks was raised in poverty by a single mother after his father’s untimely death. Growing up small and sickly in Brooklyn’s tougher parts, Brooks developed a sense of humor and a precocious comedic talent early on. His sense of humor came in handy to diffuse confrontations and avoid getting picked on and beaten up – most of the time. He enlisted in the US Army in 1944, aged seventeen, and like many American Jews, was eager to fight the Nazis. He knew the extra risks faced by Jews if captured by the Germans.
Brooks scored high in the Army’s aptitude and IQ testing. As a result, he was shunted into the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) and sent to learn important skills such as engineering, and some of dubious value in 1944, such as horseback riding and fencing. He did not get to complete ASTP because the combat arms complained of its absurdity, and that it deprived them of the brightest recruits. The program was terminated, and Brooks was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he was trained as an artillery observer. Sent to Europe in 1944, his first assignment was as a forward artillery observer. He was then assigned to a combat engineer unit. Brooks’ outfit used demolitions to blast a path clear for the main forces, repaired bridges destroyed by the Germans in a bid to slow the Allied advance, and built bridges from scratch.
Brooks’ unit also helped lay out and construct field fortifications, and otherwise offered whatever support they could. The combat engineers often worked under the enemy’s noses, while artillery shells rained down on them, and German snipers tried to pick them off. Brooks’ unit was the first to throw a bridge across the Roer River, and later on, it built bridges across the Rhine. His tasks included minefield clearance and landmine diffusion. Brooks also fought in the Battle of the Bulge during the winter of 1944-1945. Aware of the jarring contrast between his funnyman persona and his serious wartime experience, he once mused to reporters: “I was a combat engineer. Isn’t that ridiculous? The two things I hate most in the world are combat and engineering“.
